Читать книгу The Map of Us - Jules Preston - Страница 11

Okay. Maybe writing a report on our marriage with footnotes and a summary and a series of conclusions was another spectacularly bad idea. But that is what I did.

Matt just wanted to blame someone and feel betrayed and hang up on me all the time. I could see his point. But I wanted something more precise. I wanted to look at the distribution of fault and the relative impacts of known and random variables. Everything could be quantified and evaluated and interpreted using samples and controls and baselines – even the ups and downs of our relationship. I wanted to make sense of it all. I wanted a number. A simple diagram. Something that I could understand at a glance.

It was just another Bearing Foods presentation. It was no different. Not really. First, I had to identify my research aims. Then I had to gather evidence. When I had analysed all the available data, I could make informed statements and recommendations.

I chose to use a large lever arch file for my report. Something that would accommodate items of evidence that weren’t all flat. I couldn’t think of any items that might possibly fit that category, but I wanted to be prepared for the eventuality that one might crop up.

Matt and I had been married for three years. Our time together was like a low-fat snack bar for the health-conscious sector. A low-fat snack bar that had actually turned into something resembling squirrel poo. Now I was going to pick through the sticky ingredients with my fingers looking for answers. It was the least I could do.