Generosity: The Virtue that Never Ceases to Amaze

Sometimes, I am absolutely flabbergasted by the generosity of other people. Truly.

Take R___, my fiance. He recently took part in this work event called a "Hack Day" where all the developers stay overnight and code feverishly (for fun, mind you) to create new company-related programs or features that they think would be cool. R___'s feature earned him an award where they gave him a mini bonus . . . which he then turned around and donated to a charity, since his company agreed to match the amount.

Is that not the textbook definition of generous?

But okay, maybe I'm a bit biased toward R___. After all, he is going to be my husband.

So let's take two of my teammates: S___ and J___. I first met S___ when I was working in Brooklyn and my coach told me, "Hey, there's this fast girl who lives and runs in Brooklyn near you. She has great form. You should see if you can hook up with her sometime--it'd be good for you. " He was right on all accounts (coaches are usually, annoyingly, right--kind of like moms): she was fast, she did have great form, and running with her was very, very good for me. But the best and most unexpected part came when, because I was about to leave my job and had to give up my local gym access (and therefore shower), she offered the use of her apartment.

Now let's face it: inviting an acquaintance into your apartment is kind of a risky thing. Our homes are small extensions of ourselves; inviting someone in gives them a rather intimate glimpse into your finances, habits, and priorities. Plus, on a more practical level, having another person around disrupts your life routine. (Although, I'd like to think, sometimes for the better.)

However, S___ seemed to have no problem with my imposing on her living space, and eventually this imposition turned into once-a-week routine where I'd show up at her door to drop off my stuff; we'd run to the track and do our workout; and then we'd run back to shower and eat breakfast together before she left for work and I headed off to the local library. In this way, we were able to spend time together and forge a real relationship--something we might have never done had she not generously offered me the use of her apartment.

So in a nutshell, S___ was amazingly generous to me. But then, not more than a few months later, our coach brought on a new assistant coach and moved our workouts from Brooklyn and to the East River track . . . twice a week at 6:30am. Now I had a whole new set of obstacles: I had to ride the PATH in from NJ, run 2 miles to the track, do the workout, run 2 miles back to the PATH, and ride the PATH back to NJ in order to shower and eat . . . and ride the PATH again if I wanted to come back into the NYC for any reason.* This was, to put it succinctly, a hassle. At our first workout, I made mention of what a hassle this was, and my teammate J___ piped up, "Well you can always come and use my apartment."

Now let me back up for a second. At this point in time, J___ was officially the newest member of our running team. I had met her literally two times before this: once at a casual long run where my coach (yet again) had told me to, "Come and meet this fast girl. She's really bubbly. She's thinking about joining," and once when I invited her to do a tempo run up the West Side Highway. That's it. Two meetings. And then, at our third, she offered up free, unconditional use of her apartment. Is that not one of the most generous things you've ever heard?

But okay, okay. These are my current teammates; maybe I'm biased toward them, too. So let me offer up my final, crowning vignette.

Last weekend, I went to the Poconos for a writing retreat. While the main goal up there was to write (obviously), I also had a 16-mile run to do on Saturday. Therefore, I spent Friday night mapping out my course, trying to create the easiest, most direct route possible. And what is the easiest, most direct route possible? An out-and-back, which is exactly what it sounds like: running in one direction and then turning around and running back. This being the Poconos, it wasn't going to be possible to run in a straight line for 8 miles, so the route had a few turns, but it was pretty darned simple: take a left, then a right, then another right, and keep going straight until my watch read 8 miles. Then, turn around and run back.

Sounds simple, right? It sounds so simple that I decided not to take my phone with me when I left at 7am that morning. I knew the risks--I could get a cramp or run into a bear, and I'd be all by myself, virtually in the middle of nowhere--but the annoyance of having to carry my phone in my hand and get it all sweaty and salt-encrusted ultimately outweighed those unlikely risks. And before you ask, yes, the possibility of getting lost did cross my mind. But was I really going to get lost? I mean, the route had three turns in it. I wasn't going to get lost.

Until I did.

Seventeen miles later, surrounded by silent leafless trees, with no sign of civilization in sight--never mind the specific house I should have reached a mile back--I started to get worried. It all looked eerily familiar while also being completely unfamiliar, and I couldn't just keep running in this random direction without knowing where I was going. So I stopped on the side of the empty road and waited. Several minutes later, a car drove by. They either didn't see my extended hand, or they ignored it. I waved more enthusiastically at the next car, and it slowed down. The driver inside rolled down his window halfway. He looked suspicious.

"Hi!" I tried to look friendly. "Do you know what road this is?"

"River."

River was not the name of any road I remembered from my map.

"Do you know where Upper Ridge Drive is?" He looked at me blankly. "Or . . . the ski lodge?" I knew the ski lodge was somewhat close to the house we had rented.

"Uh, well the ski lodge is down this road." He pointed in the direction I'd been running.

"Oh great! Like, maybe a mile do you think?"

He paused. "Probably a few." Then he drove away.

Now, I have talked to drivers before about distances, and when they say "a few miles" they typically mean at least five. So I aimlessly walked another quarter of a mile and then stopped, listening to the intermittent sounds of rifle shots echoing through the trees. This wasn't going to work. I couldn't walk five miles after that run, especially wearing a sweaty tank top and shorts when the weather outside was in the low fifties. As humiliating as it might be, I was going to have to flag down another car and ask to use their phone.

Two cars later, an SUV pulled up. A big maple leaf was drawn on the door, above the words "Park Services." My heart leapt as I trotted across the road. Inside sat a young woman, probably my age or a few years younger. She leaned out of the window.

"Are you lost?"

Yes. The answer was yes.

I asked to use her phone, but since she didn't have a data plan, there was no way for me to know where I was in order to call someone to come pick me up. After consulting a few useless maps she had in her glove compartment, she told me what she'd do. She needed to return this vehicle a bit farther up the road, and she couldn't take me with her because there were rules against having people in park-owned vehicles. However, then she'd have her personal vehicle, and she had a GPS in it, so if I could just hang tight for ten minutes, she would come back, pick me up, and drive me wherever I needed to go. Gratefully, I waved goodbye and then found a rock to sit on and wait.

And wait. And wait.

A lot went through my mind during what turned out to be a twenty-five minute wait. I thought about how stupid and lazy and stubborn I was for not taking my phone with me. (I thought a lot about that.)  I thought about how amazing it was that this random woman was willing to take the time out of her day to come back for me. I thought about the possibility that she'd forget me. I thought about what the other writers back at the house must be thinking, now that I'd been gone for 3 hours. I thought about how cold I was.

Then, I saw a small silver car slow down and pull over to the shoulder. The headlights flashed. My savior had arrived!

Even as I write this several days later, I'm filled with amazement and gratitude that a complete stranger, going about her day, would be willing to stop and help a lost runner get back to where she belonged. And what she offered wasn't just ordinary, casual "help"; this woman went completely out of her way to get her own vehicle, drive back to where I was waiting, and then drive yet another ten minutes out of her way to take me where I needed to go. I almost can't believe it. Would I do that? Would I be that open-hearted? I honestly don't know. I'd like to think I would, but if I'm completely honest, I'm not 100% sure I'd even stop my car. I hope I would. I hope, someday, I will.

*Note: for those of you familiar with these transportation systems who are wondering why I didn't just take the PATH to 14th street and then take L train to 1st Ave instead of running from 9th and 6th, that would have cost me an extra $11/week. And I'm not only a frugal person, but now I'm a frugal person trying to be a freelancer.)

NYC Marathon: (A Much Better) Part 2

As you may or may not have read in Part 1, I had a rough start to the NYC Marathon. A good bit of that was my fault, but knowing that didn't help very much when I was standing on the Verrazano Bridge, shivering and wondering what I had been thinking in choosing to run such a crowded, well-known race.

I'm used to running smaller, more obscure races that no one knows about unless I happen to mention them. Now, I had all these people at work and in my writing group and at my pool coming up to me and asking if I was excited, what my goal time was . . . all sorts of questions. While I certainly know that they're just trying to be supportive, it felt like more and more pressure! What if I didn't make my goal time or something terrible happened and I didn't even finish. I would have to tell all these people! Never mind my coach, who clearly had a goal time in mind, even if he hadn't told me what it was. Heck, I had a goal time in mind, and disappointing myself was the worst feeling of all. But I also tend to have high expectations, so disappointing myself was also a very likely possibility. (More great planning on my part, I know.)

To make what's already a long story . . . less long, I'll just say that the race started, and I ran. Here's an approximation of what I recall thinking along various miles of the course:

Miles 1-2: I cannot believe I'm going to have to do mental math at every mile. I passed mile 1 at 11:45, so minus the 3-ish minutes it too me to cross the start line. . . . The clock did say 11:45, right? And not 12:45? Guys are so lucky, being able to just pee off this bridge. Ew it's on the ground! I'm stepping in it! I think it splashed my calf! Oh my god, if I see another obviously uninjured person walking, I might punch them. Seriously, if you wanted to walk the race, you should have started in the last wave, not up here with all of us.

Miles 3-7: Geez there are a lot of Hispanic people in Brooklyn. And I thought this would be one of the emptier sections of the route. I should not have brought my iPod. Oh look, there's . . . what's her name? E__'s friend? Argh! "Hey green hat girl!" She didn't hear me. Oh well. Yikes! Sewer grate! Why do people insist on running in pairs? It's hard enough to dodge around all the single runners. This should be outlawed. Oh look it's Ju___ and Ma___! Hi guys!

Miles 7-8: Okay, somewhere in here I'm supposed to see R___ and my aunt. What was the name of the cross-street I gave them? Degraw? Delancey? I knew I should have memorized the directions I wrote them better. It was something with a D. . . . If my Garmin was working, I know it's at mile 7.8. Grrr. Okay, it's almost mile 8; I think I'm supposed to skip this water stop. Oh look there they are! Oh my gosh, my aunt has her camera out! Hi!

Miles 9-12: Am I running fast enough? I don't think I'm down to 7:30s yet. Was I even supposed to run 7:30s to make my the half marathon time J___ set for me? What's 1:38 divided by 13? I guess if you times it by 60 and add 38. . . . I can't do this. My half marathon PR was basically 1:30 and that was sub-7s, so my splits for this must be slower than 7:30 per mile, because 8 minutes divided by 13 is not 30 seconds a mile. Or something. Shoot the Gu! Well, guess I can just take it now. Where's the next water stop? Oh ew, this stuff is so disgusting. After this race I must find an alternative. Ugh, it's so slimy in my mouth. Swallow, swallow. . . .

Mile 13: Oh no. I think I'm getting my period. Yep, this is definitely happening. Well, at least I feel better about almost crying this morning.

Miles 14-15: That guy said "Mile 15" back at the water station, but I didn't see a mile marker or a clock. Did I just miss them? I wonder if E___ made it out here in time to see me. It would be a miracle if I can spot her among all these people. I don't remember this section being so crowded when I cheered before! Oh look, there's the 15 mile marker. I knew I didn't miss it. Lord this bridge is long. And cold. And windy. Is the sun really not going to come out for the rest of the race?

Mile 16: Holy crap that is a lot of people. Please, please don't let blood drip down my leg. Please.

Mile 17-18: So this is when I'm supposed to hit the wall, right? I feel pretty okay. Shoot that was a mile marker, wasn't it. Guess I'll just do my minute of "pickup" now. I wonder if J___ knows how hard it is to estimate a minute without a watch. There's that lady in the long-sleeved purple shirt again! Am I just going to keep passing her every time I do this pickup minute? Whatever, I'll get her in the end. Re___'s supposed to be somewhere along here . . . there she is! I cannot believe she made me a sign! Oh my gosh and there's Mi___! I totally forgot she lives in NYC. Somehow I associated her with DC, but that's just because she ran the Marine Corps Marathon. Oh wow and there's Ma___! That guy must be her boyfriend. How cool that they came all the way down from CT for this!

Mile 19: R___ and Aunt B___ will be at 117th. 117th . . . 117th . . . 117th . . . just get to 117th. . . . There they are! They made it!  Oops, I'm supposed to get water here. Or was it Gatorade? Whatever, I'm already past that. Oh, oh, oh! I got it in my eye! Is my contact still there? I'm blind! Okay, no I'm not. Blink it back. There you go. God it's cold.

Mile 20: The Bronx isn't so empty. There are people up here. GCR is supposed to be up here, I think. I hope I didn't pass them. Why didn't I read that email more closely?

Mile 21: Another bridge. G*!$@&^it. Why am I doing this? Whose idea was this, anyway? What a terrible idea. Hey look, it's T__! I can't believe he's here! Come on, try to smile. He knows you're tired.

Mile 22: There are R___ and Aunt B___! Sheesh, she's still go her camera. You have to smile. Now. You're supposed to be having fun. That's what R___ told you last night: have fun. Fun, fun, fun.

Mile 23-25: Oh my God my legs hurt. I swear they did not hurt like this last time. Are they even moving very fast? Why are people passing me? This is supposed to be my glory time! I'm supposed to be passing other people! What is wrong with me? Don't walk. Walking is not allowed. If you walk, you'll never start running again. It's almost over. Just a few more miles. You can do this. You could run 4 miles in your sleep. Just 4 more. Come on.

Mile 25-26: Okay, you can pick it up for one mile. One. Single. Mile. Look at all these people cheering. This is supposed to be motivating. I don't even care. I'm not smiling for them. It hurts so bad. Why can't I go any faster? Where are my legs? Why does this hurt so much?

Mile .2: Is that the finish line? No, that can't be it. There'll be an arch and stuff. But I thought it was at the top of this hill! Why are we still running? Oh my god, that girl just flew by you. You suck. You aren't even moving your legs. There it is. Right there. You're almost there. 3:21-something. God you're the worst. Not even close to 3:15. Whatever, it'll be a PR as long as you don't stop. Just get there.

Nothing like self pep talks, huh? I swear, those last 6 miles are nothing but mental. The sidelines could have been completely empty, and I wouldn't even have cared. It was just me, the road, and the pain. But I made it.

As it turns out, I don't care much about crowds. Seeing people I know is important; knowing that R___ and my aunt would be at specific miles looking for me was really helpful, because it gave me something to look forward to, to "run toward." And seeing other people along the way was a real boost, too. But big generic crowds? By the end I barely noticed them.

And no, I didn't make my "secret" goal of a 3:15 marathon, but I did get a personal best, beating my 2009 marathon time by about 2 minutes. Apparently I also fell into the 60-second window of time my coach J___ predicted for me, so I can't really be ashamed of my race . . .  at all.

I'll just have to put in more work before the next race.

For whoever is interested, here are the race results:

Winning Times
Male Overall: 2:08:24
Female Overall: 2:25:07
Female 25-29 (my age group: 2:44:19

My Results

Race Length	Finishing Time	Average Pace	Overall Place	Gender Place	Age Group Place (F25-29)
26.2 miles	3:18:53	7:36/mile	2,537/ TBD	240/ TBD	67/2,974

Here are my splits (which I have to admit are amazingly consistent):

5k	10k	15k	13.1	25k	30k	35k	40k
0:23:57	0:46:41	1:09:51	1:38:25	1:57:14	2:20:28	2:44:53	3:08:36

NYC Marathon: (A Miserable) Part 1

I did not have the greatest start to the NYC marathon--most of which was my own fault.

The day before the marathon, I picked up my aunt from the Port Authority bus station around noon (she was coming in to cheer me on!), and we walked around New York City for, oh . . . the next three or four hours. She wanted to see the High Line, which seemed like a very reasonable request, except that I didn't remember it being quite so long. Midway along the walk, she kindly offered to stop, but we had to walk to the end because I needed to return a library book to a library I had scouted out that was located down by 9th street. Of course, the library I had so brilliantly chosen wasn't at 9th street and 11th Ave; it was at 9th street and 6th Ave, so we had to walk almost an entire mile in addition to having just walked about 3 miles. Then, I thought we could easily stop by and see R___, who was eating lunch in the area, but it turned out that he was much farther east than I had anticipated, so we ended up walking all the way over to 2nd Ave--another mile--on top of everything. By the time we got home, no thanks to my poor planning, we had probably walked about 6 miles. After which I stood at the stove for an hour-and-a-half, cooking dinner.

All in all, probably not the best-thought-out plan for the day before a marathon.

The race day itself started out as expected. I had laid out all of my clothing and gear the night before, so I had no problem downing my breakfast; greasing up my legs, chest, and armpits; donning my outfit (plus all of my keep-warm throwaway clothing for the start); collecting my packed bag (complete with freshly charged watch and iPod); and heading out the door right on time. The PATH train also came on time--thank goodness--and before I knew it, I was at the Staten Island Ferry terminal, ready to board the 6:45AM ferry.

That's when I went to turn on my watch.

For those who have not read my blog in the past, I purchased my first GPS Garmin watch a few short months ago. Since then, I have yet to run a race where it has not malfunctioned in some way. At the Bronx 10-miler, it died completely midway through the race. At the Staten Island Half, it lost satellite reception about 8 miles into the race and never recovered. So really, I should have known better than to wear this fickle contraption for a race as important as the NYC Marathon. But it just worked so well during the weeks when I run regular workouts, that I keep thinking, "Nah, it'll be fine. Those two other times were just flukes." Not so.

I am 100% positive that when I unhooked my watch from its charger that morning, the display showed the battery as being fully charged (i.e. a solid, unblinking 4 bars in that little rectangular battery shape). In an effort to preserve the battery as much as possible, I turned the watch off completely, intending to turn it back on when I had finished being underground (so that it wound't drain itself during that part of the trip, looking for satellite reception). Therefore, imagine my surprise when, standing in the ferry terminal, I went to push the "on" button and nothing happened. Not a beep, not a flicker--nothing.

I'm embarrassed to say that my first instinct was to cry. Seriously? On the most important day when I needed this thing to work, it wasn't even going to turn on? Now, not only would I not know my pace per mile, I wouldn't be able to clock my own running time or even know what time of day it was! (That last part was not entirely true: I had my iPod with me, so I could check the time on that device. But doing so involved pushing a button to get the display to turn on, whereas glancing down at my wrist would have been so much easier. That was the point of having a watch in the first place!)

On top of the watch malfunction, I was feeling weird hungry/nervous flutters in my stomach. I hadn't eaten a ton at dinner, because I usually snack well into the night. However, since I also didn't stay up as late as I usually do, I didn't have as much time to snack . . . so now I was feeling a little empty. I got out the almonds I had brought with me and tried to eat some, but they tasted like cardboard and I wasn't sure my stomach actually wanted those, anyway. I unwrapped a Cliff Bar and took a few bites, trying to talk myself down from full-blown panic, when something finally went my way. I heard my name.

"Allison?"

Emerging from the sea of people was H___, another GCR runner whom I hadn't seen in weeks. I had heard that she was injured and wasn't even sure if she'd be running the marathon at all, but there she was, smiling up at me from under her a brown-and-white beanie.

H___ was my saving grace for the rest of the morning. Without her, no matter how many times I told myself, "You still have your legs. You don't need a watch to run a good race. It's not raining. You're going to be fine," I am certain I would have been fixated on my stupid watch failure and remained miserable right up until the moment the race started. However, despite her plan to run this race on a stress fracture, H___ was in great spirits and we chatted all the way up until we found the rest of our group at the waiting area on Staten Island.

That's when my next problem arose: I couldn't poop.

To any non-runners reading this, I don't think there is any feeling--apart from cramping--that is worse than running a long distance while having to poop. I had this problem during my first marathon, and I somehow miraculously held it in from mile 16 all the way to the finish. To this day, I'm still not sure how I accomplished that feat, and I was fairly certain that if I encountered the same issue during the NYC marathon, I wasn't going to make it; I would have had to stop. And for me, stopping is one of the worst possible things to do during a long-distance race. Not only is it demoralizing, because I know I'm losing a ton of time, but my legs also lock up and make getting started running again next to impossible.

In any case, my plan was to go to the bathroom in the waiting area and then take an Imodium to feel safe for the rest of the race (which is a trick I learned from H___, ironically enough!). However, as gross as this sounds, I simply could not poop. Finally I just took the Imodium and hoped for the best.

Spoiler alert: I didn't have to poop on the race route. I did, however, really need to pee--starting at about 9:20, which is before we even crossed the starting line. I had already peed twice in the previous hour, so how I could possibly needed to go again is beyond my comprehension. Nerves? Too much water the night before? Who knows. In any event, this also worked itself out, because by mile 20, all I could feel was the pain in my legs; there were no thoughts of my bladder. Unfortunately, that did not lessen my panic at the starting line, where I was shivering and worrying in equal measure. Was I going to have to clench my bladder for the entire 3+ hours? And I was going to be drinking even more liquid, too!

More on the actual race, in Part 2. . . .

Lime Green Sneakers

On May 24th, I posted the first of two short prose pieces I wrote at a New York Writers Coalition workshop. I promised that the second piece would go up on the blog at some point, so here it is. Again, it's nothing polished, but for a piece written in 15 minutes, I'm satisfied.

The second prompt was to take something we heard while we were all sharing our first pieces and to use that, somehow, in our second piece. I chose the image of lime green shoes. Here is what I wrote:

His sneakers were the giveaway, how I knew he was cool. Lime green. With yellow laces.

Otherwise, he looked perfectly normal: stonewashed jeans, plaid shirt, silver watch (although he wore it with the face turned inside, so it rested against the inside of his wrist . . . but I didn't notice that until later).

I had never dated a non-Jewish guy. A "goy" as my sister would say. For a while I just figured non-Jewish guys weren't into me; after all, it takes a pretty mature guy to date a girl who won't wear short sleeves or pants. And let's face it: how many mature sixteen year old non-Jewish guys are there?

With Kevin, though, I couldn't pretend he wasn't into me. He put notes in my locker and told all my friends. He sent me flowers, and left me chocolates on Valentine's Day. It was kind of intimidating. But like I said, he wasn't Jewish. Which is why I turned him down. The first time.

The second time, I think I was just intimidated. Intimidated by those shoes, intimidated by the three friends standing behind him and the two standing behind me. I guess I just wimped out, because at that point, I really did want to try it, try dating this non-Jewish boy. Kevin.

And then, finally, we were on a date. By accident. Sort of.

His friends went to Applebee's the same night as my friends went to Applebees, and we all ended up at back-to-back booths. And then the boys started coming over, and stealing nachos, and licking the salt off of their fingers, and drinking right out of our straws. Mara and Caitlyn chased them back to their booth, but of course they had to linger, and steal a chicken wing just to "get back at them," and dip it in ranch dressing, once, twice, bitten part and all. Tammy and I were left alone at our table, crunching ice from our empty Cokes and wiping up chip fragments with the pads of our fingers. Then Tammy went to the bathroom, and the next thing I knew, Kevin was there, sliding into the booth next to me. He stopped about a foot away, and then inched closer and closer until his thigh almost touched mine.

"Why won't you go out with me?" his voice vibrated against my ear. I stared at my lap and saw a flash of lime green beneath the table.

"Just once," I told him. "We can go out one time. And you have to meet my mother first."

That's how it began, this affair with a non-Jewish boy. Kevin.

Seat Smushing: A Not-so-great Way to Start the Morning

I would like to claim that I am a tolerant person. In fact, in most circumstances, I think I am very tolerant (some examples being when R___ doesn't do the dishes as promised, when my dad loudly reads out the prices of thousand-dollar dresses in Bergdorf Goodman, etc.). However, I do have an unfortunate bias against people who do things that I consider inconsiderate.

One such inconsiderate action is when over-sized people take up more than their fair share of a row of seats. Locals where this occurs include airplane seats, bus seats, and--as happened today--subway seats. Maybe if the woman who sat down beside me today had done so in the afternoon, rather than at 6am this morning, I would have felt more genial. However, when she sat down and her body spilled halfway over into my seat, wedging me up against the nearly-as-hefty man sitting on my left, my internal reaction was not very cordial. If you are too large to fit in one seat, lady, you should probably stand until you can. Like I said, not nice. Fortunately, I know better than to voice my thoughts in these situations.

Of course, I also have a healthy guilt complex, so I now need to spend the rest of my day trying to make up for having such evil thoughts toward a fellow human being. Therefore, if you want a smile and a kind word, now is the time to come and see me!

Five Words That Are Not In The Dictionary

Last Friday, I went to a free creative writing workshop, run by the New York Writers Coalition. It was a really neat event: about 25 people met at the Station Island Ferry terminal down near Battery Park. We were all given notepads, picked writing prompts out of a canvas bag, and boarded the ferry. Then, we all sat silently and wrote for the 10-15 minute ferry ride. When we reached Staten Island, we debarked, split into small groups of 4 or 5 people, and read our pieces to one another, giving one positive comment to each writer. Then, we reconvened in the Staten Island terminal, received our second prompt, and repeated the process (boarding the ferry, writing on the ride back, and sharing our pieces in small groups back in the Manhattan terminal).

It has been a very, very long time since I wrote anything purely fictional, and even longer since I wrote a timed fictional piece based on a prompt. I was wary going into the whole experience (would I be able to come up with any ideas? would I be able to find the right words?), but it turned out better than I could have hoped.

The feedback I received was so positive, in fact, that I decided to share the pieces I wrote here, on my blog. They are certainly not polished, nor are they complete, but I'm proud to finally have written something--anything--after such a long writing drought. And, of course, I have always loved writing for (and reading to) an audience.

My first prompt was: Write using give words that are not in the dictionary. Here is what I wrote.

"Katie, it's time to get up."

The bundle of sheets squirmed and then grew still again.

"No Katie, get out of the bed. It's time to go to church."

"Nooooo," came the high pitched whine. "Mommy, I can't."

"Yes you can." Laura leaned over the bed and tugged down the blanket, revealing two bright blue eyes and an impish smile that her daughter quickly contorted into a grimace.

"I can't, Mommy, I can't!"

Despite the protests, Laura tucked one arm under her daughter's body and scooted her toward the edge of the bed.

"Yes you can. Look, I laid out your pretty yellow sundress and your favorite pink shoes."

"But Mommy, I can't wear them!"

Laura started to peel back the blankets further, but Katie yanked the blanket from her grip.

"Mommy, don't!" She pulled the blanket up under her chin, protectively. "You'll see them!"

Laura tried not to sigh. "See what? Why can't you get up and put your clothing on? You know it's Sunday. On Sundays, we get up and get dressed for church."

"Because of them." Katie stared at her mother imploringly.

"Because of who?"

"The honk monsters!"

"The . . . honk monsters." Laura tried not to smile. "And what exactly are these honk monsters doing to keep you from getting ready for church?"

"They nommed my toesies."

Laughter bubbled up inside Laura's throat, and she gave an unconvincing cough. Katie continued to stare at her mother in horror.

They did, Mommy. My toesies are gone!"

When she had finally composed herself, Laura turned to fully face her daughter.

"Daddy is the only one who can nom your toesies, Katie. Remember?"

Katie shook her head.

"It's true," Laura said. "It is. Look what happens when I do it." Gingerly, she unwrapped one of Katie's feet from the blanket and then, bending over, she hovered her mouth right above Katie's toes.

"Ahhhh-nom-nom-nom. Ahhhh-nom-nom-nom."

Then she stood up and shrugged helplessly.

"See? Your toes are still right there. It didn't work."

Katie shook her head. "That's because you didn't do it right. Only Daddy does it right." With that, she began to unwind herself from the sheet. Then, suddenly, she stopped.

"But . . . the honk monsters. What if they come back?"

"No," Laura assured her. "They won't come back. Honk monsters are afraid of shunshi--I mean, sunshine.""

"Shunshine!" Katie leapt out of bed, knocking all of the sheets to the floor. "Shun-shine, shun-shine, who's afraid of shun-shine!"

Hopping from one foot to the other, she danced out of the room and down the hallway toward the bathroom. Laura sank down onto the bed and leaned over to pick the sheet off the floor. From there, she heard the bathroom door open and the rumble of her husband's voice.

"Turble burble, where's my little purble gurble?"

Katie squealed, and the bathroom door slammed shut again.

Shunshine, Laura thought. Banishing honk monsters for my purble gurble.

Day 14, Simple Pleasures

Sometimes I just wish this experiment was over! But I can't give up now. Only 7 days left after today (Day 14). . . .

When the subway shows up immediately after I arrive at my stop. Specifically, I am referring to the PATH train, which arrived almost immediately after I arrived at the station this morning, when I was heading to work. Then, when I transferred, that train arrived quickly too! A nice, smooth commute to work--just the way I like it.

Knowing people around the country, so that when I travel for work, I can visit them. Next week I get to visit two friends while attending a conference in DC, and although I don't know anyone in San Diego, I connected with a friend who moved to San Francisco, and she's giving me the "inside scoop" on what to check out when I visit that city in June! (Even better, she's a swimmer, so she can tell me where all the pools are located. Essential advice for a swimmer way from home!)

Photographs. I feel so sorry for people who lived before the age of photography. Not even digital photography, necessarily, but at the very least pictures to capture who you are and who you are with at a given time, in a given place. Looking at photographs is like looking backwards in time (a day, a month, a year), and looking at other people's photographs is like reading an intimate story of their lives. I am grateful that a friend shared his familiy vacation photos with me today!

Comedy Club Delays Day 7

Having missed yesterday's post (once again), I owe another double-dose of 3x thanks today. Here are my three belated thanks for Day 7:

Being included in R___'s birthday present! As a pre-birthday present, his sister K___ took us to Gotham Comedy Club last night to see Fortune Feimster perform. A great time was had by all.

Eyebrow threading. It makes my eyebrows look nicer than when I pluck them myself, and best of all, Indian ladies charge less for eyebrow threading than Asian ladies do for eyebrow waxing. True story.

Successful email attachments. I'd rather complain about the slow IT response time at work, but instead I'll just be grateful that when they finally responded to my "ticket request" about being unable to attach anything to my outgoing emails, they were able to fix it in all of five minutes. Again, it makes me wonder how anyone ever got work done before email. Well, I guess for one thing, they probably didn't spend 75% of their day answering email. . . !

Hot Yoga Thought

For those of you unfamiliar with hot yoga (also known as "bikram"), let me explain the basic goals of a class:

Task 1) Stay inside a room that is kept at 105 degrees Fahrenheit for 1.5 hours.

Task 2) Breathe only through your nose for the entire class.

Task 3) Bend your body into unnatural shapes using muscles you never knew existed.

Task 4) Try not to drink water.

Task 5) . . . don't pass out.

Over the last few months, I have attended hot yoga classes a number of times, and I can tell you from experience that it doesn't get easier with practice. You may be able to stretch and extend farther in the poses, but it never ever feels easier.

Some days you feel like you're going to faint from heat and exhaustion the moment you walk in the room. Other days, you breathe smoothly and have no problem standing through all 12 poses (you stand/balance for 12 poses and then sit/lay down for 14 poses). Occasionally you can trace your bodily sensations back to sleep or diet, but most of the time, how you feel is simply . . . how you feel.

Whatever kind of day you're having, however, you're always going to feel hot and sweaty. Period.

Now, I understand that the purpose of yoga is to meditate, to focus one's attention inward. However, I'm human, a competitive human, so I sometimes can't help letting my eyes roam across the mirrors in front of me to see how others are doing.

The level of performance differs from class to class, as does the demographic. There are only two constants: the average age of any class probably lands somewhere in the late 20s, and if someone is going to "fail" the practice, it will be a man.

There is no real definition of "failing" a hot yoga practice, so I will tell you what I think qualifies:

1. Trying to leave the room. Newcomers are told repeatedly that regardless of how they feel throughout the class, they must stay in the room; it is healthier for their bodies, and the abrupt change of temperature will actually make them feel worse if they leave.
2. Sitting or laying in a non-yoga pose, panting through the mouth. Newcomers are told repeatedly that it is normal to feel overheated or woozy. If the sensation is too much, they are told to stand still and breathe. If that is too much, they should sit down on their knees or cross-legged. If even that is too much, they should lie on their back with their legs together, arms at their sides, head to the front of the room and feet to the rear. At all times, they should take small sips of air through the nose. As the instructor repeats time and time again, breathing through the mouth will actually make them feel hotter.
3. Requiring the teacher to come to their aid. This can mean the teacher escorts them back to their mat if they try to leave the room, pours water on their pulse points to cool them down, or otherwise attends to them considerably more than anyone else in class in a way that does not advance their yoga practice.

I would very much like to be more sympathetic toward these men, but they are almost always young, physically fit specimens who look like they could lift a 50 lb. dumbbell with their ring finger. When I see them outwardly displaying the same suffering I feel, I like to imagine that the girl on the mat next to them is their girlfriend, and that after class she'll shake her head and say, "See? And you said yoga wasn't exercise."

An Argument for Staying Plugged In

It was several years ago, on a bus ride back in Brighton where I first learned the value of traveling without headphones. I found that when I'm "plugged in," I tend to miss anything interesting or notable that might be happening right around me. However, sometimes I have days where I wish, more than anything, that I had kept my headphones on.

On this particular Friday, work hadn't been great: deadlines were looming, and my team had spent every lunch our that week working on meaningless spreadsheets that would ultimately accomplish nothing other than to cause us all to fall behind on our real work.

Having lost my lunch (i.e. running) hour each day, I was in a rather sour mood by Friday. My irritableness was only slightly mollified by the fact that on that Friday evening, I was meeting a friend to run in Central Park. Unfortunately, I would be plodding along for two slow, sore loops (12 miles) of the park, while he would be whizzing by on his bike, so it wouldn't be as if I had actual company. Really, I was just using his being there as motivation to get to the park at all. Still, the prospect of running--of accomplishing something for myself in a week when I had seemed to accomplish nothing--was heartening.

Then, I got on the train.

To be fair, my PATH train ride was relatively unremarkable. The train was slightly more crowded than usual, and there were some young kids creating a bit of a ruckus, but I had my book, was in a seat, and was therefore able to relax and read all the way to 33rd Street. Once I arrived at that station, I transfered to the D train, and again, much to my surprise and delight, I was again able to find a free seat.

I had just pulled out my book and was trying to ignore the protruding elbows of the man seated to my left, when the token homeless person emerged and began to make her speech. This woman, I kid you not, could have played the evil queen in Snow White--after she turns into herself into an old hag. The skin on her face was separated into individual folds that surpassed the definition of wrinkles by being defined and lumped on top of one another. A gigantic round wart pressed out of the top right corner of her forehead, near her receding hairline, and her nose bent to the left in a way that made her look as if she was perpetually sneering.

When this woman started approaching individuals and making her speech, she was still far enough away in the car that I couldn't quite hear what she was saying. Only after she had ofended young black woman and moved closer to me did I look up and see that she was coming along my row of seats. Her voice was a sing-songy whine, chanting, "I'm thir-sty, I'm hun-gry," and she held out her hands to each person and moved her face closer and closer until they were forced to make eye contact.

When she reached the man sitting to my left, he rummaged through the bag at his feet and held out a banana. "Nah," she said, her face contorting in disgust. She moved to stand in front of me, and I stared unseeingly at my book until she moved on to the man standing against the doors at my right. To him, she said, "Can you give something? I'm thir-sty. I'm hun-gry." Then, almost as an afterthought, as she turned to walk farther down the train, she muttered, "Who's going to suck your cock?"

Luckily my stop was soon after that, and I hurried up from the murky station full of its musty and spoiled smells. I had fortuitously chosen the exit closest to my destination--the Time Life Building--and so I relaxed my gait and strolling along amidst the roiling sea of people, toward the front doors.

Suddenly, a man wearing a plaid brown scarf, black coat, and holding a leather saddlebag over his shoulders stepped in my path.

"Are you going running?"

I had changed into my running gear before leaving work, so this seemed obvious. However, I thought that maybe this man was looking for directions in or around Central Park. Maybe he was visiting from out of town. Who knew? Judging from his attire, he appeared to be on his way somewhere, so this conversation shouldn't laste more than a few seconds.

"Yes," I replied.

"That's awesome," he said. "Do you usually run in Central Park?"

"Yeah," I told him. "I'm meeting someone there in a few minutes."

"As a runner, you probably don't like to spend too much on haircuts, do you? How much would you say you usually spend on a cut?"

Now my guards were up, but I had stopped walking, and he was being so friendly and casual about this, I felt trapped.

"Uh . . . maybe thirty-five or forty dollars."

He knocked the heel of his hand against his head. "Right! Well I work for a salon right around the corner and they're doing a special for athletes. It's an all-inclusive package with a facial and some wine. . . . You're probably not so into the wine when you're training, huh?"

"Yeah, not really." I breathed a sigh of relief and got ready to keep walking. This was my easy out.

"Well do you think there will be a time when you won't be training in the next eight months?"

Here's where I should have lied. I should have told him anything: that I was a professional training for the New York Marathon, that I was allergic to alcohol, that my sister cut my hair . . . anything. The problem is, because I don't make a habit of lying, the first thing out of my mouth, especially when I'm flustered, is usually the truth.

"Yes, I mean, probably."

"So where'd you go to school?"

This change of topic caught me completely off-guard.

"Um, University of Rochester."

"Upstate! No kidding. Do you know Canandaigua?"

"Uh. . . ." I shook my head.

"Like the lake? My parents live up there."

"Oh yeah."

Yeah! Cold huh? Really hard on the skin."

"Yeah it's pretty windy. Lake effect."

"Yes! Well you're not going to believe it, but we're doing this deal for 80% off. I know," he said, as if I had just given him a look of "this is too-good-to-be-true" astonishment, "hard to believe, right?"

I smiled weakly, starting to seriously worry. If I didn't extricate myself soon, I'd probably wind up buying whatever he was offering. It had happened once before.

"So what do you think? I--"

That's when my phone rang. I fished it out of my pocket and saw A___'s number on the screen. Smiling with relief, I turned and began to walk away.

"Sorry," I mouthed to him.

"You have to answer your phone." He looked like a snake that had just let the mouse run down its hole. I nodded and pushed the answer button.

"Hi, A___? What's up? You won't believe it but you called just in time. . . ."

Jersey City Earthquakes (and Other Events Worth Ignoring)

Okay, so this blog post title may be a bit misleading; the earthquake actually happened in Virginia. However, I experienced it in Jersey City! Yet, at the time, I didn't even realize what was happening. Let me explain.

My sister A___ and I were sitting on the futon in my living room, watching the movie Precious. It was about an hour-and-a-half before we had to leave to get her to her bus stop in order to return to Pittsburgh, and both of us were a little antsy. Partway through the movie, I noticed that the futon was bouncing up and down. At first I ignored it, assuming A____ was vigorously scratching a bug bite or something. However, when the bouncing persisted, I started to get annoyed. What is she doing? I thought to myself. God, just sit still. After a moment more, I finally said something.

"What are you doing?"

"What?" She looked up at me.

"Could you please quit bouncing, or whatever it is you're doing?"

"I'm not doing anything!"

"Well the futon's bouncing around, so...."

"I thought that was you!"

I gave her a deadpan look.

"I'm sitting still."

"I thought you were bouncing your leg or something."

"No, I'm sitting still."

We both sat there for a minute, looking at each other.

"Oh," she finally said.

A moment later, the futon stopped bouncing, and we went back to watching the movie, unperturbed.

About an hour later, as we were leaving for the bus stop, A___'s phone buzzed.

"It's D___," she said, pressing the mute button. "I'll call him back later."

We entered the PATH station (New Jersey's equivalent to the NYC subway), and when we emerged half an hour later, her phone was buzzing again.

"God, he's called me seven times now," A___ said in annoyance.

"Then you'd better pick up," I replied. "It might be important."

"He's probably just calling me for something stupid," she said as she held the phone up to her ear. "Like how horny he is or something. Seriously, I bet that's it. Hi honey, what's up? The what? Yeah I'm fine. Did I what? Earthquake? What earthquake?"

"Oh my god, that's what it was!" I exclaimed, poking her in the shoulder as we maneuvered down the sidewalk, past gawking tourists and irritable commuters. That's what had happened when we were watching the movie!

The moral of this story might be that boyfriends worry more about their girlfriends' safety than said girlfriends' parents. Or it might be that technology has given us quicker, easier access to loved ones and consequential peace-of-mind...or that it tells us us too much about the world too quickly and therefore causes undue worry. But I think the true lesson here is that humans will ignore and rationalize away everything they can until it interferes directly with their life. Seriously: an earthquake occurred, and rather than recognizing what was happening at that futon-shaking moment, I chalked it up to my little sister being her usual annoying self. However, if the plaster from the ceiling had started falling on our heads...at least then I might have admitted that maybe, just maybe, A___ actually wasn't the one shaking that futon.

NYC Triathlon, Part V: Results

Not caught up? Read Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV.

A huge thanks to all of my family and friends who woke up at god-awful hours of the morning to come and cheer me on—you made the whole event incredibly special. Extreme gratitude, also, to all of my training buddies, both old and new. Shout-outs go to the Chubs, the Wiley runners, Felix and his cyclists, and everyone else who has pushed and encouraged me both mentally and physically. Finally, a never-ending thanks to G___, the best coach I’ve ever had. I would not have achieved even half of my athletic successes without you.

Race stats and results:

Event Kilometers Miles Swim 1.5 ~1 Bike 40 ~26 Run 10 6.2

Finish Time 2:48:14 Overall Rank 1467/??? Gender Rank 90/1051 Age Group Rank (F25-29) 20/219

Race Section Time Rate Overall Rank Swim 17:54 1:04 163 T1 6:08 Bike 1:37:25 15.3 2245 T2 1:27 Run 45:08 7:16 149

What's wrong with this sign?

Sometimes, I have to wonder if everyone outsources their design projects, or if texting and instant messaging are making native English speakers stupider.

Mentality of a Half Marathon

Starting Line
Cold. Don't want to take my sweatshirt off, but the volunteers policing the corrals insist that they need to be able to see my running bib and my silly orange bracelet at all times. I humor them and bare myself to the elements (i.e. a dark, windy, sub-40 spring morning), tossing the sweatshirt over the railing of the corral. I hope a nice homeless person finds it!

Gun Goes Off
It's actually more of a buzzer, and the sound is awfully anticlimactic. But shoot, if my heart isn't racing a mile-a-minute! We surge forward in fits and starts toward the actual starting line, where our D tags will start clocking our own personal race times. Even while other people jog around me, I walk, focusing on the perfect first song to get me going. I am not running one step until I get over that starting line!

5k Into the Race
I think I'm finally running at the right speed, with the right-paced people. I almost stepped on at least 5 people's shoes and have been cut off by barely-clad and overly-clad runners at every water station, but after I finally gave up trying to stay in the inside lane and moved to the outside, a bit more space opened up, and I expect the runners will thin out even more as the course continues.

10k Into the Race
Look at all these spectators! I am so lucky to be running this race in NYC, because even if only 1/10th of the people running convinced just one person to come cheer for them, we'd have 1,000 spectators. Plus, reading all the signs and seeing the little kids dressed up is so fun. I cannot believe I am halfway done already! Have definitely hit my stride.

15k Into the Race
Oh my god, is it over yet? Why does my body feel like it has used up all its reserves? I cannot possibly feel this depleted already; I have at least 4 miles left to run. And they're all flat! The hills are over. So why does this feel so much worse than the first 9 miles felt?
I have to be in good form, because all my friends are cheering for me at the end of the race. I cannot look like I am about to die! Run strong, Goldstein--come on!

20k Into the Race
Pick it up. I don't care if you just ran that last mile too fast; if you don't leave it all out here on the course, you are going to be mad at yourself, and you know it. So let's go. Pace with this guy on the right, in the blue. You and he have been playing chicken the whole race, so now is not the time to let him blow by you. And look, you can catch that lady up ahead. Look how short her legs are! Don't go all-out yet, though. Save something for the last 800.

Last 800 Meters
It's burning! It's burning so bad. My legs are going to collapse into a pile of jelly. And where is R___? I should have told him what I was wearing before I left this morning. And A___!!! Why didn't I tell her how to find me? What if I cannot find them after I finish? Crap, that Spandex girl just turned it on. It's now or never. There's the 400 sign. That's one lap of a track! And is someone calling my name? There's R___! And A___! And the finish line, so make it count....

Results for this race:

Race Length	Finishing Time	5/10/15/20k Splits	Average Pace	Overall Place	Gender Place (All Women)	Age Group Place (F18-24)
13.1 miles	1:35:08	23:43/ 46:26/ 1:08:54/ 1:30:51	7:16/mile	1,147/10,186	248/5,429	83/1,329

Things I Take for Granted

We all take things for granted. Usually, the universe has elbow us sharply in the ribs before we look around and realize, "Gee, this part of my life is actually really great! Why didn't I appreciate it before?" Sometimes, we are lucky, though, and the reminder is a little gentler. We walk outside and smell crisp fall leaves or taste an exquisite piece of dark chocolate, and suddenly everything becomes more vivid, and we realize we have been dreamwalking through our lives.

For instance, I take living in-and-near NYC completely for granted. In fact, I ignore it on a daily basis. On a recent bicycle ride along the Hudson, I had one of those "Zen" moments in which I suddenly thought, "Gosh I am lucky to be living here. People travel from all over the world to see this place, and I don't even really look at it."

Things I take for granted include (but are not limited to):

• A breathtaking panoramic view of the NYC skyline from the sidewalk immediately behind my office. Also visible approximately 4 blocks from my apartment.
  
• Living within 0.5 miles of a state park. In such a cosmopolitan location, and for an active person like myself, this is truly a blessing.
  
• Walking only 10-15 minutes to reach a major grocery store. Sure, it would be nice to drive when I am stuck carrying a gallon of milk, a carton of orange juice, a sack of flour, and twelve different canned goods, but I would trade mandatory driving for mandatory walking any day of the week. Even in the rain.
  
• Commuting for only 25 minutes by public transit or 45 minutes walking to and from work. Some people spend three times that just sitting in traffic. I am spoiled.
  
• The availability of virtually any kind of food, on any day of the week, at any time of day. And I love foreign food.
  
• Easy, available, fast transportation to nearby cities. You can choose from at least five different bus companies to travel to Washington DC, Philadelphia, or Boston; you can take a passenger train to virtually any state in New England; and you can fly to pretty much anywhere in the world from La Guardia, John F. Kennedy, or Newark airport!
  
• The opportunity to meet world-class athletes face-to-face. I have met swimmers who are training for and/or have completed the English Channel swim, internationally competitive cyclists, and Ironman finishers. Nowhere else in the world would I find such a concentrated group of amazing athletes living, training, and interacting with every-day people like me.
  

You know you’ve left NYC when...

• You buy a cup of tea at a gas station.
  
• You get in line—not on line—to pay for your tea. (Although if you own a smartphone, you could be online in line. Wouldn’t it sound silly to be online on line?)
  
• The guy in line next to you at the gas station announces he’s having blueberry coffee and a burger . . . for breakfast.
  
• The friend of the guy in line next to you helpfully points out, “She’s having tea! That girl’s having tea,” and the burger-for-breakfast guy then turns to you and asks if you like tea.

A New Yorker would have actively ignored you...and his retarded friend. Then again, in New York you wouldn’t be buying tea at a gas station, and you would have been getting on line to pay for it. Nevertheless, whether you’re on the PA turnpike or in a NYC coffee shop, you'll still let your dad pay for the tea—but only if he offers, of course.

The Best

Growing up, I always wanted to be “the best.” Whatever I did, whether it was sports or music or school, I had to be better than everyone else around me.

This is not to say I was completely unrealistic. I knew I’d probably never become a WNBA star, but I at least wanted to have the best foul shot on my team (even if we did lose every game of every season we ever played). I never aspired to become a concert pianist, but I still had to stay ahead of my sister, who was getting better year after year. And maybe I wasn’t going to be dubbed the next Albert Einstein, but as long as I got better grades than everyone else in my classes, those qualified me as “best” in my book.

The older I got and the more my world expanded, however, the more people I met who were better at the things I did. This revelation was made particularly salient when I went to college. There, I discovered that “hard working” will never truly mean “smart,” and no matter how much I studied, there were some subjects that I would never master. Also, I had to train for two summers just to walk onto the swim team. This forced me to face a situation where I would likely be the worst at something; I would have to work extra-hard just to meet the most basic requirements of the team.

Then I moved to New York City and discovered, once-and-for-all, that there is not and will never be anyone who is “the best” at anything, because you will always meet someone who can one-up you. You think running ten miles is an admirable accomplishment until you meet people who run half-marathons. Then you run 13.1 miles, and then people are talking about having run 26.2. You think once you run a marathon, you will have achieved some sort of unique life accomplishment . . . until you meet former Olympic triathletes and Ironman competitors and English Channel swimmers. That’s when you realize that there is always going to be someone (or more likely several someones) who have done more, gone farther, finished faster.

This realization leaves only the barometer of yourself. Race yourself. Beat the clock. Unfortunately, I am discovering that even living up to that bar may prove impossible. What athletics I do now pale in comparison to the time, energy, and effort I put into college swimming. So how do you feel good about yourself when you fall short of your own abilities? Are you supposed to be satisfied with a lower bar? Change your priorities? “Grow up?”

Alcohol Acceptance

I’ve never felt comfortable around alcohol. I’ve been called judgmental, but I don’t think that is true. I don’t look down on others who drink; I just don’t feel comfortable in their presence.

Much of my discomfort, I believe, is due to my childhood experience. I grew up in a household where having a drink signified a special occasion. My parents rarely drank, and when they did, it marked a holiday or some other celebratory event. My mother never drank (and still doesn’t drink) more than half a glass of wine at a time, and my dad might have two or maybe three glasses of wine, at best. Beer was a rare and unusual guest in our refrigerator, since no one in my family drank it, and although we had a nearly-full liquor cabinet, it probably hasn’t been touched since before my sister or I were born.

To me, this makes the idea of having a casual beer with dinner or drinking a glass of whiskey before bed almost outrageous. The practice seems a caricature of American life: something shown on television or in the movies, but not an activity undertaken by people in real life.

Then, of course, I grew up. First, I went to college, where alcohol was illegal for most students, yet consumed in excess. Here, drinking still marked a special occasion—it was just occasion of drinking. Which, of course, was celebrated almost every night. The quantity and frequency with which it was consumed didn’t make me feel any more comfortable around alcohol; actually, it made me even less comfortable.

I really did try to engage in “college life”: I attended various parties and attempted to participate. I played beer pong, so long as my partner drank the beer, and some friends even let me play flip-cup with water. These instances were, however, rare. Most parties were just loud, rowdy, drunken stupid debauchery. I had no desire to act foolish or out-of-control in the company of other foolish teenagers . . . so suffice to say, I rarely had a good time.

Then, I graduated and moved to New York City. Here, drinking is equally ubiquitous, but people regard the activity much more casually. Attending happy hour is the most popular and acceptable way to be social, and no one looks at you twice whether you are sipping your first glass of wine or polishing off your fourth mixed drink.

It is in this atmosphere, and under the pressure to be “social,” that I have begun to relax my attitude toward alcohol. In doing so, I have confirmed that I really don’t like the taste of alcohol. I will only drink wine that tastes like juice (i.e. Manischewitz, Sangria, or Riesling), beer that tastes like pop (i.e. hard cider…or “hardly alcohol” as some might say), or shots that taste like candy (excepting tequila, which I will admit to enjoying).

Furthermore, I may have relaxed my attitude toward alcohol, but that has made me no more relaxed about the act of drinking. I still find regular nightly drinks to be an odd phenomenon (and regard the possibility of the drinker’s dependency with suspicion), and I feel no more comfortable around drunken friends or colleagues now than I felt around drunken friends or acquaintances in college. Since I have permitted myself a happy hour or two, though, I have found much more acceptance and camaraderie with my “adult” friends and colleagues than I ever felt with my fellow college students. And that is worth the two hours and $20 spent . . . whether I’m comfortable or not.

People Rage

Ever run late to catch an airplane? You’re careening through airport corridors, stomping your foot impatiently at a family of seven in front of you in the security line, hurdling two senior citizens on your way to Boarding Gate Z, waving your ticket in the impassive faces of airport personnel, and are just managing to climb over the obese guy in the aisle seat when the captain comes on and informs everyone that “due to a problem on the runway, the flight will be delayed. Please stand by.” Makes you want to punch someone.
Now, imagine feeling like that every day. In every line. Every time you step one foot outside to go anywhere.

This is what I call people rage: it is the impulse to shove senior citizens through doorways, kick small children off sidewalks, and push tourists down escalators. Basically, anyone obstructing me from getting to my destination qualifies as a target of my rage. Teenagers walking three abreast should know better than to take up the entire sidewalk. NYC is not one giant game of red-rover! And overly large umbrellas should be banned in crowded cities. I don’t want my eyeballs poked out just because some lady needs to preserve her hairdo. God forbid that same woman starts down the subway stairs in front of me, wobbling on her 3-inch stilettos while yapping away on her cell phone. Someday I am going to snatch one of those things from someone and shove it up their rear end.

One thing is for sure: I am not alone. Just stand in Grand Central station for five minutes at the beginning or end of any workday, and you’ll see thousands of people who operate exactly like I have just described. Watch people catch the subway home. A lesson I learned while living in Queens is that a subway car is never too full; you just have to be willing to elbow your way in and endure standing on top of someone’s toes while smelling another person’s greasy hair for the duration of your commute.

Shared or not, my newfound aggression kind of scares me. I was terrible at basketball because I never “got angry,” and now I’m fantasizing about punching grown men who stand obtrusively on the left-hand side of the escalator (which, for those of you who don’t know, is the “passing lane;” the purpose is to leave it clear for those people who treat escalators as speed enhancers rather than as a carnival ride). Is this the product of living in a city packed with 19,000,000 other people? A form of “survival of the fittest?” Or is it a character trait that has finally surfaced, thanks to a few environmental prompts?

I try to tell myself that there’s no reason for such a big hurry. So what if I miss my train? Another one will come (even thought I will probably have to wait at least 20 minutes, knowing my luck). Life will not grind to a screeching halt if I am five minutes late getting somewhere. (Except in airports—then things get a bit trickier.) Arriving at the gym at 4:55 will not make me any healthier than if I arrive at 5:00, and getting out of the grocery store three minutes faster will do nothing but put me back in my insanely hot apartment sooner. So why, when stuck behind a meandering couple on the sidewalk, do I huff impatiently to myself and step out onto the street?

There is one scarier thought: is this an irreversible change? If I move to the suburbs, will I eventually end up in the news as the lady driver who pulled a Colt .45 on the guy in the pickup truck who cut her off at the traffic light?

So far, the most I’ve done is accidentally bump an old lady with my bicycle on a subway staircase. In typical “enraged” fashion, she cussed me out. I apologized. She ignored me and kept ranting. (But I’d rather have jumped on my bicycle and driven right over her!)