54 posts tagged “52 posts in 52 weeks”

I've tried to read Moby Dick at least three times, only to get bored, abandon the book halfway through and beat myself up over my lack of intellectual fortitude. At least I'm consistent.

I mention this only because the chapter in Moby Dick that invariably signals the beginning of my ending is called "The Whiteness of the Whale." It's about the whiteness of the whale and it hurts me right in my soul. So I figured I'd adapt the title that has signalled so much failure to discuss one of my greatest achievements: the successful completion of the 52 Posts in 52 Weeks Challenge.

He Just Wants Pie

Today is December 31, 2008, and after I click "save" on this post, I will have filed at least one post, of at least 100 words each week for the past year. Jodi was so sure I couldn't do it that she agreed to provide me a delicious pie, and write a post extolling my many virtues if I succeeded.

I frankly don't know which I'm more excited about. On the one hand, we have the promised pie.  Pie is delicious under the worst of circumstances. Pie garnished with the thrill of victory promises to be that much sweeter. On the other hand we have a professional blogger and budding novelist Jodi turning all her writerly talents toward extolling my many virtues. They're both so great its practically impossible to choose. Thankfully, I don't have to.

I liked the 52P52W Challenge. I'm kind of hoping to top myself with a 104P52W Challenge in 2009. All that's needed is the right inducement. Jodi, after you get done extolling (and get my pie safely in the mail) you know who to talk to.

When I ran my first and only marathon, I was too tired and beat up to really appreciate the last mile. As I ran up the final hill toward the finish line at Iwo Jima, my feet felt like they'd been pummeled by hammers, my clothes were saturated with my own sweat and my tunnel vision for the finish line was so severe that I couldn't even see the members of my cheering section, who were apparently leaning into the paths of the oncoming runners. Good times.

Well fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice...um... we won't get fooled again. As a I draw toward the close of the 52P52W Challenge, I'm determined to enjoy the waning moments of my yearlong journey. By my count, this will be the penultimate post in the 52P52W Challenge, meaning that I'm one week removed from claiming victory over Jodi, who questioned my capacity to post once a week in 2008.

Since then I've been to Egypt, France, Portland, Canada and numerous points West. I've also moved and roofeed CarrieNation into agreeing to be my bride. It's been a busy year. And through it all, flying on the wings of spite and lured by the promise of sweet, sweet pie, I've posted every week.

Pie notwithstanding, this has been a worthwhile exercise. Even if Jodi wusses out and fails to provide a fitting inducement for the 104P52W Challenge, I'm going to try to keep up with the weekly missives. It's a good writing exercise, and a great way for a non-diarist to keep track of his life and times. So before she even delivers my pie -- and the lengthy post extolling my many virtues -- I'd like to thank the Supergenius for helping me document a momentous year. Her real reward though will be in writing about her favorite person, and in seeing me enjoying my sweet, sweet pie.

As long as I can remember, I've loved Christmas.

This is odd for several reasons, the first and most obvious being that I am not a Christian. What's more, my family never made a big deal of the holiday. My parents were divorced when I was quite young, so I split time between households. I was an only child until I was in my teens, so mine was never the riotous house full of merry, apple-cheeked youths. Finally, my mother loathes the Christmas, and while she went to lengths to meet my yuletide needs, it was quite clear she would have preferred to be skiing or kite-boarding or whatever.

Now you may be thinking that the thing l like about Christmas is the presents, but that's not really the case either. I enjoy getting gifts, and I enjoy giving them even more, but the presents have always seemed ancillary to the central theme of the holiday for me.

What I like is an image of Christmas that I've never really experienced. An old (olde?) English Christmas replete with chestnuts, boughs of holly, ruddy-faced pedestrians, sleighs, artful-but-not-inconvenient snow drifts, and boundless good cheer. Which is to say, I like the Christmas portrayed by Charles Dickens in "A Christmas Carol." I like the imagery, I like the coziness, and most of all I like the idea of a time when: "men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys."

I may be Pollyana to think that such a season still exists (or ever existed), but just as Scrooge's nephew, I intend to keep my Christmas good cheer to the last, regardless of how silly it may seem.

So with that, here's Slade with one of my very favorite Christmas carols.

Ugh. Time to blog again. This 52P52W challenge is unrelenting. If only something happened this past week. We had our office happy hour. There was a good Top Chef episode. I was shamefully eliminated from the fantasy football playoffs. But that's all pretty meh.

Well there was something: I got engaged.

!
(!)
!!!

I know what you're thinking: Who is this poor girl and what kind of roofees (sic) am I feeding her? Well the woman in question is the lovely, talented and all-around awesome CarrieNation, and if you think I'm giving you my proprietary roofee recipe for free, you're insane.

So, yeah, I'm pretty stoked. As anyone who reads this blog is well aware, I'm a bit of an odd duck, and had spent some time in my life wondering the right woman was even out there for me. As it turned out, I had known her for many years. All I needed to do was get the timing right. I must have done okay, because she said yes, and next year at this time we plan to be el hitchoed.

As for the details of the asking, I hid the ring in a little music box Christmas ornament that pops open to reveal a snowy scene. As nonchalantly as possible I suggested she check it out. When she opened it and caught a glimpse of the hardware, I went down on one knee, and popped the proverbial question. She insists that she was surprised. 

I don't have any great insights to impart. I find few things more annoying than people who get married and start acting like they discovered cold fusion. I do know that I'm almost criminally lucky and that CarrieNation is my perfect woman, and for now, those two things are enough.

And for those of you who want to see bling, here is a grainy cell phone picture of same...

Bling

I was supposed to fly to India on Monday. It was supposed to be the last great obstacle standing between me and completion of the 52 Posts in 52 Weeks Challenge. Then a bunch of terrorists decided to shoot up Mumbai, everyone (myself included) got skittish, and my trip got canceled. So here I am on a gray Saturday, with no deadline nipping at my heels and only a couple short weeks standing between me and my victory pie.

I'm a little sad to miss out a free trip to India -- which currently tops my must-visit list -- but I was already getting a little cool on this excursion before bullets started flying at Westerners. The conference I was headed off to was the suck, my schedule was tight and the city I was heading off to was the 70th or so most interesting destination in the country.

Making full use of an unexpected weekend at home, CarrieNation and I  bought a Christmas tree, which is now sitting partially bedecked in the corner.  For a pair of secularized, cynical eastern spiritualists, we sure do have a thing for Christmas. It's going to be a good year. I can hardly wait for when I get to trick Hotrod into eating a Christmas cookie.

This year brings the added excitement of being pretty certain that our tree violates our lease agreeement. We didn't ask, because its always better to beg forgiveness than seek permission, but just to be safe we did our best Mission Impossible imitation squirelling the tree up to our place.

Changing gears for a moment, is anyone as fascinated as I am with the now-ubiquitous commercial for the "Sham WOW" towelette?

I never cared much for Thanksgiving. As a kid, when I ate meat, I vaguely recall enjoying the meal, though the pie was definitely the centerpiece. As a still-carnivorous teen, I could take or leave the meal, but rather enjoyed turkey-and-stuffing sandwiches with mayo (I'd lose my vegetarian merit badge if I admitted that still sounds pretty damn tasty).  By the time I reached my 20s, I had become a vegetarian, moved away from the person most likely to waste a day off cooking for me, and I began to distance myself from the holiday.

One year, I took advantage of the short week to take a solo trip to London. For a few years, I made annual pilgrimages to a yoga retreat. One year Hotrod, Akaijen and I put together a vegetarian thanksgiving spread that was quite satisfying (ask Hotrod about Martha Stewart's gruyere macaroni and cheese). Two years ago, I bailed on the feast altogether, made myself some Trader Joes Pad Thai, poured a glass of tomato juice and counted the many things for which I am thankful. 

This year, CarrieNation, Hotrod and an I are doing like the original pilgrims did, namely seeking out people from a different cutlure to feed us. We're thinking Vietnamese, but we're going to let the highways and byways take us to whatever Asian restaurant seems to be most studiously ignoring America's favorite holiday.  Then over to Emma's for some board games. I can't hardly wait.

But before all that gets underway, I'd like to thank the universe for just a few of the many, many things that make me thankful.

- my awesome girlfriend
- my smelly pug dog (less so now, after she just planted a paw in my groin)
- my supportive mom
- Vox and all of my agreeable neighbors.
- pie
- The 52 Posts and 52 Weeks Challenge
- my job
- yoga
- CarrieNation's masterful hummus
- my large and growing collection of hooded sweatshirts
- Java Green
- Misha's
- Top Chef
- The Dairy Godmother (specifically pumpkin frozen custard sandwiches made with gingerbread cookies)
- President-elect Barack Obama
- world travel (most of the time)
- my bed
- (fantasy) football
- friends
- family
- forced triptychs

....and much, much more really, but I need to get to the gym to get a head start on burning off all the lemon grass I intend to eat later.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Here are a couple of facts: I am well over 30 years old. I have a good job, an awesome girlfriend and a smelly but endearing dog. I teach yoga in my spare time ... and last week I got into an non-ironic, borderline-violent screaming match with another "adult" over a professional football game. I went to bed angry on a Sunday night because a bunch of bible-thumping millionaires wearing burgundy and gold did their job less well than a bunch of bible-thumping millionaires wearing silver and blue. Smart.

Well, I'm done.

I would like to announce my official retirement from the ranks of "die-hard" football fans. From here on out, just call me Fair-Weather Dabysan. Henceforth, I will not even pay attention to the Washington Redskins unless they have a winning record. The moment they start losing a game, I will start scanning the channels to see if I can find a marathon of "Top Chef" reruns or some such. I still intend to be every bit as obnoxious in celebrating the Redskins' big wins (such as they are)  but don't ask me how the team is doing after a loss, because I won't know.

Idiots

I would also like to formally apologize to the legions of fair-weather fans whom I have slandered throughout my life. I used to be the loyalty police, demanding that people present their football bona fides before even agreeing to speak with them about the sport. I was loudly disdainful of dilletantes who watched football games casually, as if the sport were some sort of simple entertainiment.

Well, I was wrong. Football is exciting and fun to watch, but it's still basically a kids' game played by overgrown adolescents with whom I share nothing in common. Being personally invested in their successes and failures is a recipe for perpetual disappointment.

Fair-weather fans have had it right all along. Support the team when they're winning, reap the joys and benefits of the all-to-rare successful season, and drop them like a bad habit as soon as they take a turn toward loser-town. It's so obvious, I'm just disappointed that it took me so long to figure out.

Of course none of this affects my support for my fantasy football team, the Fluffy Bunnies. Some things are important.

We don't devote enough effort to marking important occasions in this little hinterland of the voxosphere. Earlier this year, the editors here at Dabysan in Hammersmith Palais allowed our landmark 100th Vox post to pass into the ether with little fanfare. This week we almost committed a similar oversight by allowing our 52nd post of 2008 to come and go without so much as a celebratory word.

Well it's time to break the trend (and to stop using the royal "we") and I say, there's no time like the present.

Why is 52 significant? Well as anyone who has followed this space in the  past 10.5 months will know, I took on an historic challenge in January, when blogging/WordTwist savant Jodi, in response to my honest well wishes for her ill-fated 365-day challenge, suggested that I would be unequal to the task of posting once a week.

Moments later, the 52 Posts in 52 Weeks Challenge was born, and I was off down the path of my most exciting of Vox adventures. Since the challenge began I've been in five four countries, four nine states (the editor thanks CarrieNation for her math skills)  and racked up approximately a quadrillion frequent flier miles. Yet every week, I've posted at least once, regardless of what exotic destinaton I've been knocking around. Last week I reached 52 posts, and while that number isn't significant for the purposes of the challenge -- which clearly requires that I post at least once during every calendar week of 2008 --  it is a good indication of how very wrong Jodi is, and that's worth something.

After I click "save" on this post, I'm on the hook for only seven more posts before I can claim my victory pie -- as well as a lengthy post from Jodi extolling my virtues. I'm here to tell you, faithful voxers, I'm not getting complacent. I have the finish line in view, and I'm leaving everything out on the track. My next major challenge comes during the first week in December, when I fly off for a trip to India. The trip lasts exactly from Monday-Sunday (the "week" as defined by the challenge) and poses a potential threat, but if I have to sign on using a goat-powered computer terminal in an opium den (good lord, where do I get my impressions of places?) I will post, and I will claim my pie.

Excelsior!

So Egypt. Crazy.

By December I will have visited more than twice the number continents I had visited in the previous 35 years (not hard when you've only seen Europe and North America, but still). Making matters more perverse is the fact that these have all been work trips, so the great majority of the time I spend in Rio or Paris or Cairo or Hyderabad takes place in subterranean hotel conference centers that may as well be in Tyson's Corner.

The place I'm staying in Cairo, the Intercontinental City Stars, should be called Disney's Cairo-Land Experience. It's sterile, safe and directly attached to what has to be the largest Western-style shopping mall in Egypt, if not all of Africa. I question whether Cinnabon franchises belong anywhere to begin with, but seeing one in Egypt is particularly jarring.

Luckily, when I arrived on Saturday -- my only day without meetings -- two of my colleagues were sitting in the hotel lobby, and had already booked a day-long tour with a guide. I sucked up the sleep deprivation and tagged along.

After a harrowing cross-town drive (Cairo is a city of more than 20 million people and fewer than 20 traffic lights) our first stop was the Great Pyramid of Cheops at Giza. Oftentimes I've found that major artistic and cultural landmarks fail to live up to their billing, but the pyramids at Giza deliver the goods. The scale is daunting, and that's before you consider the technology that was available when they were erected more than 4,000 years ago.

Cheops cheops people

Now, I've been told by some people that there's more to Egypt than pyramids and camels, but those people can bite me, cause pyramids and camels fucking rule. They're great individually, and exponentially awesome when taken together.

Meandthecamel

My camel's name was Mickey Mouse, and I gotta say, it suited him. The process here is that you get on Mickey's back when he is sitting in the position depicted above, and he stands up, rear end first. You don't realize when you're looking at them exactly how tall camels are.

View from the top

I can't speak for other camels, but Mickey didn't stink, didn't spit at me once, and greeted the prospect of carting my ass around the 5th Wonder of the World without complaint.

Sphinx

I'm in a state of high anxiety lately. Work is nuts, and despite the fact that I've already voted, and contributed my last dollar to "that one," I'm fairly obsessed with the ebb and flow of the polling data which never ceases to put a pit in my stomach.

So I'm doing what any reasonable person would, days before the most momentous election in recent memory: I'm hopping on a plane and jetting off to the Middle East.

Truth be told, I didn't immediately put two-and-two together when I first agreed to travel to Cairo for work during the first week in November, but after it settled in that I'd be out of the country for the election, I was not-so-secretly thrilled. The idea of waking up Wednesday morning and just reading a headline, rather than following every burp and gurgle of the electoral process is extremely appealing.

Daisy East