(Sunday Paper, Volume II, Issue 50)

I've mentioned a bunch recently that I haven't set aside that much time for exercise these past couple of months.

That's changed a bit in recent weeks.

I'm still not breaking any exercising records, but I've been getting out two to three times a week for a little running.

So far they've been about 30 or 40 minute runs, but I was trying to slowly work my way up.

Just in case I was going to run in the 2018 Boston Marathon.

Here's the deal: the Boston Marathon is kind of a bucket list item for me.

I've written about this before in different contexts (and will probably write about it again so I won't go into too much detail right now), but when I visited Boston to tour Boston University, it was Patriots' Day. So we saw the Marathon in person before we even realized the significance of Patriots' Day.

And then two out of three years at BU I lived right along the Marathon route.

I loved the event and always wanted to do it - it seemed accessible.

I still haven't done it....and if my body is telling me anything about running a marathon it's that we're running out of time to do it.

I'm definitely not enough of a runner to go through the qualifying one has to go through in order to get into the Boston Marathon.

But the organization that runs the Marathon gives Framingham about 20 spots to award to residents (or people who work in town) with no other qualification necessary. The spots are awarded via lottery.

I think this is the fourth or fifth year they've done that. I applied a few years ago. I was not selected. The past couple of years I didn't apply...I just wasn't feeling it. Most years I run over the summer and then the cold weather sets in and I'm pretty much finished. I never could quite believe how Boston Marathon runners could train through the harsh winters in order to run the race in April.

And then last year, for the first time in a few years, we watched the marathon again in person. And I got that itch. So I entered the lottery this year.

Hence, the training. I know a lot of people have intricate marathon training routines. Mine was: fill out the form. Run about ten miles total over a couple of weeks. (Haha. That's not even half a marathon! I am definitely not going to be able to do a marathon!) Wait and see if they pick my name.

The drawing was on Monday.

They didn't pick my name.

Whew. Thank goodness now I can stop training for the marathon.

Writing

*Busy week. But, sorry, nothing exciting to report to you.

Comedy

*Hit some mics Monday and Tuesday. New stuff is getting a decent response - some of it will work its way into the regular rotation.

*Saturday night I was supposed to perform in Brighton. The show was canceled once we were all there because no one came out in the snow. I never considered not going out to the show. Turned out to be a nice hang with some comedians there...but the snow is a real pain. It's too early in the winter to even be thinking about whether or not it's worth driving to something that may be canceled, which is usually something I have to worry about all of February and March.

What I've Been Enjoying

*Friday night was Kathy's company's holiday party. Last year we toyed with the idea of hitting a comedy show after the party ended - it started at 6, I thought we could get to a nearby show in the 8 o'clock hour. But the party went long and we ended up not doing anything. This year Michelle Wolf was performing at Laugh Boston and there was a 10:15 show which, if we managed to stay awake long enough, we would be able to make. And we did, and we did. I was an early watcher of 'Late Night with Seth Meyers' and Wolf was a writer and performer on that show, and then not too long ago she performed stand up on the show. (I think this was shortly before she left for a position on 'The Daily Show'.) It was so funny that I brought Kathy in to watch it and she liked it. So I knew she'd enjoy the Friday night show. She did. And that's my recommendation to you - if you have a chance to see Michelle Wolf, you should. First of all, she just put out an HBO hourlong special. So if you have HBO that should be easy enough to watch. But she's also doing a little mini tour with some new stuff - she did 50 minutes Friday. Blows my mind that she has at least 110 minutes that are that good, but I'm not surprised. I think she's brilliant. Sometimes it's inspiring to watch these pros at work, sometimes it's intimidating. I'm still thinking about Friday, feeling both inspired and intimidated.

Notes

*Don't be sad about my number not being picked for the marathon. It's probably better this way. Every time I finish a 3-to-3-and-a-half mile run I think, "How could I possibly do 7 of those in a row?"

*The longest I've ever run? Thanks for asking. I think it was 7 miles...and I think I only planned on doing 5 but it was on vacation and I got kind of turned around and lost and ended up running more than I planned to find my way back to the hotel.

*Broke down and got the Christmas tree Friday afternoon. Just didn't want to get frozen, cold, snowy trees after possibly a bunch of wet weather the next week or so. And after putting it in the stand on Friday it turned into a nice Saturday afternoon decorating the tree with the snow falling outside.

*I really hope everyone appreciates Kelly Clarkson's 'Underneath the Tree' as much as I do. That is a great Christmas song.

*Like I said, I never considered not going out in the snow to the show that was cancelled on Saturday night. This snow didn't feel like that big a deal to me - mostly because it's just too early in the winter season to let weather interfere with stuff. (I did take the time on Friday before the snow came to rake up all the leaves that have fallen since the last collection - nothing I hate more than shoveling all winter and digging up months-old leaves every time I shovel.) (And I'm not going to shovel. It's Sunday, there's no one coming to the house, it's going to be 39 degrees and sunny...if it was February I'd just be letting the sun do some melting. So that's how I'm going to handle it today.)

But it sure was a pretty snow - I stopped to take a picture of the lights, with the tree lit in the window, and the snow falling and coating everything around. It looked really nice - too bad I still can't take a good picture of my lights.