I am in a really dark place right now. I haven't run since Thursday, and I am going to hold off from doing so until the pain in my knee is gone. I was hoping that that would be tomorrow. Based on how I feel today, it won't be. I have another race this weekend, having "scratched" on Saturday's 4-miler. I'm really nervous about all the upcoming races — I have a virtual half marathon in a little over a week and considering I haven't run 10 miles in a couple of weeks, it's going to be brutal. I have my "A" race in April. All of these are counting towards the 9+1 for next year's NYC Marathon, and I just have to do them — I don't have to do them quickly, of course. But at this rate, I'm not even sure I can do that. It's fucking dismal. Everything. My body. My brain. My outlook. Everything's all wrapped up together: grief, running, not running, pain, strength, depression, aging, fragility. Oh and it's gloomy outside too, and as I sit at my desk to write, I'm reminded of other Bad Shit. Perhaps a storm is blowing in. Not sure — haven't been obsessing about the weather forecast as I'm not running. Storms blow in. Storms blow over. Or something like that.

I am missing runs. I am missing work. I didn't publish a Second Breakfast newsletter today.

I'm afraid because I know that once I lose momentum, it gets harder and harder to move forward. Stopping is easier than starting.

And then, of course, I feel bad for feeling bad, when by so many measures, everything is going so well. We went and say the Little Shop of Horrors revival last week. I bought tickets because Evan Rachel Wood is playing Audrey. I think most people in the audience were there to see Darren Criss as Seymour. (I did not know who this was, to be honest, but the girl-screams when he first came on stage signaled he was someone.)

We ate at Empanada Mama before the show. We ate at Clinton Street Bakery on Saturday, part of my search of the best pancakes in the city. (These rank #3, for what it's worth.) But without running, the joy of eating a lot of carbs before a Sunday long run was substantially diminished. Same goes for our stop into Economy Candy while we were in the LES — I mean, it didn't stop me from buying a bar of halvah and four Tony Chocoloney bars. But it will probably stop me from eating them.

Elsewhere in food adventures: this week, I cooked caramelized lemon chicken (not as good as I remember it being the first time I made it) with egg noodles and red curry glazed carrots; Greek yogurt cake with jam; slow cooker butter beans with pecorino and pancetta, along with Mark Bittman's yogurt biscuits; refried beans and mexican rice, with homemade tortillas (using the tortilla flour I bought from Hayden Mills — by far the best tortillas I've ever made, and not to brag, among the best I've ever eaten); and banana muffins (proving once again that the recipes from Sally's Baking Addiction are pretty hard to beat).

Media: we watched True Detective — finishing the fourth season, which I enjoyed immensely (there were some flaws, for sure, but seeing Nic Pizzolatto lose his shit is making me double down on my insistence that this was the best season so far); Death and Other Details — this, on the other hand, is getting worse with every episode; The Beekeeper — this was terrible, not that one expects much from a Jason Statham film; Feud: Capote vs the Swans — this is also not great, mostly because I loathe all the characters. I finished reading You Are the Placebo and There Is No Wall; I started the audiobook to Let Your Mind Run; and about 20 years later than the rest of the world, I'm reading Bowling Alone.