#1: I Don't Make (all) the Rules for Hobbies. & Hello!

A warm welcome to Keeping You Company

Hello! from the other side 

of this screen (Adele is haunting my subconscious) – 

First: thank you, thank you very much for subscribing. I’m frankly touched that anyone besides my Mom and Dad and fiance (ugh what a nauseating word that I’ve found zero good substitutes for – got any leads?) Paul are opting to receive these weekly correspondences. Thanks for your time and attention and inbox space – not things I take lightly at all. And now that you’re here, how are things going today for you? Send a response to this email, comment on Substack or – (prepare yourself for my most yoga teacher vibe yet) take a few moments to notice and form a reply in your mind that you then release silently into the air like a soft, odorless burp. 

(the actual name of a pizza place in Oakland!)

These days, if asked that question, I usually say – “Okay.” And I mostly am. But we’re in a pandemic with a stressfully important, looming election and white supremacy as violently omnipresent as ever before. So, there’s a more-than-usual level of terrible news piling up in my awareness (for you too?). And – more personally, a good chunk of my mental and emotional energy is directed toward a question that sits pretty constantly along my mind’s edge. 

I keep wondering: what is going on with me? 

I’ve been wrestling (sometimes very literally via the Blessed Voodoo Floss) with an ambiguous and inconsistent yet definitely not good feeling in my right ankle since the end of March. I’ve been in a devastatingly predictable cycle: 

• Reluctantly take some time entirely off running → Do lots of PT → Ankle continues to be about the same → Become frustrated and impatient → Hasten back to running → Ankle gets worse → Rinse and repeat. 

It prompts wonderment on my part. I wonder what’s actually going on physically in my ankle (and I’ve seen multiple doc’s and PTs, but heck – it’s hard to know) and also, mentally. Why can’t I wrap my mind around a sustainable routine while not running and doing things that would get me back to it responsibly? Self-sabotage? Oy, let’s hope not. Impatience? Anxiety? More likely. 

At the end of June I finally

resigned myself to taking a big chunk of time off. Woof. It sucked. I cried. I felt like I’d already done this and wasted lots of time in doing this because it’d still had no effect. But, really, I didn’t have tons of other options. I also didn’t have a lot of other stuff going on in the time of Corona that felt like reminders of who I was and how I spent my hours and days and weeks of time. And then a wise, wise friend and coach told me: 

i would get so frustrated when people would tell me the whole ‘you’re more than a runner’ ramble and expect me to magically start caring about 12 other hobbies[emphasis added] i had seemingly forgotten about for the last decade. BUUUUUTTTTTT [emphasis appreciated, not added] there is truth in that. running is such a life engrossing pursuit that it does feel like you don’t have purpose when it’s ripped from you. i guess that’s the thing though. to find purpose and how running can help boost your life and not just define it. 

There it is. The elusive *Topic*. 

- Hobbies 

Jia Tolentino’s essay “Always Be Optimizing” isn’t really about how we (the royal we) should have hobbies that have no ideal of forward progress or personal betterment goals attached to them – but it does have the subtitle of, “How we became suckers for the hard labor of self-optimization.” 

And she does say:

“Figuring out how to ‘get better’ at being a woman is a ridiculous and often amoral project – a subset of the larger, equally ridiculous, equally amoral project of learning to get better at life under accelerated capitalism.”

Because of those lines and the general betterment skepticism, I’ve conflated her work with my own slow realization that I have very few things in my life that aren’t about improvement. Paul would rephrase this to say that I don’t have any (or at least not many) *true* hobbies. Controversially, Paul is a firm believer that running is not a hobby. That anything you do to pursue personal excellence cannot be classified as a hobby. (Open call to voice your dissent about this. I have and may even continue to.) 

I needed a hobby. A sense of purpose, a way to fill time. And it couldn’t be something that I did physically – even if it wasn’t expressly cross training or physical therapy – so cycling was out. Even though I’ve been riding more than ever before in my life! (Highlight - discovering a sundappled not foggy place. Lowlight - dropped chain at least 7 times in the last 30 days.)

I made that rule up. But I believe in it. Anything physical would send signals to my addled brain that I was concentrating on getting back to running. Do you have hobbies? Things that you intentionally do just to do them, not to better yourself? Listening to music? Birding. Foraging for mushrooms. I’m sure you do. 

Aliphine Tuliamuk, the US Olympic Trials Marathon Champion, crochets. She started making beanies when she was recovering from a femoral stress fracture. In an article for Canadian Running, she said, “Six to eight weeks of no running, that drove me crazy! The first day I watched movies. That was the longest day of my life. I didn’t know how I was going to make it through six to eight weeks.”

I’m almost at week seven. So, maybe hobbies are for the birds anyway (birdwatcher pun?). But, to successfully entirely bury the lede – I’m counting this message as a step – not necessarily forward – but ya know, in a direction. 

Ok - this is it. A (maybe the only?) portion of this communication that I’m going to STICK TO like a very cold popsicle onto a tongue but in a less scary and painful way. 

It’ll be a list of things I consumed in the past week. No *thing* will be too abstract to consume. I’m a consumption monster. 

~10 Things~

1 - This podcast. I’ve been delinquent in keeping up with running-related podcasts lately because well, frankly I’m trying not to think too much about running. (See above.) TAL is hit or miss for me, and Ira Glass can be comically grating, but this episode is mostly hosted by Sierra Crane Murdoch and it’s about Lissa Yellow Bird, who hunts cold cases of people who’ve gone missing. And it’s fucking good. It’s emotional, but also suspenseful and fascinating and made me think about forgiveness and morality. 

2 - This article about TikTok by Jason Parham. Of course I don’t understand TikTok, I’m far too old for that. This article pointed out the exploitation of Black culture and blatant racism on the platform that I certainly might’ve missed even if I were on it more. Very worth reading.

3 - The Hummus Guy pita chips. TWO entire boxes since returning to San Francisco from Oregon. They come in boxes not bags which maybe contributes to their greatness? The best pita chips I’ve tasted. So much better than Stacy’s and I don’t know why or how The Hummus Guys accomplish that, but I can no longer deny that truth. So, that’s 3 and 4 to make sure my adding is right.

5 - The fact that I’ll have a long life based on Sanna’s Mom’s personal beliefs because I texted Sanna coincidentally shortly after she happened to be thinking of me. I of course am open to this line of thinking and consumed it ravenously. 

6 - A longform piece from 2016 by Nikole Hannah-Jones about her experience of NYC’s school system in The New York Times. I don’t think the issues she talks about are only limited to NYC schools, and they’re definitely just as relevant now as they were in 2016. 

7 - I absolutely lost it at this instagram post. It’s comedy. I still can barely look at it without laughing for 2-5 minutes straight. 

8 - WAP. What can I say in response. It is definitely, entirely a cooler and more sex-positive piece of art than I’d prepared myself to consume. But I like that about it. Plus the beat is very good. Slaps you (or someone) might even say. 

9 - A mystery. It started when my friends sent this post to our group chat. What did it mean?! What was going on with Ellen. I hadn’t kept up with the most recent DeGeneres shenanigans. This article solved the mystery in one fell swoop. 

10 - The sound of Paul spelling out the word Langhorne over a customer service call. What I would’ve given to see the customer service rep’s facial expression.

“L as in loveless” -- this is what got my attention. was there something i needed to know?? 

“A as in assumption” -- ok. interesting choice. the narrative complexifies.

“N as in negotiate” -- does Paul want to negotiate the loveless assumption?

“G as in generation” -- hm, losing interest. seems to be less pointed. 

“H as in horizon” -- well that’s just plain poetry. 

“O as in [get ready] optometrist” -- yes. WHAT. wow. i think i usually say o as in ‘okay.’ i felt insecure. 

“R as in radiator” -- also pretty delightfully unusual. 

“N as in negotiate” -- bit of a missed opportunity, but respect the commitment to consistency. 

“E as in elevator” -- somehow the perfect, very satisfying note to end on. what a wild ride. 

THE END. If you actually made it here, I’m bestowing some GOOD LUCK upon you that was originally from a chopstick wrapper to me, but now to you, too. Use it well.

X as in xylophone O as in optometrist,

Jeanne