Birthday, T Minus 1

My Keeper of the Pinstripes colleagues caught me off guard this afternoon with candled cupcakes and a birthday card full of notes and warm wishes.

And, I’ve got to admit, it gave me a lump in my throat. I assume this has something to do with aging, the long, slow slide to becoming a father and therefore tearing up at things like The Lion King.

But regardless, I was touched. And I think it augurs well for an excellent birthday tomorrow, and an excellent upcoming year.

Heading home shortly, then off to the airport en route to Charles de Gaulle. Au revoir a vous et bon voyage pour moi.

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July 15, 2009

Shyster

While I don’t have a law degree, after eleven years of running contract-intensive companies, I do sort of feel like I’ve gone through law school from the other side.

And while I’m bad, my CFO is worse; he previously worked for a few years as a strategic consultant at a law firm, and he’s taken to referring to his position at Cyan as ‘war time consigliere’.

This week, however, as we’ve been neck-deep in finalizing the PPM (for those without even an imagined law degree, ‘private placement memorandum’) that serves as the next step in our MovieSTAR hedge fund fundraising, it’s become readily apparent that we’re not, actually, attorneys at all.

Because while real ones can somehow spend all day, every day, reading their way through page after page after page of exceedingly dense legalese, we can only make it about twenty minutes at a stretch before our eyes glaze over to the point of effective blindness.

Which is all to say, it’s a damn good thing I didn’t go to law school in a spurt of mercenary money-chasing; I’m pretty sure I’d have ended up offing myself years before I even made partner.

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July 31, 2008

Susurrus

I’m a talker. So it should be little surprise that, even while sleeping, I continue to jabber away.

According to Jess, however, my intelligible words are few and far between. Deep asleep one night this week, for example, I apparently slapped my chest twice, thrust my arm into the air, and shouted, “halfway!” But, even then, a few minutes later, another chest slap and arm thrust was followed by “spreak!”, a phrase for which I have no real explanation.

More frequently, it seems, I just mumble.

“Hapatapapatapa…,” I’ll say.

Recently, Jess has taken to playing along.

“Oh, really, hapatapapata?” she’ll ask, to which I invariably respond, “mmmhmmmm.”

While I’m not much of a somnolent conversationalist – my entire set of answers limited to shades of “mmmhmmm” – I’m apparently still relatively expressive. I have a contented “mmmhmmm”, for example, and another when I’m annoyed to have her bothering me mid-oration.

It’s apparently a family trait, as my grandmother used to drive herself to tears of laughter through similar nonsensical exchanges with my mother, when my mother was a girl. And whenever I share a room with my brother David, he keeps me up through the night with buzz-saw snoring punctuated with long, mumbled chains of semi-words.

Which makes me think I’m probably less than a joy myself. Still, as Jess continues her long-held traditions of both stealing all the covers, and kicking me, hard, while asleep, I’m calling it even on calling it a night.

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May 25, 2008

Look Both Ways

I am, it turns out, obsessed with lazy eyes. I hadn’t realized as much, until Jess pointed out the frequency and gleefulness with which I observe them – from celebrities (god bless you, Paris Hilton) to passersby on the street.

But any time I observe ailments in others, I can’t help but worry I possess the same myself. A close-talker with halitosis invariably leaves me cupping my mouth and nose to test my own breath.

So the wall-eye obsession is a double-edged sword. Sure, I find unexpected joy in Tina Fey’s outward-swinging eyeballs. But, at the same time, they leave me scheming methods for candid self-portraits, where I might catch such previously undiagnosed strabismus in myself.

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May 20, 2008

Dire Situation

Inexplicably, there’s no running water in Cyan’s office today, a bit of a problem given that I – like most of my team – drink through several bottles of water daily, and consequently pee like clockwork every half-hour.

Crap. Or, rather, not.

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March 14, 2008

Still Down for the Count

Jess and I spent another day tucked feverishly in bed, a la the Charlie and Chocolate Factory grandparents.

Sort of like a honeymoon. Except with Gatorade instead of fun.

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February 27, 2008

Recap

I have a long and loserly tradition of spending a morning each year, just before New Years, thinking through the past year, and formulating goals and plans for the next.

This year, looking back, it’s pretty clear 2007 has been a decidedly mixed bag.

On the excellent news side, there’s getting engaged (I love you Jess!) and opening and building a thriving CrossFit NYC gym (I don’t love you, CFNYC members, but I at least strongly like you!).

And, on the less excellent news side, there’s Cyan, where – due to both unexpected outside forces (including, primarily, someone contracting Mad Cow Disease [yes, seriously]) and inside ones (including, primarily, me being an idiot) – we basically treaded water for the entire year.

Still, in this very last week of 2007, Cyan seems to be surging ahead – we’ve had three big pieces of positive news in the past three and a half days – so I’m hopeful that I can hit the ground in 2008 running, once again, at full speed on all cylinders.

Looks like it should be a busy year.

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December 27, 2007

Footsy

Here’s something I don’t often admit: I was a ballerina.

Okay, technically, I was a danseur. But still.

My mother, who did masters work in dance at Stanford, enrolled me in ballet at a very young age. And I loved it. I was good at it. I danced for years, until, presumably, the fear of cooties contamination from such a female-dominated pursuit caused me to rebel.

Looking back, of course, I realize I should have stuck it out a few more years. Post-cooties, I would have been one of the very few straight guys surrounded by a swarm of lithe women in spandex.

But, anyway, I stopped. Still, to this day, I often look down and catch myself in first position. I have terminal, intractable duck feet.

About a month ago, I badly sprained my ankle. Seeing me hobbling around on crutches and air cast, a physical therapist friend pointed out that my ‘everted feet’ might be to blame. He sent me a copy of the Egoscue Method, in the hopes that fixing my post-ballet posture might save my ankle from a repeatedly sprained fate, and similarly protect my knees – the next joint to go in what appears to be a fairly standard progression.

And, well, I think he might be right. Egoscue’s theory is persuasive, and though I’ve only been doing the exercises for about a week, and so can’t yet vouch much for the results, I already feel better. I’m standing a bit more solidly, with my joints squarely aligned from my ankles up through my shoulders and neck.

His other books, Pain Free and Pain Free at Your PC also seem to have garnered rave reviews. So, if you find you’re not standing how you’d like, or if you have pain in your back, your shoulders, your knees or your wrists, they might be worth a read. I’ll post a further review after I’ve had a chance to do the exercises for another month or two. But, in the meantime, for ten bucks a pop, seems certainly worth checking out for yourself.

Merde!

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November 12, 2007

Complain, Complain

Yesterday evening, I smashed my finger in my brother’s front door.

It was my left ring finger – or, rather, just the tip of it, as I managed to close his heavy metal door right on the middle of my nail.

I’ve broken fingers more times than I can count, mostly during my years of wrestling and competitive fighting. But, back then, I always managed to break or fracture well up towards the first knuckle, between the MCP and PIP joints.

And while that hurts, it’s nothing, nothing compared to smashing the hell out of your nailbed.

Or at least that’s how it seems to me now. Which could either mean that it really is much more painful. Or, conversely, that I’ve turned into a total pussy in the intervening years.

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July 11, 2007