Samantha bee marjorie trumps11/14/2023 The first time I got on the boat, it really felt like magic. Also, like Boston's own Matt Damon in The Talented Mr Ripley, a new high-society life was waiting for us. Think Italian vacation, like The Talented Mr Ripley, but right here on the Boston Riviera. I wish you could have seen it, a 1950s Hiliner, a glamorous little wooden motorboat with an engine hanging off the back, polished wood, two rows of white vinyl seats, chrome finishes. And when I finally got to meet our boat down at the harbor, it felt like we had gotten away with larceny. Having double that in my bank account, I signed a check, sight unseen. For $400 each, Max could make us Massachusetts boat people. He knew a person who knew a person who needed to get rid of their boat. Our friend Max brought us the opportunity. And maybe more ancestral knowledge was just waiting to surface if I owned a boat. But did you know the word "catamaran" comes from Tamil? Kattu maram, "wood tied together." Those are my guys. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. And some are hit with a lightning bolt of inspiration and figure out how to save themselves. What they're thinking reveals so much about who they are. They are on the way down and in that moment of crisis. Today on our program, we have stories where things go very, very badly for people. Though I have to say, after three accidents, I have learned not to ride this particular bike in the rain. He said he'll tell me there are 17 things that can go wrong with some plan that we have. When I mentioned all this at our radio show story meeting this week, one of my coworkers, somebody who I've worked with closely for years, told me- he has never said this- that he thinks my optimism is the single most important quality I have. I think this optimism has kept me in faltering relationships. Like, at the exact moment when I'm going to collide with the wet surface of the street, a moment when things are definitely not going to be fine, I'm thinking, things will be fine. And I think what this set of thoughts says about me is I am optimistic even when there is no factual basis for it at all. It's going to be fine- this time.Īnd I think everybody knows how a person reacts under duress, it can tell you something about them. ![]() Somehow I get very calm and I think, oh, this isn't going to be so bad. And all three times, like I say, it's been the same. I've given myself some kind of bruise on my right arm that still wakes me up at night, months later.Īnd in each of these three accidents- you know, like, when you're falling, there's that second or two when you realize you're going down, and you're on your way down, but you haven't actually hit the ground yet? Weirdly, it is enough time for a bunch of thoughts to go through your head. And when it rains, something about this bike on the city streets- a metal grate, a slippery patch of any sort at all, can make the bike slip out from under me. ![]() These accidents happen during my morning commute. And the moment that things go wrong is always the same. I've had a bunch of bike accidents in the last year and a half.
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