"What are you, dense? Are you retarded or something? Who the hell do you think I am? I'm the goddamn Batman!"

Well, today marks me hopping right back on the saddle, once more with feeling. And how.

After 10 days of not smoking, I fell off the wagon recently, but I'm going to grit my teeth and wade right back in and whatever other metaphor I can think of to muddy that statement up a bit. It's amazing how myopic I can be; those first three days of withdrawal are absolute hell, but they're not enough to dissuade me that, shucks, one cigarette couldn't hurt. That one turns into two turns into five, and then I'm buying a pack. You'd think I'd be smarter than that. But time and time again, I've outstupided myself.

I just got back from a short run—enough to make my still-tender ankle throb a bit but not enough to land me back on crutches. I definitely wasn't up for a full 5k over lunch today, but spending some time getting trail mud all over my new shoes was terrific in its own right, even if I ended up walking about a full third of the few miles I did manage to pound out in order to baby my ankle.

Tonight, I'm going to attempt kickboxing again. And this time, no matter how withdrawal-y I am, I am going to spit out the piece of gum I'm chewing. Yes, it's occurred to me that when I injured myself, I did so because I was chewing gum—and that too uncoordinated to chew gum and kick at the same time.