I realize all I blog about anymore is Infinite Jest and running. I realize this makes me quite possibly the world’s most boring blogger. None of that is about to change anytime soon, however. Sorry.

I came home from work and even though it was late, like approaching eleven, I decided to go for a run, which is terrible for my sleep but pretty much excellent for everything else. With the kind of week I’ve had, I needed it more than I needed sleep. And earlier in the day I’d taken a sad nap (a phenomenon I promise I’ll explain and expound upon at some point in the future) and I’d spent much of my shift drinking caffeinated beverages, so I had some energy to burn.

On this run I decided to follow my new longest and therefore best route, approximately 4 miles, even though it takes me down some poorly-lit paths, and to try out Path Tracker on my iPhone, because I am a jerk like that.

The moon was hidden; the sky was whitish pink, like it was going to rain. There was even a little chill in the air, the first sign of autumn. It reminded me of the September eight years ago when I was first getting serious about running and went for a run around Ahrens Park every night after a long exhausting day of student teaching, but that’s neither here nor six dozen of the other.

I ran across the Stone Arch Bridge and back north along the west bank of the river, listening to the usual: Subtle, and Battles, and LCD Soundsystem, and also this hot-off-the-press track by the band I just recently joined—this particular song being the band’s entry in this songwriting competition, at whose website one can apparently vote for us (and I say “us” not so much because I had anything to do with the song’s creation, which I didn’t, but rather because the other night we practiced acoustically and the evening sort of [d]evolved into us sitting around singing as many songs from The Wall as we could remember off the tops of our collective heads, which spontaneous unforced kind of experience makes me feel included in this new group in a valuable way for which I’m unquestionably grateful, in addition to which we have a show here tomorrow at 7, if you want to stop by).

I saw a lot of other people out, some other joggers but mostly couples, literally walking hand in hand, and I ran past them as unobtrusively as possible. (Maybe there’s a metaphor there but I refuse to see it.) I ran back across the river on the Plymouth Street bridge and the breeze was really picking up, coming in off the water.

One of my favorite things about this route is that I can see the Mpls skyline at almost any given point. I came home via Nicollet Island, behind the Grain Belt sign which some enterprising anarchists have decorated thusly, in anticipation of the RNC’s arrival next week. I ran over the railroad tracks and back into my neighborhood through the sprinklers in front of the condos. Path Tracker helped me make this.

And now I’m lying on my couch about to read the Eschaton chapter and drinking a ginger beer. I think I’ve written most if not all of this under the influence of endorphins, and look forward to being disconcerted at my own candor when I read it tomorrow, like a person who wakes up from a bender to recollect the previous night’s embarrassments.