I'm an astonishingly uncoordinated person. I find it interesting, the difference between what it's like to be around me and what uncoordinated people are like in television and film. I don't come across as clumsy because I know I'm clumsy, so I avoid situations that would make it obvious how clumsy I am.

I was frustrated by not being able to juggle, so I spent a week practicing alone in my bedroom, four or more hours a night, until I could juggle. Badly. My juggling ability at the end of that week was comparable to what some people can manage when they're shown how to juggle for the first time.

I keep a super-bounce ball at my desk. When I'm waiting for something, I have a habit of bouncing it off the ground and catching it. Even that, I can only do reliably 10 or so times before it goes careening off and bounces off one of my cow orkers. I'm sure they appreciate that. But generally, I just stay away from things that will expose how bad I am at everything that requires me to put a thing in the right place at the right time.

The big exception is cooking. There are a lot of things you can cook that don't require anything except not cutting yourself. Vegetarian "chili" is easy, especially if you convince yourself that you like coarsely chopped vegetables. Many sauces can be accomplished through simple determination. Even a roux is more about knowing how to recover from problems than physical technique. And pastries are simply, obviously, totally beyond my reach. I once determined that I would make a puff pastry; I spent four hours before tearfully admitting defeat.

That, I hope, is enough context to explain why I am so amazingly pleased with myself that I made fettucine alfredo, starting with flour, eggs, butter, and parmigiano reggiano, and sourdough bread, starting with my own starter, flour, water, and commercial yeast (my starter doesn't have enough loft on its own, and screw those people who claim that sourdough isn't sourdough if you use commercial yeast). I know that neither of those tasks sound like something that actually requires any coordination at all, but believe me, I've found so many ways to manage to mess up both from-scratch pasta AND from-scratch bread, and my success has mostly come from finding ways to produce both that avoid a reliance on my coordination entirely. For example, the first time I actually touch my bread dough with my fingers is when I'm flouring it just before it rises. All the mixing and kneading is done by a machine. I can't even enumerate all the ways this prevents me from giving up in tears.