The first week of the new year meant back to the old routine — back to the gym, for starters, where I hadn't been for a month due to holidays and COVID. And damn. It was painful. The DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) from Tuesday's squats lasted well into the weekend, compounded by my longest run ever on Saturday: 7 miles. And it was 7 miles of hills to boot.

We've been experiencing one helluva storm here in the Bay Area. Perhaps it's storms-plural. I'm not a meteorologist; I'm not sure. But it feels like it's been incessant. There was a brief break yesterday and we were able to walk around Lake Merritt. And thankfully, unlike the New Year's Eve run across the Bay Bridge, Saturday's LMJS Marathon Training wasn't in the rain. But it's raining now and it's forecast to continue for the rest of the week and well into next.

There are reasons — many reasons — why I am glad to be away from the Pacific NW, and this depressing weather is certainly one of them.

There's comfort in settling back into a routine, even though the pace and intensity of everything has picked back up. I'm hoping this will give me some clarity on "what's next." I actually have some inklings of an idea now, which — phew — I thought would never happen. It involves writing — phew, I thought that maybe I'd have to change my bio from "writer" to something else. It still involves technology and behaviorism — phew, I thought I was done with Skinner.

Speaking of Skinner, I hear that the paperback of Teaching Machines will be out soon. And speaking of teaching machines, I switched from an Apple Watch to a Garmin Watch this week — more appropriate for the training I'm doing right now. My first reaction was a feeling of absolutely relief to be released from the tyranny of Apple's gamified fitness regime — if you have an Apple Watch, you know how the constant reminders to "close your rings" can become unbearable, particularly when you're unable to do so. It was rather glorious to lie on the sofa on Saturday afternoon, having run seven miles, and not be reminded by my watch to stand up. It was nice to get a note from my Garmin on Sunday that, considering the mileage from the day before, I might take that day to rest.

(I didn't.)