You Win Some, You Lose Some

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Go back to [You Win Some, You Lose Some} Episode. 
 

Host: Dan Kennedy

 

Dan: [00:00:00] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm your host, Dan Kennedy. This week, we're taking on the old adage, You Win Some, You Lose Some. We have two stories on the podcast about the ups and downs on your way to the figurative, and sometimes literal in one of these stories, finish line. 

 

Our first storyteller Meena Ziabari told this story at a Moth SLAM in Brooklyn, where the theme of the night was Stranded. Here's Meena, live at The Moth. 

 

[cheers and applause] 

 

Meena: [00:00:41] So, it was 2009. I had just wrapped up my senior year at Ithaca College. Ithaca. [chuckles] [audience cheers] 

 

Against my better judgment, I had followed my high school sweetheart to Nashville, Tennessee, in which, eh. [audience laughter] I was working three jobs and supporting him while he pretended to pursue his associate's degree at the local community college. [audience chuckles] And needless to say, I felt pretty out of control of my life. I was about six months in looking around going, “Oh, what am I doing here? What am I doing with him? What am I doing with my life?” So, I decided to pick up running. 

 

I went to the gym, got a gym membership, hit the treadmill. And my first week, I was averaging about five miles a day, which I clearly had a lot of stress, I needed to get out. [audience chuckles] And in my second week, his dad called me. His dad was this notorious marathoner. He had a very jolly beer gut, and the joke was that he ran marathons to keep up with his beer habit, and he said, “Hey, Meena.” He was from Tennessee. And I said, “Hey, David.” And he said, “So, like an idiot, I got the flu and I can't run this half marathon. Do you want to do it?” And I said, “Well, yeah.” Because I just started running, [audience laughter] 

and it's a week and a half and I am doing so well. “Definitely. When is it?” He's like, “It's Saturday.” And I'm like, “It's Wednesday now. [audience laughter] You know what? Screw it, let's do it.” 

 

He gives me the instructions, I show up. It's like 06:00 in the morning. I'm like, “I'm going to be one of the early ones.” And I start running. It's really, with the exception of legitimately two people from Kenya who ran the whole thing [audience laughter] by the time most of us hit the four-mile mark, it was me and two other girls. We were swapping out like fourth and fifth place, and I felt like, “Wow, I'm doing really well here.” When I started the race, I had two goals, the first one to finish and the second one don't walk. And because I was like feeling so good, I was like, “You know what? Every time I passed a water station, I was like, ‘Don't drink any water.’” [audience laughter] I know. A lot of you run, right? Yeah. [audience laughter] 

 

I did not research. I had only been running a week and a half. [audience laughter] So, I passed all of my water stations, because I made this bet with myself like, “You're not allowed to have water until you at least run half of this race.” [audience chuckles] I know, trust me. So, by mile six, I'm really thirsty. [audience chuckles] My tongue is sticky, the back of my throat is dry and I'm feeling a little-- My mental fortitude is starting to weaken. But off in the distance, I see a tent. And there are two guys in the sun, and they're holding cups and I'm like, “It's fine. I'm there.” 

 

So, I sprint over to it, and I grab these cups, I mean, double fisting, and I start taking it back and immediately vomit it out. [audience chuckles] And I turn to the guy who is manning the tent. He's got a cup in his hand it's like a bigger version of the ones that I was drinking out of and these sporty Ray Bans on, and I was like, “What is this?” And he goes, “It's beer.” [audience laughter] And I was like, “Why?” And he's like, “Carboload.” And I was like, “Do you have any water?” He's like, “That's two miles up the road.” [audience laughter] And I said, “You know what? Fuck it.” 

 

So, I start running, and I get to the water tent, and I'm drinking this water and I feel totally re-energized. I'm like, “I can do this.” I realize in that moment, I'm on mile eight, and that is the most I have ever run in my whole life at once. And I'm like, “I got this. Mile eight, no big deal, just a few more to go.” And so, I put my headphones in, I just start running. I feel like I'm running these miles. When I came to from this brief meditation that I was in while running, [audience laughter] I was like, “I must be like on mile 13. I only have 0.1 left to go.” 

 

They have these mile markers, and they tell you what mile you're on. I see one coming up, and I run over to it and it says 8.5. [audience laughter] I had run [chuckles] a half a mile, but it felt like forever, like a great forever. But I realized I had only run a half a mile. And from that point, I started breaking down. I was like, “What am I doing? Actually, there are a lot of miles left. In fact, there are enough miles left. The amount of miles that are left are the only miles I've ever run in one run before.” [audience laughter] And by mile nine, I was done. I was cursing myself, “What the were you thinking? What are you doing? You have four miles left to go.” And then, it just devolved into, “And what are you doing here?” I looked around-- 

 

First of all, the course was in a loop. It went from one place to a different place. So, I look back, and I couldn't go back. I look ahead, and there's so much to go and I felt stranded. And then, I thought about my life in Nashville, and I thought about my relationship and I thought about-- I, basically, before I knew it, was walking. [audience laughter] Just as I started walking, this old man passed me and I burst into tears. [audience laughter] When I looked up, not only had he passed me, he had turned around, now he was coming at me. [audience laughter] 

 

He pulled up right next to me, and he was jogging in place, essentially because I was going that slow. [audience laughter] He looked at me and said, “What are you doing?” I looked up at him and I said, “I'm tired.” And he goes, “Do you know how old I am?” And I was like, “No.” And he goes, “I'm 62.” And I go, “Okay.” And he's like, “How old are you?” And I'm like, “I'm 20.” And he goes, “That's what I thought. Pick it up, kid. Let's go.” [audience laughter] I was running again. And about a mile down the road, he was like, “Are you good?” I'm like, “Yeah.” And then, he left because I was clearly going too slow for him. [audience laughter] 

 

Before I knew it, I was pulling up to the stadium, which was the end. There's this guy with a microphone, and he is checking everybody's tag to see their numbers and looking at a paper and then calling their name out as they cross the finish line and the stadium erupts into applause. I'm approaching him, and he finds mine, looks at the paper, then he looks up at me, makes a confused face, looks back down at the paper and then points to it and shrugs. As I pass him, he goes, “And here comes David Cooley.” [audience laughter] And I cross the finish line.

 

[cheers and applause]

 

Dan: [00:08:22] That was Meena Ziabari. Meena lives in Brooklyn. She works in real estate, and she's also a writer. At the moment, she's working on a collection of personal essays entitled The Women of My Family: About Three Generations of Chinese Women and Their Journey to Find Common Ground. 

 

When we followed up with Meena, she told us that she and her boyfriend in the story parted ways shortly after her run. And they're both in New York relationships now, but they remain friends. And Meena is still running, which is awesome. She's run a number of races recently, including a half marathon around Angkor Wat in Cambodia, and she's training for a full Marathon in 2020. So, go, Meena. 

 

Up next, Dina Adler. She told this story at a Moth SLAM that we held at Housing Works, one of our longest running venue partnerships here in New York City. The theme of the night was Technology. Here's Dina, live at The Moth. 

 

[applause] 

 

Dina: [00:09:23] When I was in my mid-30s, my mother said to me, “You're not going to meet anybody, just sitting in your apartment all night.” And she was right. But the flip side was that I also wasn't going to be disappointed and heartbroken either. I wasn't very good at dating. I was the type of kid I never went to my prom. I didn't really have a lot of serious relationships, but I did want to meet someone. And so, I did do a lot of online dating. Not successfully. I had a first date here and there. 

 

But I always felt that I had a boyfriend. And my boyfriend was the New York Yankees. [audience laughter] They were great. I fell in love with them in the summer of 1977 when my dad took me to a game. And since then, I always followed them. They were always there for me, pretty much from February to, let's face it, November, they're always going to be there. [audience laughter] They were great to me. David Wells pitched a perfect game the night I got stuck stood up on a blind date. David Cone pitched also a perfect game for me on my 35th birthday when I had just been in a really bad biking accident and I was not ready for dating at that time. 

 

But my mom was right, I did want to meet someone, so I decided I had to go back on the online dating. But this time, I was going to do a different website. I was going to do this-- I heard about this more religious website, so I thought maybe I would meet somebody really pious, somebody nice. I could learn how to do a Shabbat dinner. I could do it. I could do it. [audience laughter] For a guy, I could do it, I could do it. 

 

So, I met this guy on this religious website. I went out to dinner with him. During the appetizer, he took my hand and he said, “There's something I need to tell you.” And I kept thinking, “Please, dear God. Let it be. I have an illegitimate child. [audience chuckles] I can take that. I can take that.” But instead, he said, “I like to frequent S&M bars. I just want you to know that.” Listen, whatever you're into, that's okay, but I was not. I was more upset that he said this over the appetizer, and now I had to go through the entire dinner. [audience laughter] 

 

So, when I came home, that was it for me. I'm not doing this anymore. I'm not going to meet someone. Look, I'm a little quirky. I liked to listen to music loudly in my apartment by myself so much that the neighbors complained, which was a little embarrassing. I had a fish tank. Not a dog, not a cat. I talked about my fish all the time [audience laughter] and I decided it's ok. I got my Yankees, I got them February to November and all the good romantic comedies come out in December and January. [audience laughter] I'm set. I'm set. 

 

So, New Year's Eve rolled along and I went out with some girlfriends. One of my girlfriends brought her friends who were a bit older. They started to really complain about dating and relationships and how hard it is to meet somebody. And believe me, I know that frustration, but I decided, I'm a Yankee, I'm going to go down swinging. I'm not going to go down looking. I got to do something. I need to meet someone. I got to try maybe a little bit harder. 

 

So, when I went home, I got a recommendation for a really good therapist to find out why I think the things I think about myself, why do I sabotage relationships, why do I pick the wrong men? And then, also, on one website, JDate, there was a customer service button that you could call and they will help you draft a profile. [audience laughter] And so, I called up and I spoke to this guy. He was really nice. We rewrote my profile, so it was a little better. 

 

So, I went back out there on JDate, and I emailed this one guy and he emailed me back and he calls me. When he called me, the music was blaring in the background, [audience laughter] and he said, “Oh, I'm sorry about that. Have you ever had just like a three-dog night day, the music, Jeremiah as a bullfrog was playing really loudly in the background?” I'm like, “Oh, yeah, I've had that kind of day. [audience laughter] I definitely have.” And so, on our first date, we walked for coffee. And on the way to the coffee shop, he said, “Can we just stop off in Pet Land? There's a fish that I want to get.” [audience laughter] [audience applause] 

 

But he wasn't perfect. He's a Met fan. It's okay. [audience laughter] So, we went on a date and he proposed to me nine months later and we've been married ever since. But I will tell you the night that he proposed to me was the night that the Yankees lost the World Series [audience laughter] to the Florida Marlins, and they were heavily favored. But I do feel that the Yankees lost, because they knew that I was going to be okay and they could relax. Thank you very much. 

 

[cheers and applause] 

 

Dan: [0:14:15] That was Dina Adler. Dina gets a lot of inspiration and story material from living with her husband, adorable son, five fish, eight gerbils and two guinea pigs. She's a writer, law school career counselor and former practicing attorney who's working on a screenplay. This baseball season, Dina says she's having a blast watching the Yankees dominate while her husband suffers through Met games. Her words, not mine. And she says she's confident she'll be watching her team until the end of October. So, we'll have to see, Dina. To check out some photos of Dina and her family, just head to our website, themoth.org. 

 

And that's it for us this week here on The Moth Podcast. Remember, you can find all sorts of story extras, behind the scenes stuff, generally just more Moth all around if you check us out on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, @themoth. And Instagram @mothstories. 

 

Tell us what you thought of the episode, what you'd like to hear more of on the podcast. You can also pitch us your own story on our website, themoth.org. We love hearing from you, so please reach out. And until next time from all of us here at The Moth, have a story-worthy week. 

 

Julia: [0:15:32] Dan Kennedy is the author of Loser Goes First, Rock on and American Spirit. He's also a regular host and storyteller with The Moth. 

 

Dan: [0:15:40] Podcast production by Julia Purcell. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.