No, amend that last statement (which, I hope you know, I took from Ferris Bueller). Don't go home. Instead, go to the new blog for my new book, Cheeseland, coming May 29 from Eckhartz Press. There you will find the latest news about my upcoming book and my latest ramblings. 

So, please, again, don't go home. Go, instead, to www.cheeselandthebook.com. You'll be glad you did.

Six years after my book was released as a paperback, it has been given a new life as an electronic book, available now through Amazon’s Kindle store and for an extra $4.72 through Google’s eBookstore. Why Google is charging more for air than Kindle is I have no idea. The ebook landscape is still being charted and no one can be sure where it’s going, but I’d be stunned if the prices for ebooks don’t drop dramatically as they increasingly gain a stronger foothold on the market.

Ebooks give old books a new lease on life, and that’s a step in the right direction. All they have to do to take a giant leap forward and make that new life one worth living is to take a lesson from the music industry and do the right thing: drop the price.  

When I first wrote about this quest, I didn’t reveal everything behind it. I didn’t want to tell all because I was afraid I was setting myself up for failure, that I wouldn’t be able to achieve the goals I had set for myself. One always wants a happy ending, and I couldn’t be sure that I would have one.

I kept to myself that when I started this quest, I would be reaching a milestone age the next year. That next year is now this year, and later this year I’ll hit the half-century mark of my life. My goals were that before I reached the ripe age of 50, I would run a marathon and finish my second novel.

I’ve always likened writing a novel to running a marathon, and so joining these two goals had a sort of synergism. Both require determination and perseverance, an ability to keep pushing on in the face of adversity. In running, you hit a wall. In writing, you get a block. If you let that wall or that block stop you, you will never finish a marathon or a novel.

I’d finished a novel before, so I knew I had it in me. I’d never even tried running a marathon. The longest competitive race I ever ran was 10 miles, not even half of a marathon. So I was not as confident that I could complete a marathon, especially since I was battling back from knee problems that had sidelined me from running for five years. The odds were definitely against me. A couple times over those five years I had tried to revive my running only to have my knees kick me back to reality.

When you’re staring up at age fifty, you look back at all of the things you’ve done and all of the things you still wanted to do. The two things I really still wanted to do were to run a marathon and finish that second novel. The novel I’d started about the same time I’d stopped running. I seemed to be stuck, and I started to wonder if I’d ever finish it.

Then came the idea, spurred by a book given to me by a dear friend, to bring these two lost loves, writing and running, together. To see if I could get them back.

If you read this blog, you know that I stopped writing about this quest a little over a month after I started it. The last post I wrote about it told of how my running quest had been slowed by a mini-vacation and the sickness I brought home from that vacation. But I was optimistic and eager to start running again and even had geared up for the cold weather to come by buying $300 worth of fall running wear.

I didn’t write another entry after that because, well, as I already noted, no one wants a sad ending to what is supposed to be an inspirational quest. The second day I hit the pavement in my fancy new running wear, my knees gave out on me. I tried resting them. I tried Ibuprofen. I tried hot and cold therapy. I tried a knee wrap. But I couldn’t run without pain. So I quit. I gave up my running quest. My goal of running a marathon was over just like that.

Jump ahead a little over four months. Like a lot of others, we (my wife and I) bought a treadmill right after the new year. Two months later, I’m still running on it. Without pain. It’s a good feeling. My knees can’t take the pounding of the pavement but apparently they can take the tread.

Through all of the running ups and downs, I kept pounding on the keystrokes. All of that pounding has finally paid off.  A couple days ago, I wrote The End on that novel. I know that story is not over, and in some ways, it’s just begun. Trying to find a publisher for a novel can be as tough if not tougher than writing it.

I’ve still got several months before I reach that half-century mark on my life. I’m more ready for it to come than I was before, because I’ve already accomplished one of the two things that I wanted to do before it came. And, best of all, I’ve gotten back both of those lost loves.

In my fantasy world, that's how this one month update to my personal running-and-writing quest would have begun. 

In the real world, it goes more like this... 

Running faster than a trotting turkey. Writing with more power than a loco burro (translated: crazy donkey). 

In all seriousness, I thought this quest would go better than it has. I started it with what I considered realistic ambitions. I knew I wouldn't be able to run every day and write every day. But I at least thought I would be able to keep up a strong, steady pace. And I did. For the first three weeks. 

Then the reality check came. We took a short trip to Orlando to hang with Mickey, Goofy and those pesky Florida love bugs. That knocked out four days. But I tried to make up for that with extra running and writing leading up to those four days. What I didn't count on was coming back sick.  

Ah, there it is...the reality check. 

Early on in this quest, I foolishly wrote that one can always make time for the things one really wants to do. You just have to make those things a priority. 

What I failed to account for in this equation is that things happen to get in the way of our priorities. It can be your job demands. It can be your family demands. Or it can be sickness.

 When you're sick, it's hard to do much of anything, other than lie in bed and feel sorry for yourself. It's hard to think. It's hard to even move.  

I'm fortunate, though. The kind of sickness I have isn't the kind that will be around forever. I'll get better and I'll get back to that quest. Hopefully sooner than later. Because if I don't, the $300 I just spent at Dick's Sporting Goods on fall running wear will be a real waste of money.

We don't do something because, well, we don't have the time for it. We're juggling too many things and something has to give. Right?

Wrong. I've come to believe that blaming time for not doing something is a cop out. There's always time. If there's time to watch the Bears play the Lions on Sunday afternoon, then there's time to write.

Sure, we're busy. But there's always time. If you don't do something, it's not because you didn't have the time for it; it's because you didn't make it a priority.

I used to blame the lack of time for not writing. It was a lot easier to use this excuse after I became a parent, because, well, there was a lot less time to do the things I want to do. A lot of that time that used to go to me goes to my son. That's a reality of parenthood. 

But that doesn't mean that I don't have time to write. I do, as long as I make it a priority. Something, of course, has to give. You might have to skip that Bears game, or do as I did today and hold off on tuning in until the last five minutes. As it turned out, that last five minutes was all anyone needed to watch. In those last five minutes, the Bears scored to take the lead and the Lions scored to take the lead back only to have the touchdown taken away, giving the Bears an ugly W.  

So the question becomes, why wasn't I making writing a priority for so long? The answer, I think, is fear. Fear that I'm not going to be able to find the words. Fear that I'm wasting my time. Fear that I'm not good enough.

The only way to overcome that fear is to acknowledge that it exists and to confront it. In other words, you've got to face your fears.

I've come face-to-face with two fears that I'd let control me for two long. One fear that if I kept running, I'd be crippled by the time I was sixty. And a second fear that I'm not a good enough writer.

Who knows, maybe if I keep running, I will be crippled by the time I'm sixty. And maybe I'm not a good enough writer. I'm just not going to let those fears stop me from doing the things I love any more. I'm not going to let the fear factor beat me any more. 

Today, day four of my running-and-writing quest, was the third day that I laced up the old New Balances and hit the trail. The good news is that unlike two days ago, my legs felt like legs again. They weren't a pair of lead weights that I could barely lift off the ground.

If there's good news, you know there's got to be bad news. Today it was my lungs that were burning. The back-to-summer temperature and high humidity seemed to combine to put a vice grip on my lungs. I've battled mild asthma since I was a kid and while it doesn't bother me doing ordinary activities, it can make breathing a chore when I run, especially on hot, humid days like today. 

Usually I can't stand waiting for traffic when I'm running - it interrupts the natural flow. But today I needed that break, even for a few seconds, so that I could catch my breath. That brief respite did the trick and from that point on, I felt pretty good.

Not long after I hit the lake shore path, I spotted a runner about 50 yards a head of me.  Up to this point I'd only passed a mom pushing her baby while chatting on her cell phone and a man old enough to be my grandfather. This looked to be a fair match, in comparison. The runner appeared to be in my age category or younger. 

I didn't have a lot of gas in the engine, but I thought I had enough to pass him. So I set my sights on him.

Two minutes later, I had cut his lead from 50 yards to 50 feet. I was about to kick into my passing gear when he veers off the path. He's taking a short cut. Do I follow him, or stay the course? I've got to stick to my training regimen. Maybe I can catch him again. It won't be easy, but if I keep up my pace there's a chance.

Another two minutes later and his short cut spills off onto my path again. He's got a 50-yard lead again. I'm determined to catch him this time.

Two minutes later, I again have him. We're on a circle path around a small pond. I am ten feet behind him and then he veers off the circle path. He's headed in a different direction. I don't pass him.

So for the first time in three runs, I don't pass a single runner. On the flip side of the coin, no one passed me today.

The best news is that after three runs, I have the expected sore muscles from running for the first time in a long time but my knees are holding strong. Only time will tell, but I'm cautiously optimistic that I've conquered the knee problems that kept me sidelined these past five years. That makes all the Labor Day pains a lot easier to bear.

For me, it's been five years. Well, that's not completely true. I have tried a couple of times to start again after I stopped, but it never lasts. Either my knees or my will quit on me. I'm hoping that this time I can make it last. Maybe making my quest public will give me that extra motivation I've lacked before.

The first time you run after not running for a long time deceives you into thinking that it's going to be easier than it is. My run today reminded me of this when I hit the pavement and my legs felt like they were lead. You've got to persevere. You've got to keep telling yourself, it's going to get easier. And it did. I even passed a runner. Okay, this time it was a bow-legged elderly man. He looked to be about eighty. It was amazing that he could run at all. I only hope that I'm in that kind of shape when I'm his age.

I'd made it through the first run and a half before I heard footsteps at my back. This is always a bad sign. In the past, when I was running regularly, that sound kicked me into the next gear. I'm competitive. I can't stand being passed. This time, though, there was no extra gear.

The runner breezed by me with ease. He ran like a gazelle, easy, long strides. I couldn't take my eyes off of him as the distance between us grew. Ten yards. Twenty yards. Thirty. And then, suddenly, he turned around. He ran past me, as if to rub it in my face.  He looked to be at least half my age. Once I ran like that. It pained me to think that no matter how far this quest goes, I'll never run like that again. Hopefully, I'll get stronger and faster. But I will never have what I once had. 

And now? I just ache. All over. If we were born to run, it shouldn't hurt this much to do it.

What this dear friend didn't know is that I don't run any more. I stopped about five years ago when my knees quit on me. The breaking point came when one day I could barely make it up the stairs of our four-story townhouse. 

Sorry, a seven-year-old interrupted my story. He was supposed to be asleep. It's 10:45 and he just pushed me out of my own bed. This happens all too often, more than I'd like to admit. It's a constant battle that only parents can understand. It brings up another important part of this story. I don't write much these days, either. I can't imagine anyone reads this blog any more and I can't blame them. I rarely post to it and when I do, it's usually only for something newsworthy. This blog hasn't been a writing journal in a long time. 

Which brings me to the reason I stopped blogging, which was so that I could devote more time to writing my second novel. That seemed like a good idea at the time, but the reality is that I haven't done as much work on the novel as I'd like. It's still unfinished, six years after I started it. The only reason it hasn't died is my writer's critique group and guilt keep it on life support.

It used to be easy for me to write, but to write you can't be distracted. You need to focus on nothing but what you're writing. That's not easy to do when you have a new second-grader coming into your bed at 10:45 and pushing you and your laptop out of bed.

All of this ties together. Really it does. Just stay with me.

Back to that book I got in the mail. I read it and really didn't think much of it. Murakami is not an author I've read before. He's one that I probably should have read, but I can say that about a good many talented authors out there. Murakami has everything I once dreamed of having. He's considered a brilliant author and he's got thousands of adoring fans that clamor for his books. But I can't imagine that the book I read is a reflection of his true talents. It's a journal and it reads like one. It certainly didn't inspire me to want to read any of his novels.

What it did inspire me to do was run. Murakami is older than I am and he has battled through knee problems just like mine. And he has won. He competes in marathons and in triathalons every year. So I thought if he could do it, why can't I?

So when I got home from work today, I told my wife that I was going to go for a run. As if it was something I still did every day. I laced up the old running sneakers and stretched out my muscles as much as they would let me. And then I hit the pavement.

You know what? It felt good. Not great, just good. But it was perfect temperature, about 70 degrees, a little windy, but nice. I chugged along at an intentionally slow pace and the farther I went, the more confident I got. I even passed one runner. Okay, she was a mom pushing a baby and chatting on the cell phone while running. But it was a start.

A start. A start at running again. And writing again. You see, the two go-hand-in-hand. This is my personal quest, to get back what my dear friend remembered me having, something that I'd lost over the course of the last few years.

My hope is that running will also inspire me to write, the same way it does for Murakami. It used to work for me as well. I'm hoping it will again. This journal entry is the first indicator that maybe, just maybe, I'm not running on empty.

Which is exactly what I'll be doing on Monday, February 15, when I take the stage for Essay Fiesta!

What is Essay Fiesta! you ask?

It is billed as Chicago's only charitable first-person reading series. Hosted by comic writers Kurt Ecker and Alyson Lyon, Essay Fiesta! began a few months back and has been packing in standing-room-only crowds at its home, The Book Cellar, Lincoln Square's cozy, independent bookstore at 4736 N. Lincoln Ave. On the third Monday of each month, some of the city's best writers, comediennes and actors read their humorous and oftentimes touching stories.

And at 7 p.m. on February 15 I'll be one of those taking center stage. The evening's full lineup has yet to be publicly announced (Ecker releases the names one-by-one on Fiesta!'s Facebook page), but judging by past month's, it's sure to be entertaining. And it's all for a good cause. Each Fiesta! ends with a raffle that benefits the Howard Brown Health Center.

So come out of winter's hibernation for a couple hours on February 15 and treat yourself to a glass of wine while listening to some great stories. Hope to see you there!