Now and again I go for a jog without music. After the crunchy/clear headed/isn’t this moment grand thing passes (and it does, without fail), I return to the usual fragmented contemplation that running is supposed to help alleviate.

Cresting a hill today, an equation popped onto my mental chalkboard, the results of which were too terrible to consider at the time. To distract myself, I ran the rest of the way home mentally revising the fingerings to the Eb Prelude– the cellist’s version of coming up with the last digit of pi.

A few hours later, I sat down to balance my year-end ledger, and I decided to casually scratch out the figures on a tablet.


It was worse than I thought. Since I have owned my current instrument, I have easily put three times more money into it than it is worth- not counting strings. Tack on $10k if we’re counting those.

I love numbers, but sometimes math stinks.