Due to my year-long sabbatical from purchasing music on iTunes my dear friend Chris sent me a flash drive filled with records, old and new, for my birthday. This is where I found a folder titled Yuck. I thought it was music he didn't like but that he thought maybe I would. I looked it up, Yuck is an actual band! They sound like a British Soul Asylum with Sonic Youth overtones. Nice. There is so much music on this drive I don't think I'll even want to look at iTunes for a couple of months. Thanks, Chris!
A little bit of serendipity occurred on Thursday last week. To spare you all the silly details suffice it to say I need to quit doing something that I've been doing for over 20 years in order to get my health in order. As I was resigning myself to this fact I got a call from my friend, Mary. I've known Mary for going on 20 years and a couple of months ago I asked her if she could possibly get me an entry into the Colorado Half Marathon. She helps organize the kid race for the event. I rarely, if ever, ask for free entries into things but I thought it was worth a try since the $90 entry free was not part of my austerity plan for the year and I knew Mary wouldn't be offended by my asking. Long story short, I got one!
Getting this entry requires quite a bit of training, training that I can't do while doing the thing I need to stop doing. So there ya go - I need to stop doing something bad for me but I now have a goal of something I want to do so the quitting will be easier. I'm looking at it not as I can't do this thing anymore but instead as I get to run the half marathon again!
And training starts today.