I did it! I finally killed Batman! In front of a bunch of vulnerable, disabled kids!!! Now get me Santa Claus!

That there's a quote from the Joker instead of Batman, because I'm feeling a little purplish. This picture's a few days old, and I can assure you my foot is whole lot more black and blue, although the swelling has gone down a ton:



I'm healing very fast, which means that either the doctor was mistaken about the severity of my sprain or I've got Wolverine-like healing abilities. I've been able to walk without crutches for the past few days, getting around fairly well. My foot is still too swollen on which to jam a shoe, so I've been set up with the glorious sartorial choice of a running shoe on my left foot and an Ace wrap, gel splint and sandal on my right. I may be crippled, but at least I get to look stupid while being so.

The good news—and it is good news—is that it's been a week since I've smoked. This has made for topsy-turvy moods, and, since I haven't been able to exercise as an outlet, that topsy-turviness mainly trends toward bitchiness. My commute to work, a normally 20-minute affair chock-full of some of the dumbest drivers in the state ("Hold on a sec, rush hour traffic. I'm-a turnin' my Hummer into the Chick-Fil-A parkin' lot. Nows, I know the drive-through is full, so you'll jus' haveta wait while I stick out into the road for 10 or 15 minutes to get me a chicken sammich. These colors don't run."), which has, in my nicotine-deprived state, turned my vehicle into a maelstrom of creative profanity. But I've been good! I haven't cheated once (what we perennial ex-smokers call "chipping"), and I've done it without the patch or Zyban or any of the crap I used in recent attempts. I've reason to be proud for that, and I'll be much happier when I can actually start exercising again.

Tonight I'm going to attempt whatever sort of core workout I can manage without stressing my ankle. I assume this will include push-ups and sit-ups and, I don't know, hopping up and down on one leg, or something. But I've been eating like a crazy person, and it's time to start working some of it off. Go-go setback.

Nothing matters, except the mission.

Yep. Yessiree. I am out of commission for a few weeks, which I can chalk up only to hubris or stupidity or plain bad luck.

Last week was supposed to be my last hurrah of drinking and smoking and treating my body like poo. I did my last pub quiz, smoked my last cigarette on Thursday. My new running shoes arrived via Zappos on Friday. I went for a 5k run on Saturday, feeling terrific and eagle-eyed and looking ahead to a future of being tanned and lithe and runner-y—albeit scowly from lack of nicotine—and then went to my Saturday kickboxing session and, ten minutes in, promptly sprained the hell out of my ankle.

It made a sound like a handful of Rice Krispies being crushed, and two minute after, it looked like I had a grapefruit attached to my leg. I went to the doctor on Sunday and had X-rays done. He said that although it looks like I might have chipped my fibula, there's no fracture there, just a sprain, but still put me into a gel splint and ordered me off me feet for four to six weeks.

This sucks. Although I can walk today, or at least approximate one via hobbling on the corner of my splint since I suck at using crutches, I'm still more or less immobile, and the setback has put me in the foulest of moods. But there's some sort of lesson here, I guess, although I'm too pissy to care what it is.

Stupid sprain.

I am night. I am vengeance. It's almost my birthday.

Despite my lackluster posting, things are going well. I've lost another five pounds or so and my wife and I are training for the Denver marathon in October (training: reading books and occasionally running). My kickboxing this week has been productive and awesome, and I'm getting to the point where I'm one of the more advanced people in the class, as can be evinced by my thunderclap-like punches. POW! ZAM! ZIFF! And so on.

It's my 31st birthday tomorrow, and my sister sent me this pleasingly Dadaist e-card:



(A lush orchestral version of "Jingle Bells" plays while you read it. Over and over and over. This speaks volumes to the fact that my ingrained silliness is in fact genetic.)

Last year at this time, I was jobless and without a drivers license, planning on spending a month in a tiny cabin in the middle of winter to figure things out a bit. I'm happy to report that things are much improved, and a lot of that I can attribute directly to this Batman project and the mentality that goes along with it, namely, "Hey, wouldn't it be a great idea if I stopped abusing my body and instead tried to treat it well? Even improve it a bit?"

Speaking of which, I'm going to try to quit smoking next week, after my retirement from being a pub quizmaster. That's sort of an important step in, say, learning to run 26 miles. Wouldn't you say?