That time my nipple was on fire

Welcome to the Spring of Bone. The season of my shaven head, if you will. The past few days have been a whirlwind. Thursday was the Kenny Chesney concert. Saturday morning I ran a 10K. And Saturday evening, I had another engagement. Three events in three days! That's a lot, compared to my usual number of zero. Not to mention the season finales of The Office and 24. Plus, Michael coming out of a year-long coma on General Hospital. Whew! I think I need a weekend off to decompress.

Let us begin with the concert: the Kenny Chesney Sun City Carnival Tour. It was held at the Oak Mountain Amphitheatre in Birmingham, a perfect venue for an outdoor concert on a gorgeous Alabama night. It wound up just being the Darryls and me. Jamie was supposed to go, but she got two tickets from a radio station and ditched us. Can't really blame her, considering our tickets were on row V in the very last section. Not bad for 95 bucks. I'm pretty sure it was the worst seat I've ever had at a concert, except for that one year at June Jam when the actual curvature of the Earth itself prevented us from seeing most of the stage.

The opening acts were Lady Antebellum--who we missed because we were stuck in traffic--and Miranda Lambert--who we unfortunately did not miss. She was not very good. There was one highlight, however, when she brought Blake Shelton on stage and he sang a song. I texted my sister, "Blake Shelton just came out!" Well, I noticed she didn't reply for awhile. She told me later she forgot I was at the concert and so when she got my text all she could think was, "Nuh uh! I thought he was dating Miranda Lambert!"

Kenny's part of the show was excellent. He sang about twenty songs. (I have the set list if you'd like. I texted it to myself.) I don't think I realized how many hits he's had until we were on our way home and started naming off at least as many songs that he hadn't sang.

At one point during the show, LJ pulled out a disposable camera, aimed it in the general direction of the figure we thought was most likely Kenny Chesney, and started clicking. He asked me if I thought he'd be able to see anything in the pictures. Um no, not unless the word Hubble appears somewhere on the camera.

Saturday morning was my 10K race. That's 6.2 miles, which coincidentally, is just slightly farther than we were from Kenny Chesney. I got off to a terrible start, due largely to starting at the back and having to navigate the mass of bodies the first half mile. My one mile split was like eight and a half minutes. I picked it up from there and finished in 48:29, good for fifth in my age group. My time was fourteen seconds slower than last year, but that was kind of expected since I haven't been training as much. To have run a faster time would have been to cheat the very ideals of hard work, training and dedication. And also likely would have caused me to pass out and/or begin wretching.

Saturday night, I went to a dance recital, 'cause that's how I roll. I went to see Kywana Jr. in... umm... I keep forgetting the name of the program. Twelve Angry Men? No, there weren't that many men in it. The Princess Bride? Nope, no Andre The Giant. Dances With Wolves? No, but it was four hours long. Wait, I got it. Twelve Dancing Princesses! Yes, that's it. And it's even less exciting than the title would indicate, if that's possible.

Oh, I almost forgot! A bizarre thing did happen on the way to my race Saturday morning. My right nipple started burning. I mean, it was on fire! Have any of you ever had this problem? I examined it, but really couldn't tell much. I mean, what does it usually look like? I don't know. Anyway, that led to an odd, if not disturbing scene Saturday around lunchtime, as I stood shirtless in front of my bathroom mirror rubbing Neosporin on my nipples. I mean, if there is one microcosm I could give you to sum up my life, that's it right there.

You are currently experiencing the Spring of Bone...

"And I go back to watchin' summer fade into fall. Growin' up too fast and I do recall wishin' time would stop right in its tracks..."