912 Days

Between moving and work insanity I have been 100% sapped these past few weeks.  I really have no idea what happened to May, which is a shame as it was a gorgeous month that, aside from a handful of adventures, I really didn't take full advantage of.  I'd like to believe that my life (both personal and professional) might adopt a more summer-like pace in June, but the horizon does not look promising.  Holding out hope for July... I'm in desperate need of a lazy day on the beach, with a book and a double scoop of chocolate-almond custard from Abbotts.

002. Read 100 books - (003/100)
I'm fascinated by what my friend J calls "science lite"... discussions about science, or even just "did you know?" facts, that don't require a PhD in Biochemistry or Physics to understand.  In this vein, A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson was - just as I had anticipated - charming, informative, fascinating, and funny.  I think Bryson struck an impressive balance between science and narrative, peppering fairly complex theory with history and anecdotes.  One of my favorites:

In the late summer or early autumn of 1859, Whitwell Elwin, editor of the respected British journal the Quarterly Review, was sent an advance copy of a new book by the naturalist Charles Darwin.  Elwin read the book with interest and agreed that it had merit, but feared that the subject matter was too narrow to attract a wide audience.  He urged Darwin to write a book about pigeons instead.  "Everyone is interested in pigeons," he observed helpfully.

Sorry, that "Everyone is interested in pigeons" comment cracks me up every time.  Oh, Victorians!  Anyway, it's simultaneously frightening, awesome, and mind-blowing that we as humans (or complex life, for that matter) have managed to not only make it this far, but also have continued to survive in a universe and on a planet that is infinitely fickle and dangerous.  Bryson does an impressive job of boiling down complex scientific concepts into to ideas that are easily understood, but he admirably neither teeters into the obtuse nor totters into patronization.

022. (Re)watch each of AFI's Top 100 Movies - (011/100)
It always annoys me for some reason when movie reviewers refer to a film as a "lighthearted romp", but I'm going to succumb to my own pet peeve here and slap that cliché on #90, Swing Time (1936).  Fred and Ginger?  Song and dance?  Grifting and glamor?  Oh, I couldn't say no...

036. Listen to 25 TED lectures - (03/25)
Plants are pretty awesome.  It's amazing that our bodies have evolved to respond to certain chemicals in plants as if they were purposefully designed for the specific purpose of healing (Bryson touches on this a bit in ASHONE as well...).  The last TED lecture I listened to was given by William Li, head of the Angiogenesis Foundation, and presented some remarkable research about the way certain foods can "starve" cancer by turning off the out-of-control blood vessels that are feeding the tumor and allowing it to grow ("anti-angiogenesis").  Kind of like siege warfare, right?  If you can't take the castle, just cut off the food supply and eventually the enemy will surrender or starve.  A very cool, slightly non-linear approach to cancer treatment and prevention.

047. Complete all "Couch to 5k" workouts within 2 months - (04/27)
I'm almost back to where I was before my frustrating foot injury, although this time I'm pushing a bit harder and doing 5k for each workout, instead of the recommended 20 minutes.  My feet were still a little questionable at times, though, so I paid a visit to Fleet Feet this afternoon.  After a gait analysis they determined that my right foot is moderately over-pronated, so they recommended a stability shoe.  I tested a few pairs before settling on the Saucony ProGrid Omni 9s (why are running shoes so hideously ugly?).  I also learned that you're actually supposed to bump up a size to allow lots of room in the toes, which could be why previously I was having some intermittent trouble with my toes going numb.  I'm looking forward to trying them out tomorrow and, although I know it's silly to imagine that a new pair of shoes will miraculously make me marathon-ready, I can't help but harbor some hope that the route might prove a little less... laborious... than it was this morning.

011. Visit a foreign country I've never been to

Hotels are booked!  However, I did end up dropping Budapest from the itinerary so I could spend a little more time in Berlin and Prague.  I'll be spending three nights at the Leonardo Royal Hotel in Berlin, three nights at the Amedia Hotel Theatrino in Prague, and two nights at the Hotel Erzherzog Rainer in Vienna.  I nabbed some pretty amazing deals through Kayak - all three hotels are 4-star, in the city center, and between 60-75USD per night.  With the wedding weekend I will be gone for two weeks, which is by far the longest vacation I have ever taken.  I still haven't found a decently-priced flight yet, but I'm hoping that the fares will drop soon so I can book that piece as well.

051. Stick to my budget for the rest of 2010 - (00/17)
It's a tight budget, but I think I've afforded myself enough wiggle room to still have fun and occasionally treat myself to some new books or whatever.  The goal of "17" is the number of paychecks I have left in 2010, so hopefully I'll be able to use each one to live within my means while aggressively saving.  The ultimate goal of my saving will depend largely on the outcome of the FSOT, which is a mere 2 weeks away (eek!), but barring any catastrophic financial events I should be in good shape by the end of the year.

052. Lose 20 pounds - (02/20)
Thanks to the 14.12km I ran/walked (about 1025 calories burned) and my determination to keep a check on my sugar/starch/processed food intake, I dropped 2.6 pounds last week.  Even though that's not really a drastic change, I definitely notice the difference in the fit of my clothes and a general loss of "squidginess".  Good thing I've worked a new wardrobe into my budget for the year.

932 Days

I don't have very many items to update as I've somehow been really rather busy lately, but I find the mega-posts after a week's worth of goals a little overwhelming and possibly slightly hurried.  I was reviewing my list just now, though, and there are quite a few goals that should be completed this summer.  I need to come up with 51 more, too.  Arf.

022. (Re)watch each of AFI's Top 100 Movies - (010/100)
I took the opportunity of an unseasonably cold, gray, and blustery day to settle in and watch #91, Sophie's Choice (1982).  I was entirely entranced by Meryl Streep from start to finish... simply could not.stop.watching her.  The film was horrifying, touching, heartbreaking... and I loved every bit of it.  I find it so rare to be truly touched by a movie - I tend to (unwittingly) keep a jaded distance from the story and characters when watching a film, as opposed to my complete immersion in books, so I was possibly caught a little off guard by how moved I was.  I can not believe that AFI placed this one almost a full 10 spots lower than Titanic, which I am NOT looking forward to having to endure again.  I might have to download the Rifftrax for that one, just so you know...

938 Days

036. Listen to 25 TED lectures - (02/25)
I found Dan Gilbert's lecture on "synthesizing happiness" particularly fascinating and, in a way, uplifting.  Happiness in the face of not getting what we want doesn't come from positive thinking, or "bucking up", but instead is a product of what he calls our "psychological immune system".  It's not a conscious defense mechanism to make people think we are all right when we're truly miserable, but instead a subconscious synthesis of happiness that is indiscernible from the "natural happiness" that comes from getting what we want.  Interestingly he notes:

From field studies to laboratory studies, we see that winning or losing an election, gaining or losing a romantic partner, getting or not getting a promotion, passing or not passing a college test, on and on, have far less impact, less intensity and much less duration than people expect them to have. In fact, a recent study -- this almost floors me -- a recent study showing how major life traumas affect people suggests that if it happened over three months ago, with only a few exceptions, it has no impact whatsoever on your happiness.

030. Try 25 new foods - (03/10)
J was home from Hong Kong again last week, and this time I convinced her to have dinner at my favorite.restaurant.ev-ar, Good Luck.  We didn't have a reservation, so in the meantime we bellied up to the bar and caught up over cocktails.  I indulged in a Legerdemain (Sriracha in a cocktail?  Oh, I couldn't say no...), while J opted for the Paper Tiger.  It didn't feel like we waited too long to be seated, even though it was likely over an hour, but once we took a look at the menu we had our hearts set on three dishes (as we always, always overindulge when eating together).  The asparagus gratin was great, although as carb-addicts we both agreed it might have benefited from more crutony-bits.  The grilled Merguez sausage with eggplant, zucchini, squash, and cilantro chutney was rich, flavorful, and succlent... and most likely would have stolen the show entirely, were it not for the most delicious thing I've tasted in my (admittedly short) memory.  J and I could not stop gushing about the board noodles with rabbit, green olives, lentils, and consommé.  I'd never had rabbit before, and it was un-flippin'-believable.  The olives tasted more fresh than cured, the pasta was perfectly cooked (slightly al dente, not gummy in the least), and the lentils provided the perfect vehicle for sopping up every.last.bit of mouth-watering sauce left on my plate.  And, even though we were pretty stuffed by the end of it all (too delicious to leave a hint of a morsel on our plates...), we ordered a tearfully good dessert of profiteroles stuffed with frozen hazelnut custard, glazed with a rich, chocolate ganache.  I still get a little tingly thinking about it now.

049. Refresh my conversational German skills before November 2010

My vocabulary is growing, although I really feel like I could use an instructor to provide feedback on sentence structure, grammar, etc.  I've also queued up all of those German films I've meant to see over the years, as well as some Wim Wenders to re-watch.  Maybe that will provide a small amount of "immersion" and help with pronunciation and spoken language. I've been toying with the notion of looking into getting a job with my company's German operation, but these are just idle daydreams im Moment.

018. Take a day trip to Toronto - (Completed 05/01/10)
Yesterday I tried to remember the last time I was in Toronto and, excluding runs to the airport, I'm pretty sure it was c. 1993, when I attended a taping of the final season of "The Kids in the Hall."  Seventeen years is quite a long time, and I'm not sure that I fully remembered how very urban central Toronto is.  I also remembered it being cleaner, and certainly less smelly, but that could have just been the innocent, awe-clouded lens of youth.

I also remembered the Canadian border guards being considerably more polite than their American counterparts, but this was definitely not the case as I tried to cross the line around 9am.  The officer was aggressively interrogative, and I spent what felt like 5 minutes providing him with every small detail of my life and reasons for ever-so-boldly crossing the border from America to Canada.  Of course, being the big nervous Nellie that I am, the more he got in my face the more nervous I became, and even the easy answers ("Where do you live!?") came out stuttering and unsure ("Um, I... I mean, I'm American.  You know, New York... Rochester, I... I mean, do you mean my address?  I...").

One of my first hurdles was surviving without my iPhone, as I've come to rely very heavily on its GPS capabilities, and the Google Maps directions I e-mailed myself didn't quite get me to the part of Toronto I'd been aiming for.  Still, I muddled my way to a decently-priced garage down by Queen's Quay, and hoofed it up Yongue Street to scope out the venue where Eddie would be performing.  Once I'd got a grip on my bearings I grabbed a coffee at one of the 50 Starbucks within a mile (did you know that Starbucks gift cards work in Canada?  True!) and strolled to the Royal Ontario Museum, soaking in all the hustle and bustle, gorgeous buildings, and good-looking Canadians.

There was some sort of ridiculous pot-based festival going on in the park down the street from the ROM, so I had to barge my way through lolling groups of toasted hippie teens on my way.  I find it oddly comforting that Canadian youth are, apparently, no less obnoxious than their American counterparts.  Whippersnappers!  But anyway, I was about a block from the ROM when the sky opened completely and dumped a sheet of rain on me.  My hair did not fare well, and by the time I made it through the door all the hard work I'd done with the straightening iron that morning was entirely undone.  Even so, I couldn't bring myself to care as I weaved my way among dinosaur skeletons, medieval armor, and art nouveau furniture.  Plus, when I made my way back to the lobby and plopped into a supple leather chair, I found an unsecured WiFi signal, which chirped my iPhone back to life.  I used this golden opportunity to map out some potential lunch and dinner destinations, and spent the remainder of the afternoon eating and wandering.

Eddie Izzard was worth every penny and every mile.  The venue was intimate, for sure... even though the photo below makes it look like I was on the other side of the world, I could actually see the color of his eyes from my front-row balcony seat.  His material was, on the whole, very funny.  My only quibbles were a) he seemed a little... loose.  It certainly wasn't as tight a performance as you might see on one of his DVDs, but I attribute that to the fact that this was the first stop on his tour.  And b) his material has become a little overtly political and anti-religious.  Not that I am in disagreement with his politics, or even remotely religious, but something about him seems somehow more... aggressive?  I don't know.  That's not to say that I didn't soak in and swallow whole every minute and every joke, but perhaps it wasn't entirely what I was expecting.  Nonetheless, he remains in my personal trifecta of the most awesome people alive.

The show ended late, and the walk back to my car and the subsequent drive home were... rough.  To say the least.  When I was about 20 miles from home I seriously considered pulling over to nap, but I managed to keep my eyes open just long enough to swing my car into the lot and shuffle my way, zombie-like, upstairs to bed, barely mustering the energy to strip off my clothes and climb under the covers (dramatic, non?).  My legs and feet were aching, considering I spent 12 hours walking all over central Toronto in a pair of holey, crêpe-flat, 7-year old Converse, but I fell asleep almost immediately and didn't wake up again until after lunchtime.

008. Eat alone at a restaurant 10 times - (05/10)
After roaming wide-eyed through the ROM in Toronto, I scooted over to a side street and had a nice, hearty meal of bangers and mash in the Artful Dodger while sipping a pint and reading more of A Brief History of Nearly Everything.  After 45 minutes I was the only person in the room, which was lovely and tranquil, even if it did tend to cause my server to forget about me at times...

044. Post 365 photos - (026/365)
Teeny-tiny Eddie Izzard, thanks to the fact that I forgot my camera and only had my phone available...I swear, he was miles closer than he looks in this photo.