A haunted run...and not the Halloween kind

With a high of 98, today was a day to celebrate the invention of the treadmill and do my long run inside. Seeing as to how I was going to be on a treadmill for 2+ hours, some music was clearly in order. So I dug out my mp3 player and threw it in my gym bag.

When I started my run I was greeted by My Chemical Romance with The Black Parade, which is a clear favorite of mine from things that have come out in the last 5 years. I was smiling. Two songs later, Dave brought me Eh-hee, an absolute favorite that I hadn't heard in a while.

And then something strange started happening. I started getting lost in the memories I have attached to all the songs I've lovingly collected. It was bittersweet--reliving some of my best memories but missing the people in them. Then the very need to have music made me miss Meg terribly. As a guy I knew in college said, "songs are the bookmarks of our lives." These were some of my bookmarks today:

Live, All Over You~and the awesome time my brother, Gene and I had going to their concert at Penn State soooo long ago.

System of a Down, Chop Suey!~which always makes me think of my neighbor Steph during sophomore year, who is an amazing dancer and had used this song in a show.

SR71, Right Now~my college roommate and I saw them open for Dexter Freebish (or the other way around) one time. We had SUCH a crush on the guy from Dexter Freebish.

Johnny Cash, Ring of Fire~my friend Shelley's daughter, at the age of maybe 6, proclaimed that the ring was love. Cracks me up every time.

Garbage, Special~reminds me of my brother and our shared love of Garbage.

Bonnie Tyler, Total Eclipse of the Heart~I've always loved this song, but it usually makes me think of a night out while visiting Penn State in 2007 with the girls. I got some looks for knowing all the words....

I've had the Time of my Life~my wedding reception was held at the resort where "Dirty Dancing" was filmed, so my sentimentality over this one is obvious.

Leonard Skynyrd, Freebird~ALWAYS takes me back to the KHS band bus, and our goofy goofy male classmates getting us pumped up for a competition. And yes, I'm a little bit redneck. I love redneck rock.

Fastball, The Way~reminds me of The Beastie, because she hates this song with a passion.

I could go on ad nauseum, but you get the point.

And what was the point for me? I need to find some local friends. I'm enjoying spending my free time getting settled into our new place, and I've talked frequently with my friends who are now far away. But I need some peeps here. My mission to coerce all my existing friends to move here appears to have either failed or is off to the slowest start in history. So here we are.

As to the run itself...have you ever spent 2+ hours on a treadmill? After a while it gets embarrassing. I was sure a staff member was going to approach me and ask when I was going to wrap things up. People enter the gym and you're running. They leave and hour later and you're still running. I was the only person there who brought their own Gu. And "sweaty" would be an understatement of the final product. Even so, it is much better than the alternative of running outside in extreme heat. I'm going to say that the fact that I got it done, and at an average pace of about 9:35/mile, puts today in the WIN column. Go teim! (yes, an intentional misspelling, and one of my favorite of ODP's jokes)

mileage: 396.1 + 14.0 = 410.1