…Those cats were fast as lightning.

It has admittedly become a bit of an obsession, but does the word “obsession” and its somewhat negative, creepy connotation still apply when the end result is a healthy thing?

I’m talking about the Fitbit.

This is a soft plastic wristband that carries an edamame-sized nugget tracking your wrist movement using an accelerometer, recording and reporting your daily steps and distance covered. The Fitbit app also creates a sort of leaderboard or totem pole, ranking your trailing week’s step count against Fitbit-wearing “friends” who have accepted your invitation to track each other. This begins to sound a little stalky, but then I am not accepting any Fitbit invitations from “easternblocminxinsiberia.”

Hilary had the idea of giving ourselves the relatively inexpensive “Fitbit Flex” wristbands as an early Christmas present. We’ve been wearing them since about Thanksgiving. So I’ve had some time to pass through the novelty stage, and now I have a good handle on the feature that has me hooked.

It’s the totem pole.

Within about 5 minutes of opening my eyes in the morning, I will have spun through, in rapid succession, my Facebook page, Twitter feed, LinkedIn updates, WordPress blog stats, unread text messages, then unread emails. In that order, more or less, which is probably interesting enough on its own (to me) to warrant a separate blog post somewhere down the line. At least this used to be my morning process. For the last couple weeks, though, I go to my Fitbit totem pole first. I justify my existence by comparing myself to my own little leaderboard, scarcely populated as it is by only Hilary and 3 other friends who shall remain nameless. For now.

If I am 10,000 steps below someone, I am immediately pissed, scheming to surpass those ahead of me somehow today, and unreasonably suspicious of how they got so far ahead of me. They must be cheating. They must have found some Tim Ferris hack. They must brush their teeth a lot with the wristband on the brushing arm. They put the Fitbit on their dog’s paw. That type line of thinking. I’m a little competitive.

A week or so ago, as I was sliding under the sheets about to go to bed for the night, I justified one last peek at the Fitbit app on my iPhone. What the hell, where’s the harm? For the first time, my name didn’t stand atop the totem pole, thirty thousand steps beyond those weaklings, those slackers, those Doritos-eating couch slugs. Now I was the slug. Shit, how did this happen?

I looked more closely, and saw that I was only 30 steps behind “John.” It was late, he’s in the same time zone, I really doubt he’s doing these very same calculations right at this very moment too, he’s probably in bed, done for the night.

So I did what any sane, right-thinking, well-adjusted, self-confident, comfortable in his own skin, full grown adult would do. I smiled, shut down the app, mentally congratulated my friend for staying with it, and drifted off to sleep, re-energizing with a good night’s sleep to so that I could wake the next day prepared to manage all the important adult stuff.

Only I didn’t.

I yanked the sheets and blanket to the side, swung my legs over the edge of my piece of the bed, and popped to my feet like Jack LaLane. I’m pretty sure I would have had to leap over the dog at some point here, normally a not insignificant physical task. But in my current “how dare he try to usurp me, he has no idea who the eff he is dealing with” state, the details of my superhuman bounce out of bed are a bit hazy. Same deal as the grandmothers who lift a burning car off a trapped child in traffic. Same deal.

I paced around the bedroom, lifting my knees in an exaggerated style, making sure the Fitbit recorded these most important steps of mine. One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. This was suddenly that important.

Once I had satisfied myself that I had done enough to reclaim my spot at the top of the totem pole, and added a couple more 10-foot marched squares on the bedroom carpet for good measure, I went back to bed. The leaderboard reflected my work, I nodded in self-approval at putting down this attempted insurrection, and I went to bed.

And of course I had captured iPhone screenshots of the before and after, fully intending on sticking the 2 leaderboard images in someone’s face at some point very soon. Like the lead kidnapper showing a Polaroid of the kidnapee to the kidnapee’s kin. A not so subtle threat, of sorts, to remind my Fitbit friend not to waste his time trying to get back on top. Don’t even try it.

OK well that’s enough for today, and I need to go check how far behind I’ve fallen while writing this. Like I said, it’s a bit of an obsession….

Thanks for reading.

For most of us, the photo at the top of this blog probably accurately sums up our wedding experience.  Big celebration with friends far flung, smiling generations of family enjoying one of life’s signposts, hand-picked band playing hand-picked song list, everybody elated and euphoric.  That was my experience.  And I even took a moment, as someone had counseled me beforehand, to stand in the corner and take it all in.  The entire experience was just about perfect, I remain grateful to everyone involved for playing a part in it all, and even now I can’t really conceive of anything that would have made that day any better.  Amazing.

Well, I can think of one thing.  I wish that someone had pulled me aside and whispered to me something along these lines:

“Hey, this is all really great, just about everyone you love in the world is here today.  For you.  Your new bride is a vision today, and she’s fabulous.  Everyone is smiling, genuinely happy for you.  However.  This is not what marriage will be like.  Marriage can be very hard, and it will require a ton of work.  You will learn that the things that are most important to you 20 years from now have nothing to do with what brought the two of you together in the first place, and these things aren’t even on your radar screen right now.  How could they be?  So I’m just giving you this little glimpse of the future, and you should go back to having a blast in a minute, but definitely don’t file my advice away too deeply in the recesses of your memory banks.  A “healthy” marriage, a long-lasting marriage, a foundation for your children, their children, and their children, is not a natural state.  Be prepared to work, starting now.  Here, take this shovel. And by the way, there is no end to the work you need to be doing.  It is constant, and you can never put your timecard back into the clock to punch out at the end of the day.  There is no “end of the day.” If you are willing to work, and if you are willing to learn along the way, it will probably all be worth it.  But marriage is not wedding cakes, brass bands and fraternity brothers tossing you into the air with your fists punching the sky.  Don’t let anyone tell you marriage is easy, that people are ‘soul mates’ whose lives move like an effortless waltz with perfect postures and chins lifted, that it’s all a breeze.  Those people are kidding themselves.  Still, if you’ve somehow managed to “choose well” — even though you could not possibly have known what that means, and won’t for quite some time — and if you’re truly committed to working hard to keep feeding your marriage no matter what, then this just might work out.  Good luck. Keep the shovel.”

That would have been great advice.  I’m sure I would have nodded along politely, only half-listening, eager to get back to the party.  But that would have been a great card to refer to in the mental Rolodex.

Instead, I’ve muddled along, trying to figure things out along the way as I go, taking my wife on a roller-coaster ride career-wise, for sure.  She thought (I thought) she was marrying someone who would enjoy a stable litigation practice for years, work predictable hours, provide a stable base for our family, be home for dinner every night, and live a pretty “ordinary” life.  Turns out she married someone who grew weary of solving other entrepreneurs’ problems frozen in time, itchy at the prospect of being stuck in an office rather than out running, cycling or swimming, and eager to run into all manner of burning buildings.  Over and over again, with a maniacal grin pasted across my face, flushed with the thrill of it.  It is very difficult to ride in the backseat of the roller coaster, trying to be supportive of yet another loop around the track, trying to stifle the nausea and dizziness from all the steep drops and hairpin turns, and trying to effect a smile when I say (again and again), turning to her in the backseat, “Isn’t this great?” It cannot be easy trying to keep up with and keep in sync with someone whose brain works as my brain works.  I love how my brain works, but I’m old enough now to realize that I am in the distinct minority on that one.  And the roller coaster has taken its toll.

I mean well; I always have.  The poem I wrote for Hilary, read aloud by my dear friend Alex at our wedding ceremony, was from the heart.  Reading it now, it seems prescient.  At least I seemed to know what was important, what would be important, that I needed to work at this thing, and that I was willing to work at this thing.  But like our impossibly perfect wedding cake, the poem is an idealized version of real life.  Of real marriage. Of what I imagined or expected those things to be.  How could I possibly claim to know what was coming down the road?  I’m embarrassed now, reminded of the ridiculous hubris of that 28 year-old.  Hey kid, rather than writing a love poem to your bride and tying the perfect bow-tie, go pick up that shovel and start digging.  You have some real work to do.  I love that poem, and I am proud of its words, and I meant them, and still mean them.  But it’s just…not…real. It needs more shovel.

Real marriage means never trying to actually win an argument with your wife.  You never win.  That shouldn’t be your goal.  You have to effect some sort of unsteady, but binding compromise.  It’s all a compromise, a long series of compromises.  Even when objectively you are right, which might objectively be quite frequently, it doesn’t matter.  Jamming the fact that you’re right down your wife’s throat?  Not a winning scenario under any circumstances.  Also, women and men are different species.  Don’t try to take the bag of experiences that your wife experiences through her own senses and run it through your own way of processing those experiences.  Those are her experiences.  And she has her own way of processing things.  That has to be respected.  Never undermine, at least not intentionally.  Show a united front to your children.  If she takes Max’s iPhone away for a week in a seeming fit of anger, go with it.  Don’t show the slightest hint of reluctance when he looks for your eyes for confirmation that this punishment is, indeed, for real.  Get used to the “Father Knows Best” things you’ll hear coming out of your mouth at these times: “Well son, your mother and I agree that…”

And slow down.  Sit down next to her.  Breath.  Look into her eyes.  Tell her you love her (because you do).  And ask her how her day was.  Then just…listen.  Make her feel that she is the center of your universe (because she is).  Even if you can’t absorb all the details that flow from her lips, remember what drew you to her in the first place.  Let yourself be amazed by all the things that have transpired since that day.  Allow yourself to be dazzled and amazed by this woman who willingly carried and delivered — twice! — your children. (A man might be wiling to give birth to a child once, but no man would voluntarily do it again.)  Be grateful, again and again, that every time you look in the backseat of the roller coaster, she is there.  Sometimes pissed, sometimes on the verge of throwing up, sometimes smiling through closed lips.  But she is there.  She is always there.  And I am grateful for that.

So after all these years have passed, and strangely, as many of the things I wrote about in that wedding day poem have actually happened, I still have the shovel in my hand.  I’ve wanted to throw it down on the ground and scream at the top of my lungs so many times, just like you.  She has wanted to yank it out of my hands and scream out loud.  Just like you.  That would be way easier than actually doing the work prescribed by my imaginary wedding day advisor.  I struggle with all those good things I’m supposed to do that I rattled off in the paragraph before this one.  Every day.  And I have botched some of them up so many times.  Despite my best intentions, I will no doubt continue botching.  But I will not throw down the shovel, nor will I release my grip on it.  I’m going to stay right here, a quick wipe of the brow and exhale, then back to work, knowing full well that my timecard will stay in my back pocket, that I will never punch out. And I’m good with that.

Thanks for reading.

The San Francisco Little League held its annual spring season draft last night in Golden Gate Park.  Or rather, one of its drafts.  The League manages what I understand to be the second largest gaggle of young players in the country.  A gargantuan task, and all run by volunteers, with a huge impact on their own lives and of the lives of their families and partners, who shoulder more of the load at home while the administrators administrate, the player agents agent, and the coaches coach for several months each year.  So this is a big deal.

Our sons have both played in the League since they were in kindergarten.  And I have been fortunate enough to coach all of their seasons, sometimes two seasons in a year.  So that means I’ve managed to coach something on the order of 17 teams over 17 “seasons”.  Maybe something approaching a couple hundred girls and boys by this point.  

I don’t think I could recite how many games any particular team won or lost, or what the scores were for any particular games, even playoff games for the older players when things tend to get considerably more competitive.  I would be lying if I said that I didn’t care about how well my teams and players and sons physically played their games.  Or that I have no interest in a game’s final outcome.  I have spent plenty of post-game car rides home solo, banishing myself (or being banished) to drive alone, so that I can curse with abandon, wrestle with the “what ifs” and “so and so,” and so on.  My “success rate” when measured against Carlin’s words on these rides is high, er, low, er, you know what I mean.  But the collateral damage is minimal, since there’s only me in the car to blush at my word choice and be disappointed that I have come to this, unraveled and disheveled along the Bay Bridge drive home.   

If the scores, batting averages, playoff records, etc., were why I coached, were what mattered most, then I shouldn’t be a coach.  Period.  I would have no business coaching my kids, your kids, or anyone else’s kids.  I would be in it for the wrong reasons, and probably spreading my own wrong-headed contagion to every player, coach and parent with which I come in contact. That’s alot of infected people; it’d be a mini-epidemic.  No bueno. 

I think about this alot, and especially with the start of each new season: The reason I coach is to try to help each player learn what it means to achieve something that seems unachievable to them.  To try to help each player discover inspiration within themselves.  To instill in each the notion that if you never quit, you can never “lose.”  To wake each player up to the simple, powerful pleasures of the smells of outfield grass in the sun, scuffed dirt in the infield, and a glove’s worn leather.  I think these things are important.  In fact, I’m not sure I know of things that are more important than these things.  As I sit thinking pretty deeply now about why I coach, it occurs to me that there’s a fair amount of Grandma’s Lemonade mixed throughout in this.   

I throw my share of batting practice and a few thousand pitches over a season, sore throwing shoulder be-damned.  And I’ll teach the mechanics I think I know how to teach.  And I’ll call signs to our catcher intended to strike out the opposing batter, if I’m asked to handle the pitch-calling.  And I’ll attempt to position an outfielder or two a step or two here or a step or two there to maximize the opposing team’s batter’s chance of failure.  And I’ll send a player of mine on a lap around the park, with a serious look on my face, for any number of transgressions.  

But more importantly, I am earnestly searching the actions and behavior of every player on my team, during every practice, and every game.  I’m looking for an opening.  

The 10th strikeout in a row by one of our hitters, shoulders slumped and face on the verge of tears trudging defeated towards the dugout.  The most diminutive player on our team, suddenly thrust into the spotlight and onto the pitcher’s mound, asked to somehow throw the ball into that tiny catcher’s mitt so far away, without hitting the boy standing with a bat and without having the boy standing there with a bat hit the thrown ball.  

The least skilled player, in his last at-bat of the season, having experienced so little “success” during the long season — then his unbridled joy at hitting a chalkline-sniping grounder past the surprised first basemen, scoring all of our base runners and winning the game.  Suddenly.  Unexpectedly.  

The player struggling to focus on the pitcher from the batter’s box, distracted by the well-intentioned but completely counterproductive stream of “encouragement” from his father standing 10 feet behind him.  

These are the moments I seize upon, grateful to the sport that delivers them up to me.  So many eye-to-eye (often requiring a bent knee on my part) and heart-to-heart discussions, albeit brief.  

“Hey, you just did something amazing, and I bet you didn’t think you were capable of that, right?”  

“You may strike out 10 more times in a row.  But if you run back to the dugout with your head up, if you get your head right back into the game and cheer on the next guy, that ability to ‘get right back up’ is way more important than anything you can do with a bat in your hand.” 

“No matter how many times the pitcher pitches the ball over your head, halfway to the plate, or even closer to the dugout than to your catcher’s mitt, you need to stay positive, not betray your frustration in your body language, because your actions are having a huge effect on him.  And how the rest of your teammates will treat him.  I don’t care if he is the weakest player on the team and if his pitching right now means that we might lose the game.  He will remember this moment for the rest of his life, so think about how you want him to remember it and to remember you.”

Gives me chills to recall these moments.  And I’m completely OK with the fact that most of these comments delivered from the third base coaches box or hovering somewhere near our dugout might skip off into the stratosphere.  If only a couple sermons stick, or maybe come back to mind years from now when some sticky situation presents itself, it’ll all have been worthwhile.  

I don’t remember much at all about the statistics and records from my own piddling baseball career.  But I do remember how my own coaches taught me important things along the way; lessons that I would not absorb or appreciate until I was older.  I am pretty damn lucky to be able to share some of these same things, with a healthy mix of my own ideas, to so many boys and girls wearing the same team’s ball cap as the one on my head. I can’t wait for the new season to begin. 

Thanks for reading. 

Lake Tahoe has been getting some much needed snow the past few days, with a bit more on the way.  This is a big deal, given the considerably poor conditions of late due to the drought.  That last link there didn’t go to some sort of dry, scientific treatise on the State of California’s dire water situation.  It linked to a blog post I wrote a week or so ago that had, ehm, pretty much nothing to do with the drought.  I have yet to muster up the motivation to write anything of the learned variety.  But I’ll get there, once I burn through the alien heads, unbrushed teeth, Krakens, blood, and swim goggles that clutter my short-term memory.

Oh, and cab drivers.  In this age of Uber’s sleek app and Lyft’s pink moustache, it’s hard to remember when the whole taxi thing was much more entertaining.  Good for these disruptive entrepreneurs who are taming the wild west of cab-dom, but this homogenization does reduce the number of totally “out there” taxi experiences that are told and re-told for years.  We’ve all had the driver channeling Bullitt, complete with underbodies scraping pavement and sparks shooting off into the dark.  We probably deserved that nauseating treatment, since most of us regrettably recall a tax ride or two that ended with the fare electing not to pay the fare, attempting to escape into the night instead.  A friend of a friend of a friend (I suppose this could be traced back to me when worded this way) learned the hard way that some of these taxi drivers relish the opportunity to hunt down teenaged pranksters at a full sprint through fields and woods.  Here’s a tip:  Just pay the fare.  Or wear better shoes.  No, just pay the fare.

I think I have the taxi cab tale of all taxi cab tales.  Not because of erratic driving, rude passengers, unidentifiable scents, or outrageous fares.  Quite the opposite.  My favorite taxi experience was, in a word, “excellent.”  “Successful Excellent,” even.  No need to smirk at my lack of command of the Queen’s English; stay with me.

On a cold and snowy night fourteen ski seasons ago,  a group of my friends and I piled into a private cab that had braved the treacherous conditions to pluck us from our rented ski house in the sticks and deliver us unto more exciting environs.  The driver was an enormous African American gent with a very pleasant, convivial vibe.  We were enjoying one another’s company, exchanging banter about the weather as our driver for the evening calmly and confidently fishtailed his way down the street.  Out of habit (most in the car were savvy cab riders having spent long stretches in NYC), one of us glanced at our driver’s credentials, on display in the usual spot near the dashboard.  I think I may have seen it first, but I could be mistaken as the story has been re-told so many times now.  So let’s go with that.  I took in the license’s information casually in a quick scan, not pausing my head’s pan to the snowy view outside.  Then something registered as being out of place, and my eyes darted back to the plastic-covered paper.  There it was in black and white, next to the typical, mundane photo of our otherwise ordinary driver and sitting right along with other otherwise ordinary identifying information that convinced me this was legit:  In the spot reserved for the driver’s name, two words appeared —

Successful Excellent

No joke.  My head swam a bit as the magnitude of the comedic potential here began to reveal itself to me.  No one else in my party had seen the unicorn, at least not yet.  I don’t remember exactly what was said or by whom, but I do remember what Mr. Excellent shared with us.  This was indeed his name, he had legally changed it a few years back.  I got the impression that he had come from humble beginnings but decided to take control of his own destiny, make something of himself, and do it in the most genuine and authentic way he could conceive.  By giving himself the name “Successful Excellent,” knowing that hundreds of passengers would have to see his name, displayed so prominently in Successful’s cab, he made himself accountable.  Is there a more clean and simple way to claim a path and ensure you’ll stay on it?  Every modestly alert rider would serve to remind Successful of his lofty goals, even if they laughed at him.  This is way more effective than a framed motivational poster “There is no ‘I’ in ‘Team'” with some hands in a pile or a bullshit soaring Bald Eagle.  He was putting it out there, opening himself up to the possibility of cruel ridicule, because he wanted everyone to know what he was about.  Testing his resolve with every fare.

Of course, none of these things occurred to me at the time.  It just seemed funny as hell, and I didn’t look any deeper than that.  The only thing that saved Successful (or more accurately, us) from mean jokes during the ride was the fact that the dude was huge and could crush our heads like walnuts.

I hadn’t lived enough by that point to realize the true beauty of what Successful had done.  And perhaps even he didn’t realize that he was showing everyone what courage and commitment really looked like.  It’s not about mocking your opponent or trash-talking on a football field or basketball court.  It’s not about driving a $100,000 sports car with vanity plates.  It’s about changing diapers at 2 in the morning, holding the hand of a loved one during yet another round of chemotherapy, taking a city bus at 5am across town to get to school, and beating a drug addiction.  These things aren’t sexy, and we hardly notice them.  But I think they are stronger examples of the good stuff than wearing a team’s jersey with some player’s last name on the back.  Or if there has to be a name on the back, make mine say “Excellent.”

So thank you, Mr. Excellent, for that ride 14 years ago.  I’m headed back up to Tahoe this coming weekend; how ’bout a lift?  I am ready to learn.

Thanks for reading.

So show me family
All the blood that I will bleed
I don’t know where I belong
I don’t know where I went wrong
But I can write a song

These Lumineers lyrics from their song “Ho Hey” have been stuck in my head the last 24 hours. I stumbled on them, almost literally, sweating through a chilly basement run on my parents’ treadmill yesterday afternoon. And I can still hear the words now, sitting in another airport, numb in the buzzy aftermath of an historic college basketball game in the Carrier Dome last night.

I suspect that most of us, if we’re honest about it, spend our lifetimes managing the first four lines of this song. Meaning of life. What’s most important? Am I where I’m supposed to be right now? What does the future hold for me? Man, I wish I could go back and do this or that over again, I think I really butchered that the first time around. That type of thing.

I feel like I experienced those first four lines in spades over the last couple days, with a crescendo at last night’s Duke-Syracuse game. Syracuse will always be “home” to me, a place where people I love and have loved for a long time have settled, with zero intention of budging. Combine that essential fact with the intense experience my east coast family has just gone through with my grandmother, and I feel that I have been “shown my family” of late. And I feel, too, that we have shed a meaningful amount of blood together of late.

The belonging thing is a trickier one. But I believe there are certain moments in time when we can look around and realize that this is exactly where we belong. At this moment. Last night, standing on the stained cement of Section 335ZZ, I had such a moment. Plenty has been written about the game, but suffice to say from my perspective, it was a game of historic proportions for both programs, but particularly for the SU Orangemen, and especially for their fans. Legitimacy. Credibility. Vindication. Whatever you want to call it. A very big deal. And I am thrilled to have been there, with my 8 year-old son’s arms wrapped around my shoulders, no less. Magic.

But these moments of crystal clarity are rare, fleeting, nearly impossible to predict, elusive. Who knows if I’ll ever have such a moment of “belonging” again? And I think that’s exactly the point. The point made by the last line of this song: “But I can write a song.”

We have, for the most part, little or no control over how the big questions of life will be answered. Or even if they will be answered at all. But we can write a song. We can enjoy the ride, and not be so wrapped around the axle about the destination. Standing near the top of the pile of 36,000 people last night, I can honestly say that I enjoyed the singular experience. The outcome was practically irrelevant.

And this is why I write (blog), and why I write about what I write about. We can’t know how much blood we’ll bleed, but we can all “write a song.” Buckle up and enjoy the ride.

Thanks for reading.