Running High?

Vintage clothing shop near my 'hood. Del Ray, Alexandria, VA, just south of Washington, D.C. August 2004.

Thanks for your kind comments on my SO's Washington Post magazine story ("Worlds Apart") and his online chat this afternoon. He appreciates it.

Model of Restraint: On kilometer 9 of the Veteran's Day 10k yesterday, I did not stop at the side of the road to quietly vomit the two pomegranate margaritas and glass of red wine I drank the previous night. Although I wanted to. With a slight hangover and only five hours of sleep, I was far from 100 percent at the race around the monuments and Hains Point.

But I ran hard, fading in the last two hundred yards, though still coming in at a respectable sub-9-minute mile pace. It was a sunny day without a cloud in the sky, by the way. I was up so early I watched the sun rise over the Capitol and Washington Monument. I'm going to be more disciplined in my training and nutrition for the Las Vegas Half-Marathon on January 30.

Blah, Blah, Blah: I've quit reading political blogs by non-journalists, and most by even seasoned writers. There's simply not enough time in the world to read weblogs that seem to be becoming more vapid, self-important and snarky by the day.

And I haven't turned on the TV in weeks. I'm inundated with news via newspapers, magazines, radio and the Web all day, anyway. So at night, I read.

On my nightstand: The Collected Stories of Richard Bausch; the latest issue of the excellent British quarterly, Granta; and the novel, The Dogs of Babel, by Washington, D.C.-based writer Carolyn Parkhurst.