Here’s a thing about me: I don’t like talking much, and I am not a big fan of people who talk much. In a world where the ruling law is Murphy’s, approximately 80% of the people in my office love to talk. They tell seemingly endless stories, and by the time they reached the end I have lost any interest and I am spacing out compiling my grocery shopping list. They are the kind of people who when you tell them oh, yes you told me that story, they will still go on repeating the story anyway. They are the kind of people who will go on talking to you when you are opening the office door to get out. You step out of the office, close the door and they keep talking. When there is no audience, they talk to themselves.
People who love to talk are pretty often in a chatty mood. So, they come into your office and casually drop a how is it going. You are not really in a chatty mood yourself, so you reply fine without even looking at them. Then they will go on asking questions you have to reply to. You give short replies just to be civil and you don’t ask any questions back, however, they still fail to see you don’t want to engage in a conversation. It seems there is an undying hope inside them that you will eventually ask them something, and they will get to share one of those endless stories of theirs. It is almost that their attitude says “I’m Bored. Entertain Me”. Perhaps someday I should talk to them about that amazing thing called the internet. It is not that I am absolutely opposed to chatting, I am fine with someone sharing things, but I hate it when the expectation is for me to do the talking, when in fact I’m busy, or I hate talking.
These are the same kind of people who will say hey, do you want do lunch today, you say sure, and then they ask where do you want to go? And when you say I don’t know I haven’t thought of that, they say OK, think about it, and tell me what you would like. Are you serious? YOU ask me to lunch and now you are expecting me to do the thinking, and essentially provide solution to your problem? Is it so difficult to throw a couple of suggestions out there with your initial question to get the conversation going?
I don’t know if this is still the same kind of person, but I also dislike the person who will call you on the phone, will start yapping without allowing a single word from the other side, and then suddenly announce OK, I need to go now. Oh, sorry, don’t let me keep you with my silence. Please. Do. Go.
Oh, and now I’m on it, allow me to rant about the perpetually “helpful” people. The ones who volunteer to help, when it is not really their job or their business, then promptly fail to do anything useful simply because they can’t, and then complain about the fact they have to do everything and they are the only ones trying to be helpful. Hey, “helpful” people, if you minded your own business someone else might have been able to be of help, instead of “help”.
I go out to lunch, dinner or brunch at least three times a week, and thankfully I do not have many restaurant horror stories to share. Of course, I have had my fair share of indifferent or forgetful waitstaff, or rude hosts, or bland dishes. But overall when I go out to eat the level of service I get is decent.
Last night I had my worst restaurant experience, and I didn’t even have to step a foot in the restaurant! It was around 5 p.m., and as we were driving back to Cambridge, we wondered where to go to dinner. I suggested going to Strip-T’s in Watertown. I had been there once before, and I liked it. With all the snowstorm interruptions, I thought I’d check their website to see if they are open before we drove all the way to Watertown. I googled the restaurant name on my phone, and the search result was their website, which showed on my phone as http://www.stripts.com “Strip-T’s Restaurant… 93 School St Watertown, MA 02472. WELL WILL [sic] BE CLOSED…” I clicked on their website, but it went to a general page without any updated information. I clicked around to other links to see if there was any information related to the “WELL WILL [sic] BE CLOSED”, but since I didn’t see anything I decided to call to see if they were open.
A man answered the phone. I said hello, and asked “are you open for dinner tonight?” And this is how he responded: “No, we’re not, I just like coming here and sitting around and having beers with the boys ’cause I don’t have anything better to do.” Pause. What. The. Hell. Then he said: “I am being sarcastic.” I said “Yeah, very funny”, and hung up. Wow.
Dude answering the phone, really?! Whatever the hell your problem is, I am pretty sure it wasn’t me. So, when I ask if you are open, just say “yes, we are” or “no, we are not” and that would be it. The end. Simple, isn’t it? If you think you are being clever or witty, you are not, you are just being rude. If you are not in the mood to answer the phone, have someone else answer the phone, or have an automated phone system with options for hours, reservations, etc. If you want to be sarcastic, you can do so with the boys while drinking beers. I didn’t call to ask if your restaurant is open because I didn’t have anything better to do, or because I wanted to chat or experience your talent for sarcasm. I called because with all the snowstorm interruptions plus your crappy website that shows no updated helpful information, I thought I’d better check.
Seriously, what the hell. Who interacts with strangers like that, let alone potential customers? That was the most rude and uncalled for response I have ever received. But if that was their plan, they surely found a pretty effective way to turn away potential customers. Well done.
The blizzard of 2013 was not technically a blizzard, but it was certainly a big snowstorm with strong winds and 26″ of accumulated snow — in Cambridge at least. (It wasn’t a blizzard because the wind and visibility criteria were not met. “By definition, a blizzard occurs when the following happens: winds reach a sustained speed or frequent gusts of 35 miles per hour at the same time the visibility is at or less than one-quarter mile due to snow or blowing snow.”)
Even before the first snow flake fell we knew it was going to be a big storm. TV, radio, on-line media was going crazy about the storm. And when it comes to weather events I just get sucked into the hype. I normally do not watch much TV, but when there is a storm coming up I can’t get enough of the weather forecasts. I mean, all of the weather forecasts, on every channel, non-stop. But in the end Harvey Leonard on Channel 5 is my trusted weather source. What I didn’t really get into was the name Nemo: I guess the Weather Channel started a thing where they name snowstorms, and this one was named Nemo. Hurricanes do have official names, but to me unofficially starting naming snow storms is a little too much.
The forecast was calling for the storm to start around noon on Friday, so the office closed at 11 a.m. I went to Whole Foods to get a couple of things, and it was so busy, it looked like a Market Basket wannabe. It started snowing lightly on Friday afternoon and intensified on Friday night into Saturday morning. In addition to the standard snow emergency procedures that go with a forecast of 2-foot snow accumulation, the Governor of Massachusetts issued a travel ban starting 4 pm on Friday, virtually banning all travel from all the roads in the State. The ban was largely heeded, and anyone breaking the ban would be subject to $500 fine and up to a year in prison, we were told. Travel ban aside, I had to go from North Cambridge to Spring Hill in Somerville and back, and I had to drive. So I drove. The streets were eerily quiet, the empty streets coated with snow. I saw people cross country skiing and a few people walking around. Driving down Highland Ave I found a deserted street, with flashing lights of police cruisers and plows, and a couple of lone figures trying to walk against the wind. Thankfully I wasn’t stopped by the police. And even if I were, I had prepared a list of excuses to get away with it.
The winds picked up late Friday night and the snow was coming down heavier. When I got up on Saturday morning everything looked blanketed with snow. Mass. Ave and the bike path were completely covered by seemingly deep snow. It was bright and beautiful. People were walking and cross country skiing along the bike path.
The travel ban was still in effect until Saturday 4 p.m. When I went out for a walk in the afternoon it was quite nice to see people enjoying the snow, kids having a blast. Seven Hills Park at the Davis Square T stop turned into a snowmen park. No cars on the roads meant people on the roads. Walking on the street was much easier than walking on the sidewalks which were pretty much still covered by almost two feet of snow.
The wind drifts created 4 feet high piles at some places. Walking on Highland Ave you could see people had started digging their cars out, cars completely covered with at least a foot of snow. Some side streets looked like they hadn’t been plowed at all. Even where the streets were plowed, the travel lane width was reduced. And trying to clear the snow off sidewalks, driveways and cars did not get any easier as there was no room to put the snow.
I finally made it to Spring Hill in Somerville with my right hand almost frozen. I helped shovel a sidewalk and driveway, and actually that was my first time shoveling. The snow was light, but still my shoulders and upper back got really sore. And that made me appreciate the fact that my car is parked in a parking garage and the sidewalk around my building is shoveled by a crew.
Later in the evening I walked to Harvard Square, and it was quite something to walk around the quiet city. Everything looked beautiful covered in fresh white snow. But what I enjoyed the most was the silence. Walking everywhere made me think of our ancestors, who at some point in our history did just that, they walked everywhere.
On Sunday things slowly started to return to normal. More plowing, more shoveling, more digging out. Mountains of snow in every intersection made driving and walking dangerous, and you could see dump trucks hauling snow away. It is now raining, so the snow is getting heavier. Most catch basins are under feet of snow, and the streets are already looking messy. This week is supposed to be rather warm and there will be some snow melt, but I wonder how long it will take for the last of the 26″ of snow to go away.
Here we are on the last day of 2012. A year that went by fast, and looking back, it was a mix of good and bad. Now is the time I am looking through my notes to see what happened in the year expiring soon. Here’s a summary of what fun things I did, what I liked and didn’t like, and the notable things that happened in my life in 2012:
Movies: I counted them all, in 2012 I watched 83 movies, that is an average of 1.6 movies per week. During the Independent Film Festival of Boston I would see up to three movies a day, but generally I go to the movies at least once a week. It turns out this year I saw plenty of classic and old movies at the Brattle, and finally did the wise thing and acquired a Brattle membership, which saves me some money. The movies I liked best this year were ‘The Kid With A Bike’, the Belgian movie by the Dardenne brothers; ‘Jiro Dreams of Sushi’ a documentary about the Japanese sushi master Jiro Ono; Wes Anderson’s ‘Moonrise Kingdom’; the offbeat, different ‘Safety Not Guaranteed’; the heart breaking ‘Take This Waltz’; the tough and incredibly moving ‘Oslo, August 31st’; the touching ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’; and the fascinating documentary ‘The Imposter’. A quick note to mention ‘Lincoln’ for the superb acting by Daniel Day-Lewis, and Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘The Master’ for the visual beauty. I also liked a lot Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro in ‘Silver Linings Playbook’. The movie that creeped me out the most, made me feel extremely uncomfortable and wish I had not seen was Pedro Almodóvar’s ’The Skin I Live In”. Oh, and I am not seeing ‘Les Miserables’ because I absolutely hate musicals.
Music: I went to 18 live shows this year. Some shows stood out, like the Radiohead show, the Mogwai show, which finally happened after two prior cancellations, and the Saint Etienne show at the Paradise, where everyone was dancing happily away. I saw the most interesting lighting and staging at the Grizzly Bear show at the Orpheum. The worst show? The Jesus and Mary Chain, no contest. The Paradise still remains the best venue in the area to see live music. I just wish it was located somewhere in Camberville. I can’t say there was a band or album this year I adored, but I did listen to some music I liked a lot, like Tanlines, Alt-J, Beach House, Lower Dens and Beach Fossils. After seeing Frank Ocean and the Dirty Projectors making everyone’s best music of the year list, I tried to listened to them, but I find them unbearable. Frank Ocean’s music is plainly boring, and the Dirty Projectors singer sounds like your friend who keeps singing along to every song he hears, and he is always off-key.
UPDATE: I can’t believe I forgot to mention this but my favorite song this year was Japandroid’s ‘The House That Heaven Built’. Yeah.
Theater: Not too much theater in my life this year. I mostly went to plays my friend TMB was in, like ‘Measure For Measure’, ‘Waiting For Lefty’ and ‘Anne of the Green Gables’. I also saw an interesting production of ‘Uncle Vanya’ at the Apollinaire Theatre in Chelsea, and David Adjmi’s ‘Marie Antoinette’ at the ART, a play I found was trying too hard to be witty.
Art: I visited the ICA and the MFA a couple of times each. I liked the exhibition Degas and the Nude the best, because I really, really like drawings. Really. Also at the ICA I saw Sam Green’s live documentary ‘The Love Song of R. Buckminster Fuller’ with live music by Yo La Tengo. And I love Yo La Tengo.
Food, Drink: I liked Casa B in Union Square in Somerville, a space with unique and pretty cool interior design and delicious tapas. I finally made it to Santarpio’s where I discovered the best pizza in town. I also liked Strip T’s in Watertown, West Bridge, and Belly Wine Bar in Kendall Square. I was impressed by the food at the Garden at the Cellar, which might be Cambridge’s best kept secret. The food is amazing, how come I didn’t know? I also paid many visits to iYo the new frozen yogurt place in Davis Square. The square will soon be fro-yo central, as a second fro-yo place opened, and there are plans for a third. I had some very good cocktails at Stoddard’s downtown, and at Brick & Mortar in Central Square.
Travel: Nothing extraordinary travel-wise. I spent three lovely days in Provincetown, I love this happy and laid back place, and the amazing beaches. Speaking of beaches, I discovered Duxbury beach this year (the best beach area is south of the bridge), pretty much one of the best beaches around Boston (sorry, North Shore beaches, no comparison, really). I went to Greece for a couple of weeks to see family and friends, eat well and swim in the Mediterranean, and that’s always pretty neat and relaxing. I also visited my brother and his family in Germany. I finally got to meet my nephew, who is a very cute baby, and got to see my niece again, who is a very cute toddler.
Exercise: In the beginning of 2012 I found myself ten pounds overweight, and ten pounds is a lot for a person of my size. I had a hard time shedding off the extra pounds just by eating less. So, I started eating less and exercising more, the magic combination that always works. After hating running for as long as I remember, this year I followed a 5k training program, and after eight weeks I was pleasantly surprised to see I could comfortably run 3 miles. I participated in my first 5k race in December, and completed the race in 28 minutes. I also started taking tennis classes, and I loved it. I can’t wait to start new classes again. I biked a lot, as usual, and I took a bicycle repair class at the Broadway Bicycle School.
A couple of other notable things from 2012: I refinanced my mortgage and once again discovered how inept the people who work in this business are. After twelve years of living here I finally decided to apply for citizenship, and became citizen on September 11. I voted for the first time, and was happy with the results. I got to meet Elizabeth Warren, the new senator from Massachusetts, so now I have met both Senators from MA in person. Oh, and being a citizen means I can now run for office, but don’t worry, I don’t plan to.
In 2012 I experienced some disappointments, but no reason to talk about that now. I do not have any major new year’s resolutions, but I will definitely try to do certain things different: I will try to visit places I haven’t been to before. I would love to have someone willing and able to travel with me, but I am also willing to travel by myself. I will try to read more, and after many years I have cancelled my New Yorker subscription in order to free up time to read the untouched books in my bookcase. I will try to get back to creative things I used to like, like drawing.
Above all, in 2013 I will do my best to find time for all the small and big things that make happy. Happy New Year.
Eight out of ten times when I take the bus by myself, something weird will happen. Most likely a chatty strange person will start talking to me. I am not really a big fan of strangers (normal or not-so-normal) talking to me, which ironically enough enforces the magnetic field of my being a weirdo magnet.
The other day I get out of my building to catch the bus, which is three minutes away according to NextBus. There is another person at the stop, and ten seconds later he asks “Excuse me, do the buses run on a 20-minute schedule?” “I don’t know about their schedule,” I reply “but the next bus is coming in a couple of minutes.” That was easy, I think to myself. Oh, boy, am I wrong. “Oh, thank you, you look like you know what is going on, people these days have their smartphones and they can tell when the bus is coming, I bet you have a smartphone too,” he says. “Yes, I do,” I reply and turn my head to the other direction from where he is standing. ”I don’t take this bus often, I just got here from the other bus stop, I waited for 15 minutes,” he says. Who the hell asked you what you did, I think, yet the only response I manage is “Oh.” One would think a one-word response would get across the message that the other person does not wish to engage in conversation, but this guys is impervious to the message.
I don’t exactly remember what was the next thing he says, but somehow within a couple of minutes he has told me that his nephew who was in jail for years and was a heroin addict is now married to an attorney, that his father is 84 years old, he has three sisters and three brothers, one of his sisters lives in Arlington across the street from this restaurant, as in directly across the street, when you get out of the restaurant and look across the street his sister’s house door is the first thing you see (the guy was pretty talented in making boring things sounding even more boring). At this point I wonder what happened to those bloody three minutes the bus was supposed to come in, did they magically turn into three hours? Because this is how it feels like.
I start noticing what he looks like: mid to late forties, dark brown hair, skinny, around five-ten, wearing a turtleneck and a clip with his keys like a pendant, hung from his turtleneck. Dude, that’s not where the clip goes, but whatever makes you happy, I thought. He keeps talking non-stop: his mother died from cancer fifteen years ago, she was in and out of hospitals and chemotherapy for a long time, but he knows she’s happy now because she’s in heaven with the angels. At this point I am kind of jealous of the mother, because she doesn’t have to listen to this guy. The angels reference triggers the next theme of his unending monologue: religion. “I believe in God you see, I read the bible, I have a study bible and a King James bible, and the study bible has an index, you can look up a word and it tells you what page it is on. The bible is a very useful book, and I read it when I don’t know how to handle situations, because when I get angry I am scared of what I might do, ’cause I might kick someone hard and my legs are very strong.” What. The. Fuck. I take a couple of steps back, and I’m glad there is another person at the stop. It is not that I feel threatened he might kick me, he doesn’t look angry or anything, but now I feel uneasy on top of annoyed.
Thankfully (relatively) he goes back to talking about the bible and he tells me he’s a Catholic, while adding, “I bet you are a Catholic too.” Funny, you just lost the bet. He then proceeds to get even more annoying: “Oh, man, and all this gay marriage bullshit, it’s in the bible, it’s a sin, I cannot stand those queers, just get out of my face you queers. ” I bet the queers would like you to get out of their faces, buddy. What a bigoted piece of shit. Up to this point I restricted myself to politely smiling and nodding, but this last point wipes the smile off my face. Suddenly I feel like I am acting in a farce, and I get the urge to start laughing in his face, but I stop short when I remember his anger reference. So, I turn serious, I put much effort so that my face looks as serious at it can. The dude notices that and stops yapping. “Do you know what the most dangerous sin of all is?” I ask. “Do you?” I add for effect. I have the guy’s attention, he blinks and nods. “GREED, greed is the greatest sin of all,” I tell him, dead serious.
He tries to process this for a couple of seconds, and it gets him going about the sins listed in the bible, and I just want to scream shut the fuck up, enough already, and the bus finally appears, and I am pretty sure these have been the longest three minutes of my life. I get on the bus and he’s right behind me. He asks the driver “Do I know you?”, while the bus driver gives him a wtf look. The bus is jammed, he yells for the people to move to the back of the bus to make some room for the people getting on. I need to escape, I just need an available single seat, but every seat seems occupied. Then I spot a third of a seat, it is a middle seat between two gigantic people wearing gigantic puffy jackets. Fuck that, I think to myself, and I jam myself in that one-third of a seat between these two huge guys, but at least I am away from the weirdo, who walks back towards the front of the bus to annoy some other unlucky person, I’m sure. I start feeling that the huge guys are crushing my bones, but I have escaped the weirdo, I have escaped!
Last Sunday December 2, 2012 I ran the Yulefest 2012, my first 5k race. It was fun, the weather was not too bad, and I managed to finish it at 28:36, my best 5k time so far. As someone who only started running in April, it felt pretty good to be able to run it comfortably. My overall ranking was 787th out of 1,363 runners. The race course was around Harvard Square, and was mainly flat, apart from an uphill section a little before the finish.
There was a cool after-race party on Bratlle Street with music, snacks, and free-flowing beer. And good beer, mind you, from Pretty Things, Notch and Slumbrew. So much beer on a virtually empty stomach made me very happy for the rest of the day.
The thing is, it is a nice surprise to see my body liking this new running thing. Every time I go running I feel strong and powerful afterwards. I might be a little obsessed with it too, as I now plan to concentrate on improving my running form and my running time. And the plan is to run many more 5k races. On one condition: there has to be (good) beer at the after party.
Last week the City finally sent workers to our building to trim the branches from a couple of trees that were touching our building. In my request I had asked them to trim them a couple of feet back from the building, but I guess the tree warden thought that some dead branches needed to be chopped off. When I came back from work and looked outside my windows, it was a pretty disappointing sight: it looked like the overzealous trimmer was on duty that day. Where did all the branches go? Where did all the green leaves go? After my initial shock, I noticed that something else was missing: the squirrel nest. There had been a squirrel nest on one of the trees since I had moved here five ears ago, and now it was gone. That nest had withstood storms, snow, wind, freezing cold, rain. But I suppose it stood no chance before the mighty power of the saw. Do animals have feelings? How did the squirrel feel when he saw his nest was gone? I will miss his silliness, I will miss seeing the nest always there defying any kind of weather.
On Monday at work we noticed that nobody picked up the trash. Usually, the cleaning guy, Fernando, goes around in every office and empties the trash bins. The Friday before he had mentioned that he was very busy, but then again he always was busy. Maybe he took Monday off, we speculated. On Tuesday another cleaning guy showed up. Perhaps Fernando is on vacation and he is his replacement, we thought. But Fernando hadn’t mentioned anything about vacation. Today, Wednesday, we got an email saying that Fernando most likely is not coming back and we should give the new guy a chance as he’s learning the ropes. What do you mean Fernando is not coming back, we asked. Why no explanation? What happened? Was he fired? Highly unlikely, since he was one of the most hard working guys I know. Did he quit? If he did, why so abruptly?
I was really curious to find out what happened. Not just to justify my curiosity, but to justify the need to know why a person I like is not around any more. I found out what happened, and, I suppose, Fernando, most likely, is not coming back. After a traffic stop Fernando was found to be driving without a license. And I suppose without an ID. Fernando was an illegal immigrant, it turns out. He is now held in some detention center and will be deported to Brazil soon.
We all liked Fernando. Always working hard, even through high fever. Always with a smile, never a complaint. He worked every day from early in the morning to late into the night. Two to three jobs a day, cleaning offices, houses, doing landscaping. He only had Sundays off to play soccer or go to the beach. He was saving all his money and sending it back home to his village. His village was poor and he was helping build a school. He was fundraising for his project. I feel so stupid that I don’t remember where in Brazil his village is. I wish I had paid more attention. He is also a famous soccer commentator in Brazil, on radio and on the web. He was also going to start taking language lessons, to improve his broken English.
Fernando was funny. He would always look into my trash bin, and if he saw a candy or granola bar wrapper in there, he would say: “Don’t eat this. You get fat!” I would laugh hard when he said that. And I would say something like “But it is tiny!” At some point I started placing my candy trash in other people’s bins. One day I got back in my office, and he had collected all my wrappers from all the bins and put them on my desk. “I know what you doing! Don’t eat this! You get fat!” For Christmas, he gave me a present, a DVD. I thought it was going to be something like ‘How to lose 20 lbs in a week!’. It turned out it was a music DVD with a live Paula Fernandes show. She is a big Brazilian star. It was a nice gesture, and I was touched. I really was.
Another loss. So soon it feels. I hope the squirrel builds another nest on a healthier branch. And I hope Fernando back in Brazil accomplishes his dreams. I’m sure he’ll find a way. Fernando, we didn’t have the chance to say thank you, to say goodbye. So, thank you. We miss you, and we wish you the best. You deserve it. Goodbye.
Monday morning I was on the red line, going back home after running some errands in downtown Boston. An older woman was sitting next to me, and the younger woman she was with was standing next to her. I noticed the young woman was dressed in that Boston-random style, with non-matching fabrics, textures, colors. I thought if I were to look around I would be soon laying eyes on the male equivalent of the Boston-random style, the wrinkled pleated tan khakis, the baby blue button-down shirt, white socks and scruffy chunky black shoes; and there he was, to my right. Some things never change.
The two women soon started chatting. The young woman started telling a story how she got involved in some sort of a dispute. Her story involved a painting, a dead man, a hospital, a widow, the dead man’s children who were estranged from the widow, and an attorney who helped the young woman get out of the middle of the dispute and do the right thing. It was an interesting story. Yes, I was unwillingly eavesdropping, not easy to ignore the closeness of her talking mouth to my good left ear.
It became apparent that they were mother and daughter. The mother was visiting the daughter, the daughter was pointing where she works (“very close to that Citgo sign”) and various city landmarks. The young woman looked like she was in her late thirties to early forties. At some point she started talking about sailing and how she and Andrew like sailing. Andrew’s birthday was coming up soon. I looked up to see if she was wearing a wedding band or engagement ring, she wasn’t. Andrew must be the boyfriend then. She said that Andrew was very insistent on not getting a present for his birthday. “He texted me, what time is your meeting done, and added ‘no gifts’ at the end,” she said. “No gifts, no gifts, no gifts,” she added with a moving-arms-horizontally gesture that implied insistence and finality. Which was too bad, because the woman had this cool idea of a gift, a short sailing trip (since they both liked sailing), where they could be either crew or just passengers, it was only $60 per person. But Andrew had rejected her idea, cause he just didn’t want any gifts for his birthday. “No gifts” remember?
That Andrew guy started sounding like a jerk. I started sympathizing with the younger woman. “So when are you guys going to his mother’s place?” the mother asked. “Well, Andrew is going on Friday, I was not invited,” the daughter replied. “Oh, I see,” the mother said. Then the daughter started saying how whenever his mother visits she is not invited to meet her. “So you haven’t met his mother yet?” the mother asked. “Nope, no,” the daughter said, her voice full of disappointment. “When his mother visits, Andrew disappears, no calls, no texts, I don’t hear from him.” Fuck you, Andrew.
“And then he plans the whole thing and he expects me to take half the day off from work without even asking if I can do that,” the daughter went on. “You don’t have to be the yes-man always,” the mother said trying gently to give advice. “I know but I thought I could do my best so that we can spend more time together,” the daughter said.
At that point I just wanted to say dump him. Andrew sounds like a jerk and you do not sound happy. He will never be there for you. He’s the guy who expects you to do everything he wants you to do in his very specific way. He has strict rules you cannot break. You are not allowed to do something simple that will give you some joy, like buy him a present (really, Andrew, really?) or meet his mother. You haven’t met his mother after many visits, he still hasn’t accepted you as part of his life. And by the way, is she really the “mother” we’re talking about? He’s the kind of guy who says “I” when he should say “we”. There will never be a “we”. How long will you have to wait before he “accepts” you for what you are? You don’t seem happy, lady, just do yourself a favor and go. You sound like a sensitive, considerate woman, you deserve better, you can do better. Dump him. Now.
I was never a runner. I never liked running. I remember Phys-Ed classes when we had to run laps around the school and I couldn’t do it because my throat, my stomach and my sides ached. I remember the much-hated warm up for the rowing class when we had to run 3 kilometers, and I wish I could exchange it for a hundred sit-ups and a hundred push-ups. I was an active child who became a relatively active adult. Although I am of good health, I am not the one who goes to the gym. There are many things I hate about gyms, like the proximity to strangers’ warm and sweaty bodies, the stale air. I do realize the significance of staying active, and in the past five years I have taken modern dance and yoga classes, I bicycle and walk a lot. I do it because it makes me feel better, walk better, breathe better.
I live on a bike path, and I always admired the runners and joggers going by. They do it when it is cold, they come out like snails after a rain, sometimes even during a rainstorm. A month ago I looked up an 8-week training program to run a 5k. The idea is that working on your running stamina by the end of the 8th week you’ll be able to run 5 kilometers (or 3.11 miles). It was called ‘couch to 5k’ which I think is a dumb name. I don’t necessarily consider myself a couch potato. But being one who never ran, I thought it was a good program to gradually introduce my body to running. The training program includes different routines 3 times a week for 8 weeks. I was skeptical, as after running even the shortest distance I would feel like puking and like I was going to die. But what the heck, I thought, out of shape people can do this why not me? I can bicycle everyday 20 miles, why can I not run 3 miles?
I downloaded a couple of apps on my iPhone to help me keep track of my progress, or lack thereof. The app keeps track of the time, which is important in the beginning when you have to alternate between running and walking. I started the training in mid April. I stretched beforehand. Week 1 Day 1 of the training program called for a 5-minute brisk walk for warm up (that was easy), and then 1 minute running and 1.5 minute walking (repeat 6 times). By the end of every 1-minute run I could hardly breathe. But I didn’t give up and I managed to complete the routine. By the end of the first week I was feeling stronger. Every training session is around 30 minutes long, including a 5-minute warm up and a 5-minute cool down. Sometimes I had to deal with side stitches. I tried to figure out ways to phase those out. I realized that I shouldn’t eat anything for at least 4 hours before I went for a run, and I had to properly stretch my sides and torso. I also learned to avoid shallow breathing and tried for deeper breathing. Still, there were days when I would come home feeling like puking, and not be able to eat anything for hours afterwards. I generally trained on the bikepath. In the beginning my knees would hurt every time my feet would hit the pavement, but those aches wore off. I experimented with different angles of striking the ground, different angles of knee bends, different upper body posture. I tried a couple of different routes. The worst surface to run on is brick, the best dirt.
I found that overall I was doing well. Sometimes when the trainer’s voice in the app would say “start your cool down now” I would think “that was it?!”. The simple fact that some running training was easy for me and I could do more than what was required was both surprising and satisfying. It would put a smile on my face. Not every day went well. There was one day that I didn’t do well, I paused my running to walk when I shouldn’t have, I was feeling heavy and everything was difficult. The fact that it was pouring and I was dragging my rain-soaked cotton clothes was not of much help either. So I repeated that training routine the next day. The next day was dry and I managed to do it better and easier. Now I am in the 7th week, that is the penultimate week of the training. On Monday which was Day 1 of Week 7 I was supposed to jog for 25 minutes (or 2.5 miles) with no walking or stopping. I managed to do the 2.5 miles but my time was 30 minutes, so I need to improve my pace. But the fact that I jogged for 30 minutes with no walking or stopping feels awesome to me. Seven weeks ago I could hardly run for one minute straight.
That night my dreams were filled with scenes of me running. I was light on my feet, the terrain felt soft under my feet. I felt strong and happy. I could visualize new routes, turns, uphill, downhill stretches and everything was easy and possible. Back to reality, according to the training plan by the end of next week (week 8) I will be able to run 3.11 miles in 30 minutes. We shall see. But the truth is there is no possibility of failure. I will keep doing it until I get it right. I will keep doing it until I get a better time, until I do it smooth and graceful. I think I might be hooked on running.
I’m at work listening to a discussion between two of my co-workers. I’m not part of the discussion, but they are outside my office, so I can’t help but hear what they say. Let’s call them C and M. C narrates what happened to a meeting last night, what decisions were made and how this affects M. She tells M “because you are in this position, based on what they decided on the meeting last night, this thing will happen to you.” M responds with a “yes”.
The thing is that everything C says about M is wrong: he is not in the position she says he is, so he will not be affected by the meeting’s decision the way she is describing. C talks like she really knows what she’s talking about. When C goes to another office and she’s out of earshot, I tell M: “What C says is wrong. You are not in that position. Nothing of what she just said will happen.” He laughs and says he knows. “Why didn’t you tell her”, I ask. “Oh, because she thinks she’s right”, he responds.
And this is something I don’t like. M didn’t bother to correct C. Now C will go on and tell the same thing to other people in the same confident manner. And possibly spread the same incorrect thoughts and conclusions to others. Why does one not bother to correct someone is something I can’t understand. I can’t stand quiet when someone says something I know for a fact is wrong. I will correct them. Not because I like correcting people, but because I like people to know the true facts.
We all have opinions, we all have perceptions. Some of them are right, some of them are wrong. For instance, I always thought the singer of Beach House is a man, because it sounded like a man to me. Once in a conversation, somebody referred to the singer as a “she”, which prompted a back and forth, “it’s a she”, “no, it’s a he!”. In the end I googled and turned out I was wrong. It is nice to now know the singer is a woman and not make a full fool of myself the next time I’m talking about Beach House.
There are people, though, who do not like to be corrected. They take corrections as arguments or negativity. When something is objective (e.g. if it is 9 a.m. it is morning, it cannot be night) as opposed to subjective (e.g. mornings are great or mornings suck) there is really no argument to be made. Correcting people is not an argument. It’s continuous education, it’s continuous learning. When I say something with the wrong accent or use the wrong preposition (by the way, why is it so hard for me to use the right preposition?) I want to be corrected. Because this is the only way I will learn how to say things right. This is how I will be a better person, this is how I will not sound ignorant or stupid. I want to improve, I want to be better. All corrections are welcome.
