Night Moves

Just because this is a light week, doesn't mean I'm loafing. Tuesday, I joined some lovely ladies for all-you-can-eat spaghetti at a local Italian club. Six bucks got you spaghetti, two meatballs, bread, salad and spumoni. Delish. Another I don't know how much got us a large carafe of red wine. I spent $8, but I think I may have paid for the whole thing. This is what happens when you hand off your money. I managed to get five glasses.

I was itching all day for a run, but that spaghetti weighed me down. The three of us walked KP's dog afterward and went grocery shopping. How homemaker-ish, I know. By the end of that, it was two hours after dinner, about 9:30. I was still pasta heavy, but I was feeling the itch again. I said goodbye to the ladies and headed home, put on my gear and went for a night run.

"Ain't it funny how the night moves /
When you just don't seem to have as much to lose"
--Bob Seger

Maybe I was feeling paranoid about running around the city in the dark. Maybe I wanted to get back home in time for Seinfeld reruns. Maybe I was just feeling good. But it's the fastest I've run that particular route. The three-mile loop is impossibly all uphill. The last mile and a half covers one of the hardest parts (so I'm told) of the Akron Marathon, up a brutal hill that comes right before mile 22.

It's been way hot around these parts, but the night was pleasant. My speed was far from my fastest training pace, but my effort was strong throughout while battling a side stitch I couldn't ditch as I belched wine breath. Working on our night moves ...

Complementary Things

This week a new boozing song has come to light. It's one of those end of the night tunes you'd sing to yourself as you fell asleep. With this last paycheck, I ordered an older album from Old Crow Medicine Show, a bluegrass string band out of Nashville. The album, "Eutaw," was released in 2001, but is not available anywhere else but their website or live shows. Well, anyhow, near the end of the album is "Goodbye Booze," a rolling tribute and farewell to the strong stuff. "Goodbye booze/ I'm going to bed/ I had a good time/ but we couldn't agree/ So you see what booze has done to me." I don't like the part that says the boozing days are gone forever, but I think this was more like those times you say you're done for good, but you're right back on the horse the next night, getting sloppy and causing a ruckus.

Ah, well, might as well keep on with the music theme.

With that same paycheck, I also picked up the Avett Brothers new one, "Emotionalism." These boys continue to polish their sound with each album. This album has a more subdued quality to it than say "Mignonette" or "Four Thieves Gone," but it grows on me with each listen. I miss some of the ramshackle shake 'em ups on those older albums, but the beauty of the ballads carry the album through.

A couple gems are "Salina," "All My Mistakes" and "Go to Sleep." No surprise that two of those tunes are of the more raucous on the album. "Salina" has a sort Huck Finn mischievousness to it as the boys avoid capture and plea for towns to leave them alone. "Go to Sleep" is another collaboration with self-labeled anti-folk artist Paleface (does this guy ever leave New York?). It reminds me of a cross between "Salvation Song" and "The Fall." "All My Mistakes" has perhaps the sweetest lyrics on the whole album: "I can't go back/ and I don't want to/ 'cause all my mistakes/ brought me to you."

However, there's no drinking song on the album. There's mention, but nothing to really hang your hat on and belt out while you're wasted on your love seat waiting on that last ferry to Blackout Island.