So today I ran with the sun on my face.

G%£ d&*^ that was nice.

This was my first run in, oh, probably three months. Which is the longest I've gone without running in, oh, probably about 15 years. Basically, I've ruined my legs. I mean, they're just wrecked. I tried a lot of things – expensive shoes, etc. One of the problems was my sort of cantakerous attitude toward things of this nature. In this instance, when my legs would really start feeling like stumps of wood, except threaded with exquisitely exposed and raw nerve endings, my basic reaction to that was to run much farther, much faster and harder. Which I imagine didn't help.

So I took up swimming again, which I'm remembering I don't enjoy nearly as much, to give my legs time to heal. (If they're going to (heal).) My friend Joe mentioned (*) this theory – controversial, but not by any means fringe – that you get about twenty years of good running with every set of legs. After that, hang 'em up – because you're going to start having all kinds of problems. Which, if true, means my day is done.

But not this day.

On this day, the beautiful sodden leaves lay on the ground after yesterday's rains, cushioning my footfalls, and all the beautiful dampness glinting in the autumn sunlight. Somehow I've never really noticed this phenomenon where rain knocks down a lot of leaves that maybe were almost just about ready to go on their own, but not quite. Oh no, wait – I have, once.

If you were on the fence about this, allow me to commend you to eschatalogical auteur Roland Emmerich's new filmic apocalypse, 2012. Even after two decades – which commenced with Jim Cameron's Terminator 2 – of being dunked in more and better and even more and better computer generated effects, 2012 was, simply and literally, jaw-dropping. Really, I kept feeling myself making this ridiculous face, there in the dark, literally with my eyebrows going for the ceiling and my jaw in my lap. Literally hanging open. Plus it was nail-biting; and tear-jerking. I cried, by my count, six times. But I'm a sap. It won't ever be mistaken for a masterpiece of dramatic or story-telling craft, but the story was solid enough to hang the spectacle on, sagging only slightly in places. (*) Plus great cast. John Cusack played John Cusack, but he's really holding up very well as he ages. Which cannot be said for Hugh Grant or Sarah Jessica Parker, whom I saw in a trailer for their new film before this film, and they both look 60.

Last night, waiting for Anna to come home, not having to get up in the morning, I amused myself by staying up late and watching such fabulous tripe as the original Leeroy Jenkins video –