Running the Numbers (with a movie!)

I've never really been able to keep a diary. Even as a kid, I found writing about my day after the fact unbearably boring. Yet, during the day it feels like a lot of stuff is happening. And at the end of the day, I can't quite get my head around what exactly it was I did.

For over a decade now, much of my time has been spent with data. Spreadsheets, reports, powerpoints, testimonies; you name it and I've done the research and produced the materials. And so, I thought why not keep some data. This is my first monthly report, in movie form. It sums up my month in 10 slides and less than 1 minute. It also represents the first time I have ever had to calculate how much toothpaste I use (about 1 inch per toothbrushing) or who is impeding Metro escalator flow. I'm going to produce one every month, though not tracking the same stuff. While I know this makes me a bad statistician, would you really want to count how many times you brush your teeth every single month? Yeah, I thought not.

So here it is, set to jaunty music: Anastasia's Perfectly Prosaic Monthly Report

Road Rules

When you spend a fair amount of time on the bike path, you can't help but make a few observations:

1. Don't let anybody tell you different, Northern Virginia is a hilly place. Plus, you'll discover that against all rules of nature, there is always a headwind.

2. You are statistically most likely to get hit by a taxi driver, swooping across three lanes of traffic (without using a signal, natch) to nab a fare from another cabbie. Ironically, the fare is most likely a tourist who doesn't realize he's already only three blocks from the White House.

3. It doesn't matter that you are wearing a bright yellow jacket. It doesn't matter that you're nearly 6 feet tall when you're sitting on your bike. It doesn't matter that you have more randomly flashing lights going than a Donna Summer revival concert. Somehow those suburbanites driving their SUVs still manage not to see you.

4. 83% of people under 25 don't actually appear to know their left from their right, so calling out "on your left" is really just wasting everyone's time and your breath.

5. The salesman who sold the hip young man his shiny new Jamis commuter bike ($950), Brooks saddle ($150), and matching Brooks panier bags ($500) did not give him the free advice that a very busy bike path at 5:20 p.m. may not be the best choice for slowly and repeatedly trying to learn how to use those snazzy new toe clips on your pedals ($50).

6. No matter how beautiful you think the sunset is from inside your car, it's nothing compared to how incredible it looks from on a bike.

A Paean to Waxed Wrapping Paper

Okay, yes, butter is itself one of my favorite things, but right now I'm actually celebrating the wax paper that's wrapped around it. In a world of life-threatening plastic clamshells and squealing Styrofoam containers, I find the simplicity of the butter wrapper comforting. I love the bold red lettering; a confident sans serif font telling you what is inside without any spin or focus-grouped branding. And how can one sufficiently praise the handy teaspoon measuring scale on the back, as if they knew you lost your measuring spoons, like, four moves ago. Butter has been packaged thusly since the early 1900s, because, as the leading historian of butter packaging has so insightfully noted, "fine butter does desire a dignified package in keeping with its high level of food value." (Don't believe me? Go ahead and check, I'll wait and just sit here noshing this lovely buttery toast.)

True Grit

The room itself was not glamorous, a well-used podium set up in front of dozens of mismatched chairs with florescent lights overhead. But the view was appropriate for the evening. From the 11^th floor much of DC was laid out below us; expansive and seemingly limitless. We were gathered to honor 41 accomplished men and women. They are restaurant workers and landscapers; they wield tools at construction sites and haul boxes in stockrooms. They care for their children and comfort their aging parents. They pay rent and bills, and they put aside savings to fulfill their plans for a larger apartment or to start a business of their own. And they continue to confront the legacies of substance abuse, incarceration and homelessness. They are the first alumni of the Washington DC chapter of Back of My Feet.

Together they ran more than 8500 miles, though in the stories that volunteers and friends told about them it’s clear that these are men and women who were running toward something. The words we heard most often were “proud,” “friend,” “supportive,” and “inspiration.” We celebrated “leadership,” “focus,” “determination,” and “strength.” We heard about men who once couldn’t run a single mile digging deep and finishing a half marathon. We heard about women who came out three times a week—every week, in the snowy winters and the sweltering summers—to join with others in logging their miles. We shared stories of challenges overcome, of laughter, of love and of the occasional song belted out in the streets of DC. Honorees stood shyly as we read messages of congratulations and pride from their teammates, sometimes looking as if they couldn’t quite believe the effect they had on so many others.

And afterward we clustered together like you always do at a family gathering. Nibbling on cookies, catching up on the daily goings-on with those we haven’t seen in a while. We joked about pounds gained when work starts to encroach on training time, and compared notes about races we plan to run this year. We cheered recent promotions and admired sharply pressed suits and well-shined shoes. As the crowd slowly broke up, with some moving toward buses home and others cadging rides, one thing became clear: against tough odds and the expectations of many, but with the support and love of their Back on My Feet family, these alumni had made it.

Lessons Learned

One week into the New Year, and here is what we've learned thus far:

• You are no more likely to exercise at the end of the day in 2012 than you were in 2011. Having a drink and watching TV is simply always going to sound better at that point.
  
• Tourists did not learn Metro etiquette--or their own left from their right--over the holidays.
• The Republican primaries have been funnier than you thought they would be.
• Cheese, olives, crackers and wine remains the all time best dinner. Hands down.

On to Week Two!

Blemishes are Beautiful

This New Year's Eve, I am resolving to embrace being an under-achiever. For so long it wasn't enough to run, I had to run fast and far. I couldn't simply play the banjo, I had to master it. If I didn't bike to work every day, I was a slacker. And as a result, things that should be fun became work. Actually, I often had more fun at work than when I was working at having fun. (Go ahead, read that last sentence again, it's convoluted.)

But this year, I am going to give myself permission to shoot a bit lower. I'm going to recognize that imperfect is, actually, plenty good enough. I'm going to accept the honor of the "Gentle(wo)man's C." I know what you're thinking: who wants to emulate George Bush? But other notable underachievers include Eero Saarinen (another C student at Yale), Steven Spielberg (rejected by film schools three times), Marilyn Monroe (dropped by her first studio) and Beethoven (his music teacher said he was "hopeless"). Lucille Ball's mother once got a note from her daughter's acting teacher saying that she was so bad that the tuition was a waste of money.

So I'm not a very good cook, but I can try to learn a few new (and forgiving) dishes. True, I have no sense of musical meter, but that just means my waltzes are jaunty and my ditties are...um...emotionally complex. A slow three mile run has me outside the woods for just as long as a blazing six mile one, with the bonus of not feeling like throwing up at the end. Maybe it requires the occasional day squished onto a mildewy Metro car to truly appreciate the freedom of biking in on other days. Dog hair tumbleweeds in the hallway can signify more than just the need to vacuum; they demonstrate that this is a household filled with unconditional love.

So here's to going part way. Cheers to taking a break. Huzzah for long languorous afternoons of not getting anything accomplished at all. It's time to celebrate enjoying something without mastering it, giving permission to put it down when it's not fun, and realizing that sometimes the smart thing to do is just have a chocolate (or two) instead. As that talentless redhead once said, "It's a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy." Happy New Year, Lucille.

A Farewell Message to my Cat

Dear Isabella Boo-Manchu,

I'm not sure why I'm writing you a letter, you being a cat and thus too haughty to learn to read, but I feel obligated to attempt to explain what is happening here. Tomorrow morning we will go to the vet's office, and you will fall asleep there and not come home again. I know you'll be scared--you've never quite trusted the vet--but I'll be there with you, even holding you in my arms if you'll let me.

I suspect it's hard to believe, but I really am trying to spare you from all these problems you've been suffering over these past few years; these problems that make you hungry all the time but unable to absorb any satisfaction from your food. Having been feral in the beginning, you've never quite trusted me, either. And don't think that I don't recognize that a letter about putting you to sleep isn't really the best forum to make my case. But hear me out.

Remember how you and your brother, Murray, showed up on my doorstep back in 1995 in Long Beach, California, hiding from the giant opossums that gorged off the garbage in the alleyway? You two were so tiny, and while he was ready to blindly trust any one who came by, you were the wary one, making sure it was safe for the two of you before you'd come into my apartment. Even once you were inside, warm and safe (November is chilly, even in Southern California) it took months before you'd let me pet you. But I kept you out of danger, and you have to admit that you liked being able to curl up and nap on the furniture.

And once we'd moved to Los Angeles (you know, that apartment where you liked to knock all my ironic tsotchke crosses and Madonnas off the shelves every night?), do you remember how you got out one night and I slept on the floor next to the screen door to let you back in when you realized your folly at 3 a.m.? And who hung out with you and brought food to you when you wouldn't come out for three weeks once we got the dog? Yeah, me. And in Seattle when I spaced out and left the door open when we went away for the weekend, that was kind of a cool adventure for you, wasn't it?

Now, I'll concede that once we moved to rural Virginia I could have handled your hunting habits better. But you have to admit that having a living but shocked chipmunk dropped on one's foot would cause just about anybody to scream. And seriously, after you figured out that the bell on your neck was scaring off the birds, how many deaf--thus dead--moles did I bury without comment?

But these past couple of years have been tough. Here--in your 3rd state, 7th city and 9th address by my count--things have not gone so well. While you've become a bona fide lap kitty--and that only took 14 years--you've also been effectively starving to death regardless of how many pills we've given you. And slowly but surely we've had to close off ever greater parts of the house from you, lest you cause havoc. Your life is becoming increasingly circumscribed, and it isn't going to get any better.

So tomorrow morning I am going to do the hardest thing we humans have to do for the animals who have given us so much. I am going to let you go. And I am going to miss you. I hope kitty heaven is cluttered with cans of tuna, and that there you don't need thumbs to get them open.