WGN Morning News Blog

I jinxed it. I knew I would. I wrote that the girl (as I refer to my lovely daughter when I'm not happy with her behavior) was sleeping through the night and for the last 2 nights, she's woken up in the middle of the night screaming. Not hungry, not wet, just chatty. But her chattyness translates into these screams that no earplugs can block. I swear if she could talk she would be yelling our names. She does that for a half hour and then falls asleep until 5:30 AM, her wake up time, no matter what.

Anyway, I hope this changes tonight, since I have to do one of the things I hate the most in the whole wide world for Around Town tomorrow: RUN. We are doing it for Team in Training, which trains runners for marathons to raise money for the Leukimia Society. Love the charity, hate the running.

It's not because I'm lazy and unathletic. I'm both. But it's mostly because running takes me back to my awkward high school days where people made fun of the way I ran. I look more like those lizards in the Australian outback than a gazelle. Every year, for GYM class, we had to run half a mile so the teacher could check out our physical condtion. Let's just say, the entire class had to wait for me to be done, because it would take me about a half hour to complete the challenge. I was the girl who would walk by the volleyball court and get hit by the stray ball, almost every time. I had many friends in high school, a few of them very athletic, so I ended up on their teams out of pure pitty and guilt (thank God for Catholic education).

So every year, when I arrive at the track next to the Contemporary Art Museum, I get that horrible feeling I would get back in high school. My spleen hurts, my hands sweat and the fresh smell of the track make me want to cry with shame. But I know it's for a good cause and my boss is begging me to do it, so I'll be there.

I just wanted to let you know how I felt just in case you see me crying in a corner at some point during the Around Town.