Author: Christa Avampato

I had a black and white television during my formative years. We were not a technological family so as a result I never developed the critical skills of hand-eye coordination necessary to play video games. Little did I know that this skill translates to nearly every team sport imaginable. I played soccer for a year and basketball for a year (until I realized just how vertically challenged I was), and then took up cross-country. I have run a marathon, just learned to swim, and teach yoga. All solitary sports, until now.

I always felt kind of bad about never playing a group sport. I wanted to belong to a team that accomplished something together, or lived through a loss together. I wanted that camaraderie. I just didn’t have the skills to make it happen. Plus I have an innate fear of harming someone else with my clumsiness. Then my friend Jeff told me about hash, a sport for drinkers with a running problem. This, I could get into….the only requirements: be able to run and enjoy beer and pizza. Done.

Tonight I went to my first hash. On the surface, it’s a simple sport. Someone designated as a hare marks out a course with chalk signs on city pavement. Courses can also include subway stations, departments stores, dirt trails. At one point we were scrambling up some rocks in Morningside Park. There are some false signs that may lead you on a wild goose chase for a bit. That’s all part of the fun. For a more in-depth look at the sport, check out this link: http://web.hashnyc.com/index.php?option=com_receding7&Itemid=34. The group ends at a bar for some rousing, beer, pizza, and community.

I am built for LSD: long, slow distance, and yet I always have a desire to keep up with the pack. So I went out too fast tonight and got pretty slow by the end. All of the hashers were terrific – funny, friendly, welcoming. Some were first-timers, “virgins”, like me. And some have been hashing for a decade, all over the world. They were all supportive, all wanting others to enjoy the event.

I ran the Chicago marathon a month after September 11th, and it was a very life-affirming event. I still have an intense love for Chicago and its people because of it. They came out in droves to support the marathon runners, many offering signs, whistles, and shouts of encouragement, along with orange slices, popcorn, and water. You could feel the love going along that course, at a time in our nation’s history when we desperately needed to support one another.

Though on a smaller scale, my hashing experience was similar. Our course tonight took us from 125th and Lexington, into the Bronx, and back down the westside, ending at 106th and Columbus, soon to be my new neighborhood. Everyone we passed cheered us on, kids ran with us for a block or two, high-fived us as we passed them huffing and puffing. It’s amazing how much that little encouragement can help to lift you up and over a slump. It’s incredible how the support of another person we don’t even know and will probably never see again can make all the difference, even when we feel we are tired and worn out.

We don’t do this enough. Some times I think I get so wrapped up in what I’m doing that I forget that being a cheerleader for anyone trying to accomplish anything is just as important as doing something myself. Yes, we need to get in the game, and we also need to stand on the sidelines and lend support to those on the field.

As I was running, I found myself thinking about the Nash equilibrium, the theorem that would later constitute the basis of game theory. (I have warned you of my nerdiness in previous posts.) The theory was the main subject of the movie “A Beautiful Mind.” Stated very simply, the Nash equilibrium is a point at which two people make the best choices for themselves, taking into account the decisions of the others. The Pollyanna side of my brain likes to state this as “we accomplish better outcomes for all not by thinking just about ourselves, but thinking about everyone impacted by our choices.” We get to a better place when we take others with us. And that’s hashing. Now that’s team spirit – let’s go have a beer and celebrate.

**Incidentally, if anyone is interested in joining me for a hash, just give me a shout!

I treat every evening like it’s New Year’s Eve, or my birthday. I spend a lot of time reflecting on where I was a year ago from today. What was I doing? Where was I working (or hoping to work)? Who was I with? And what’s changed? My friend Katie recently told me about a book called The Secret. I have been under a rock the past few years, also known as a rigorous MBA program, and I missed it despite the fact that it was on Oprah.

The Secret could be classified as a New Age-y self-help book, not that I’ve ever read one of course. It bears a lot of similarities to yogic principles – we live the life we imagine. While in general I am a “grab life by the balls” kind of person, I also think there is value in practicing patience over impulse from time to time and this becomes easier as I get older. There is a sweet spot to be found when we can create a balance between being proactive and accepting that certain events, be they incredible or tragic, are necessary to keep us moving forward. Each moment contains the exact teaching that we need at that time.

There is also a fair amount of research to show that between the ages of 26 and 32, women go through a fantastic amount of change, some of it so difficult that we wouldn’t wish it on our worst enemies. The person we are at the start of that period and the person we become have a radically different perspective on the world. As someone approaching the end of this period, I can vouch for its validity. And thanks goodness that this is the case. Life really is better once the dust from those 6 years settles.

A year ago I had no way of knowing that the life I have now is the life I could really have. I didn’t know how much I could love a job. I didn’t know how much I could love and appreciate my family and friends and their support. I didn’t know that a city could be a living, breathing entity of its own. A year ago, I thought I had veered so far off the track that I’d never be able to find my way to happiness again. It turns out that I needed a detour not only to find happiness, but to keep it and help it grow to something beyond what my imagination could envision. The turmoil made me appreciate happiness. I wasn’t asking too much from life. Just the opposite. I wasn’t asking for enough. I wasn’t asking for anything. And that’s exactly what I ended up with.

A year ago, the most I could do was to ask for a little more light in my life, a little more happiness. And while I was content to let life carry me for a little while, I was also willing to get out there, roll up my sleeves, and get to work building happiness. And I got more in return than I bargained for. Here’s to hoping that good karma leads to more of the same.

My friend, Ron, meets me at the ferry every morning and every evening. He’s the man who takes my ticket and sees to it that I aget across the Hudson safely. Ron is from Newark and worked in hospitals for 17 years, most recently in Springfield, Mass (a place he describes as “too slow”). He considered getting trained as an EMT, but his split shifts running the ferry makes that impossible at the moment.

My commute is a little ardusous now, subway to bus to ferry to car. All in all about 2 hours. though seeing Ron makes it easier – he’s my halfway mark. We usually chat during the ten minute trip, he wishes me a good day, I do the same, and off I go. It also helps that I love my job – it’s worth the commute. Once I move to my new digs in August, I’ll drive door to door in roughly half the time. I know in a previous post I said there was no way I’d drive across that GW bridge to commute. It turns out the ferry to my car isn’t any less time, and actually uses even more gas (and create even more pollution) thanks to NJ traffic around the ferry terminal. The environmentalist in me can’t even make a case for the ferry. I’ll miss Ron.

In this week of commuting, I’ve noticed some curious patterns. NJ drivers, without question, are the most aggressive, road-raged people I’ve ever seen. I’ve been pushed out of my lane, flipped off, and crused at more this week than I have been in all the others years of my life combined. So as I’ve been sitting in traffic, I was considering why this might be.

There’s some mentality about being in a car on your own that makes you think it’s you against the world, or at least you against all the other @!#$%&*s on the highway in front of you. On public transportation – subway, bus, or ferry – you’re all in this together. One great moving mass trying to get from point A to point B. On the NJ highways, it’s anarchy and the one with the loudest horn, most aggressive style, or biggest middle finger, wins.

During my commute, I’ve also been thinking a lot about endings – arriving at my destination, the end of my sublet in Queens, the last Harry Potter book. Though I am looking forward to a shorter commute, I’ll miss being in the mix of public transportation, everyone trolling along together. Endings are always nostalgic for me – whether the ending is a welcomed thing or not. I’m a Pisces, the last sign of the zodiac, so this feeling is only natural for me. Endings are just so, final. Times change after them and no matter what there’s no going back exactly the way it is right now. We can’t get this very moment back, ever. In an instant, everything, EVERYthing can, and eventually will be, gone. And that helps settle my anger when someone cuts me off on Route 4 or pushes me out of my lane on Route 208. “This too shall pass….and I might miss it in some strange way.”

It’s amazing what we will do to make up for lost time. One reason I came back to NYC was to be near my mom after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. My boss came back East to be near his family, particularly his kids who had moved here. We want to recapture time we’ve lost with people we love, or at the very least make a change going forward so we don’t lose any more time. I feel that way about New York, too.

I rode on the top deck of the ferry yesterday – a beautiful view of the NY skyline as the sun was coming up. Give it a shot some time — it reminded me just how beautiful our city is. I have been away for too long, and I’m glad to be making up for that lost time by being here now. If you hurry, you may even get to meet my friend, Ron. Just look for the guy with a big smile and an easy-going attitude who’s grateful for his job, despite his commute (longer than mine) and the split shifts. Please give him my regards, and thanks.

I was upset today for about ten minutes. Because I graduated from school in May and just started my job this week, there has been a bit of an income gap in my life as of late. Luckily, I come from a creative industry so I can apply that creativity to my finances. When I first got out of undergrad, I began squirreling away money in a Roth IRA knowing that I could withdraw my deposits (not the interest earned) at any point without penalty if an emergency arose. This current gap in my income – just the emergency I’ve been saving for!

So I took a trip over to the bank that has held my IRA since 1999. Granted, the funds I am invested in have not performed that well. My financial advisor has been all but non-existent. And, foolishly, I just assumed that the funds would make a come back by the time I turned 59.5 and would begin making withdrawals. My investment used to be accessible on line until it was recently sold to a clearing house by my bank. I decided I needed to become a more active investor and wanted to put all of my money with one financial institution. More importantly, I needed some money to fill in this income gap I’m in. I went into the branch that holds my IRA and explained that I was disappointed with the funds I was in, the lack of service, and I wanted to liquidate the fund.

There was a financial advisor there who talked me out of this saying that she could get me into some better funds and would “personally handle my liquidation to make sure it got rushed through.” She said she completely understood my current state of finances and would gladly help me. I thought, “Wow, now this is service. Maybe I’ll move all my money over here.”

Well, that was over two weeks ago. She didn’t handle anything personally or professionally. I never got the money transfer into my checking account because this financial advisor who was going to “personally take care of me” did anything but. She filled out the paperwork incorrectly, sent it late, and used a fax machine that delivered faxes so dark that the bank’s investment arm was unable to read them. I have called her three times in as many days, and she has never returned any of my phone calls.

I was upset because I realized for the first time in my life I would have to carry a balance (albeit a small one) on my credit card until my first paycheck comes in. Not the worst situation to have. I wouldn’t have the money in time to pay the bill and at this rate I’ll have my first paycheck before I see any money from my IRA. That lasted five minutes.

The first five minutes of my unhappiness came this afternoon when a woman from the investment arm called me at my desk at work to break this news to me. Thankfully I am in a work environment that is so focused on learning that I am now constantly using every single experience as an opportunity to discover a new insight.

This bank incident aside from being annoying, taught me about the multiplicative power of good (or poor as the case may be) customer service. Intellectually, I have understood this though after this event it is much more real to me. I am writing about this event on my blog. I will tell this story to anyone who will listen to me. I will encourage my family and friends that bank with this institution to switch their accounts to another bank. I will roll over my IRA to another bank, as I originally planned. They didn’t just lose my current business, they lost my future business, my family’s business, and my friends’ business. All because one employee said they’d take care of me and didn’t, and then hasn’t even taken responsibility for dropping the ball. It turns out that when you take care of one customer, you actually take care of a whole circle of people. And conversely, once you lose one, all of the other dominoes begin to fall too. There is no such thing as a small account or an unimportant transaction or interaction. They’re all much bigger than we will ever know. Lesson noted.

I was one of those nerdy kids whose favorite pastime was going to school. I liked to sit in the front of the class, raised my hand often, and asked so many questions that even my own mother grew sick of me. I went to a public school that didn’t particularly support the love of learning, though I was careful to choose an undergraduate school that did (relatively) and a graduate school that not only encouraged active participation, but required it!

After two years of graduate school that forced us to question numbers, regard “facts” with skepticism, and break rules, I have found that I am almost unable to hear statistics of any kind without jumping into analytics mode. This happened recently when a good friend of mine started a exasperated conversation with me after she read an article in Time Out New York that lead with “In February, National Geographic published a fairly stunning statistic: There are 185,000 more single women than single men in the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut urban areas combined.” GASP!!! No!! How could this be??? No wonder I’m single.

I did some digging on line to find out the numbers behind the numbers. I couldn’t find comprehensive numbers of single men and women in the tri-state urban areas so let’s assume, absolute worst case, that the entire 185,000 singles gap between the genders live in New York City. Here’s how it breaks down:

2.9 million single men live in New York City. 1.75 million of which are “unattached”, meaning they are not in a serious dating relationship.

Since the population is fairly evenly split, let’s assume that there are also 2.9 million (plus the additional 185,000) single women in New York City. That’s roughly a total of 3.1 million single women.

Also, given that our population is evenly split, let’s assume that there are an equal number of men and women in New York City. The total population of NYC is just over 8 million. 4 million male, 4 million female.

Basically, we are getting ourselves all wound up because the 72.5% (2.9 million / 4.0 million) of males in New York are single and 77.5% (3.1 million / 4.0 million) of females are single. Are you kidding me? A worst-case 5% differential is a “stunning” statistic? On principle, I am boycotting Time Out New York until they get someone on their staff who can work a four function calculator and doesn’t abide by the principle of “let’s twist some numbers around to create sensationalism to sell more magazines!” Ridiculous.

Single ladies, get out there with your head held high and have some fun. Don’t get bogged down by people trying to tell you that you’ll be single forever if you stay in this city. Bologna. There are 1.75 million unattached men in New York for you to meet – you better get a move on! That’s an awful lot of dates.

Some of you may know that I have had lifelong insomnia. I get it from my mother, who has also had lifelong insomnia. All these years, people have just assumed that I have a good work ethic when in actuality I can’t sleep with any semblance of regularity. Since one of my pet peeves is idleness, I try to be productive at almost every minute. It all started when my mother began driving my father to the train station very, very early in the morning so he could go to work in New York City. This happened as far back as I can remember. I would hear them wake up – my father had this strange notion that once he was awake so was the whole world (or they ought to be) so he could make as much noise as he pleased. So, my mom and dad would head off to the train station, I would wake up, make myself some oatmeal, and when my mom came back we would watch I Love Lucy reruns. My insomnia was born.

As a teenager, it drove my crazy – literally. I thought not being able to sleep was just about the worst kind of hell a person could live through. And then an amazing thing happened – I made my peace with the condition, it subsided slightly (I can usually get, on average, about 5 hours of sleep now, though I wake up quite often during the night), and I learned how productive I could be since the lack of sleep did absolutely nothing to dampen my enthusiasm or need to be useful.

Now I have a new reason for my insomnia. My new job. Now, it’s not what you’re thinking. I have had some good jobs, great jobs, in the past. And I’ve had some really lousy ones; I’ll take a moment here to apologize to those of you who had to receive my phone calls when I occasionally had to be talked down off the proverbial ledge because my work situation was so unpleasant. This new job and my situation there is a different case entirely.

I love this job. It’s amazing – I get there, I have fun ALL DAY, and when I leave I can’t wait to get back to work. There is always something new to learn, and there’s no end of that in sight. I never knew I could love a job this much. I had no idea a job like this even existed, much less did I ever think I’d be able to call it my own. My lovely boss keeps apologizing that he’s not spending enough time with me when in fact he’s giving me more guidance, support, and encouragement than any of my other bosses ever dreamed of giving me! This is the longest commute to work I’ve ever had, and the only thing that upsets me about that is that it cuts into the time that I could be at work learning. Oh, and they’re paying me. How did this happen? Where did this gift come from?

A number of years ago, I read a book called Women Who Run with the Wolves. In this book I first came across the phrase, “She who does not howl will never find her pack.” I got my current job because I howled so loud that the whole world heard me – you may have heard me also and just mistaken me for a coyote of some sort. After months of job searching and not finding what I wanted, I went into my career counselor at Darden and described the exact job I wanted – “in retail, working on innovation as a project manager, in the New York metro area. New product, new services, new store design. Anything new that adds value, I wanted to be a part of it. I want it to be a fun product category that I can relate to. I’m interested in improving anything that touches the customer – which is just about everything. I’d like X number of dollars, I’d like to start in July or so, and I really need to have a boss who believes in me and values my experience.”

My career counselor, bless her heart, said, “Christa, that sounds amazing. What a great position to have. I just don’t know where you’d find it or how you’d get it.” In a few weeks time this same person would provide me with the contact to get me this exact job – the job I have now. And then when I called that contact at my company, he asked me to pitch what I’d like to do and how my experience might relate to my career goals. I howled again, even louder than I did the first time. I was completely terrified, and I just couldn’t help myself. Finally, finally, something inside me broke and I was no longer able to settle for just A job – I needed a place where I could make an impact, I needed to be in a place where all my skills and abilities would be completely maxed out. I needed to be in a place that needed me.

I wonder if in every life this happens – when some dream, some idea takes hold of you and you just can’t help but live it. There is no plan B, there is no substitution. There is no room inside your heart for settling for whatever life offers you. You want what you want and there is no substitute. There must be a point when howling is just about the only thing you can do, and your pack comes running. My friend, Monica, told me a long time ago that time and time again in her life when she made a leap of faith, the world always seemed to stretch out its hand to grab hold of her and pull her up to safety. In my mind, I see the image of that outstretched hand coming from the moon, answering my call to help me live the life I imagine. If you haven’t already, I hope you’ll give it a shot. You may be surprised who hears you.