Here in Jersey, or at least my part of Jersey, school starts late.

Liam had to go to school today.

Sorry to clear my throat in your ear.

Liam had to go to school today for two hours, but still had to be up incredibly early.

Initially, the bus said it was going to come at 6.40 something, and then they sent a note out just yesterday saying, hey, in fact, the bus is going to come at 6.28, and we’d like you to be out 10 minutes early, so be there at 6.18.

And the bus came around 6.20, as it turns out.

That’s very early.

So yeah, Liam had to go to school for two hours today.

The official first day of school is tomorrow, and Ani has their first day of classes at Emerson today as well.

So school’s back, I guess.

It’s funny.

This morning was noting how I felt bummed that my kids had to go back to school because I like when they’re off for the summer and are around, which I guess is a good sign.

It means I like my kids.

Also a bad sign because I guess it means I don’t care about their education.

But that’s okay.

My friend John Moltz showed up here at my house yesterday.

Not unannounced, thankfully, but he and his family were traveling, and they stopped here so he could record an episode of The Rebound.

And it was fun because our third co-host, Dan, didn’t know that John was going to be at my house and thus going to be on the episode.

And so Dan only saw me on the Zoom call, but then there was John as well.

So good times.

I also Moltz posted recently in The Rebound Discord, actually, that he had to check recently while listening to an episode of this podcast that he wasn’t playing it back at 1.5x.

But nope, he was playing it at 1x.

I don’t know.

I only get five minutes in these things, so I got to talk as fast as possible.

It’s mostly like I want to say all the things before I forget all the things I want to say.

I had a thousand topics for today’s episode, and I remembered none of them, so I’m really just vamping at the moment.

And, you know, mentioning Moltz as many times as possible because I hear that’s good for listenership numbers.

I am increasingly, I don’t know what the right word is.

Not anxious and not dreading.

I guess I’m increasingly bummed.

That’s the word I’m going to go with.

Bummed about my upcoming surgery.

I don’t know if I’ve talked about the surgery on the show or not because I don’t listen to this program, but I’m having ACDF.

And as I understand, oh, I definitely did talk about it a bit because I believe my dad heard or read a transcript and then sent me some corrections.

But they’re going to cut a hole in my neck.

And by going through the front of your neck, it’s less painful, I read, than the recovery would be if they came in any other direction.

And they will remove a disc, and they’ll fuse together two vertebrae and have a new little fake plastic spacer thingy in there, whatever.

And that’s going to eliminate this issue with my nerve, and my arm’s going to feel better.

But the recovery process sounds pretty miserable, so I’m not looking forward to it.

I’m going to have to wear a neck brace at least some of the time.

And I was reading that the times they want you to wear it are all the worst times to wear it, like while sleeping, while showering, anytime you’re in the car, like all times when I don’t want to be doing it.

I’m going to have to miss a couple rehearsals for the musical that I’m in.

And Laura was like, I guess I have to miss those rehearsals because I don’t want to leave you alone.

And I’m like, I think you can probably leave me alone, even day of surgery.

Like at night, worst case, I’m just going to be moaning in bed.

Like I can do that.

I don’t need you here to watch me moan.

I’ll have an iPad within reach, and I’ll have a water bottle within reach.

And Laura’s like, well, at best, I can be tempted to fur her.

So because if you need me, I’m there, which is very sweet.

But I don’t know.

I’m going to have to pause on all the weightlifting stuff.

I’m going to have to pause on the high intensity stuff.

They do want you to walk a lot.

I’m good at walking a lot.

Lauren and I have been very proud of ourselves recently of how much we walk.

Like in Italy, we were walking so much.

And we kind of just got to this place where if it was a single digit number of miles, we would walk it.

And so just yesterday, Lauren had to take Liam to a band practice.

And then she’s like, I think I’m going to walk around the park that’s near the school for a couple hours while he’s there.

I’ll just do a quick five-mile walk and then get him.

And we used to never do that kind of thing, and now we do it all the time.

I am sad as it gets a little bit colder here that we will probably be doing fewer walks outside, but I’m also not averse to doing bundled up walks.

Listen, I love a treadmill walk.

Watching movies or TV shows whilst on the treadmill is a joy to me.

But sometimes it’s fun to mix it up with an outside walk too, an additional outside walk.

I think they say the 10,000 steps a day number was kind of made up by the manufacturer of some early pedometer as a goal to hit.

But I am trying to hit around 15,000 steps a day right now while I’m still at the final phases of my weight loss journey.

But man, I really don’t know what’s going to happen with that weight loss stuff when I’m in recovery from this impending surgery, which is a week from…

I think it’s in two Tuesdays.

So yeah, not next Tuesday, but a week from next Tuesday.

So get ready for that.

I don’t know how many episodes I’ll record post-surgery in the immediate aftermath, but it’ll be fun if it’s just me going, that’d be fun, right?

You guys would like that.

No?

Oh.