It’s so hard to be disciplined about getting things done when all you want to do is bag up old bones and bury them and your whole being is stretching towards something new and green.

Inspired by all the great new stuff up on 10 Things, as well as by this Scientific American article,* I’m going to experiment with making a list here once a week. Here goes nothin’.

1) On Monday when I got to work I discovered that approximately 45 old CRT monitors had been piled (quite neatly, I have to admit) on one side of my cubicle, filling the space under the tables, on the tables, and against the walls. Since three drones used to be housed in my largish work area and now there is only me buzzing around in there, the powers-that-be apparently decided it was a good time to turn the place into a storage closet. I don’t mind so much—I made a sign for the door that says my name and “Graveyard of the Monitors,” and every now and then someone I don’t even know stops in mid-stride outside the entrance of my cube and gapes at the scene open-mouthed. That’s pretty funny. And just think, in July they’ll be able to fit another 20 totally junky pieces of equipment nobody wants in there! Hooray for them!

Anyway, that’s not thing #1. Ray the friendly help desk guy dropped by in the afternoon to stack another monitor onto the pile, and he told me that the reason they all appeared in my cube over the weekend is that prior to that they had been piled up in stairwells, and in order to stop violating fire codes they had to be moved. So Thing #1 is that if we ever were to have a fire at work, my own personal Graveyard of the Monitors would help prevent thousands of people from dying horribly. Hooray for me!

2) Also on Monday, I had dinner with Liz. Just typing that makes me smile.

3) We ate at the vegan restaurant Grasshopper, and damn the food we got was good. Won ton soup and veggie tempura and these incredible fried tofu appetizer things and a crunchy sweet battered main dish eloquently called “No Name.” It is possible I still have rice on my chin.

4) The delightful Estee sent me two wonderful books, for no reason at all except that she is incredibly generous and kind. They arrived today and are making me so happy (I wish you could see the photographs in that cookbook) my feet are dancing in the bed right now. It’s true.

5) The first two Bookmooch books I sent arrived, so now some strangers have happy new reading material, I have a little less to pack, and I’m saving up points to mooch loads of books when we arrive in our next home. Ah, the circle of lifeterature.

6) Coronas and lime. Even if I drink them sitting on the couch watching TV, they taste like being outdoors at night, with friends. Friends, come be outdoors with me and my Coronas and lime!

7) Ross is visiting UMD this weekend. That means by the time he comes back, even if he hasn’t made a decision yet, he’ll basically have all the information he needs to make a decision. Phew! It also means

8) No one will laugh at me if I put Spam in my pineapple fried rice, and make me go through, again, the fact that where I come from we call it luncheon meat and eat it with nasi lemak and it is not so vastly and widely reviled that annoying internet marketing messages are named after it. Not that I made pineapple fried rice with spam last night or anything.

9) After I totally didn’t eat my totally-not-embarrassing dinner last night, I did have a slice of cheesecake.

10) It was the second slice of cheesecake I have had in the last five days.

All in all, not a bad week I suppose. Next time I will strive for fewer food-related items so the internet doesn’t think I am ruled by my taste buds (ha!).

Have a lovely weekend, folks. Oh! And if your name happens to be Jennifer and you haven’t written a blog post since November and you just became an aunt for the first time after the birth of two baby girls whose names happen to be Ella and Emma… well, then, you just might consider making a 10 Things list of your own sometime soon. I’m just saying.

*From the article: …conventional wisdom suggests keeping a daily gratitude journal. But one study revealed that those who had been assigned to do that ended up less happy than those who had to count their blessings only once a week.

A couple of weeks ago Greg asked me if I’d take on the task of administering a new Utata project in which people have to create photos that fit a predetermined title. Here’s my contribution to the first installment of Picture This, whose title comes from the following marvelous Sor Juana poem:

Sonnet 23:

Semblance of my elusive love, hold still—
image of a bewitchment fondly cherished,
lovely fiction that robs my heart of joy,
fair mirage that makes it joy to perish.
Since already my breast, like willing iron,
yields to the powerful magnet of your charms,
why must you so flatteringly allure me,
then slip away and cheat my eager arms?
Even so, you shan’t boast, self-satisfied,
that your tyranny has triumphed over me,
evade as you will arms opening wide,
all but encircling your phantasmal form:
in vain shall you elude my fruitless clasp,
for fantasy holds you captive in its grasp.

We haven’t published the project yet, so it doesn’t have a proper page on the site — but all the contributions so far can be found by following this link. Here are some of my favorites.

From Mary Jane 2040:

From DeadEyeBart:

From Orrin:

…even though my back hurts from having such bad posture. Does anyone have a chair recommendation that might help? Things between me and my spine are reaching a breaking point (hopefully not literally).

Today these eyes saw the following:

A chest-puffing showdown between a tall, grunty brick of a man and his short, stocky counterpart, standing firm on either side of the train doors as they opened at Kendall. They thrust back their shoulders and pushed out their chins at each other like the silver-backed gorillas they wished they were, and stared at each other, each refusing to budge until the other one gave way. The specimen on the inside of the train practically growled: “You gonna move? Huh? You gonna move?” I eased past both of them and tossed a glance behind me; they were still glaring and huffing while everyone else gaped or rolled their eyes. Big silly apes.

The turkey again, this time so close to the path I could have touched its feathers as I walked by. It turned its inscrutably birdy gaze on me when I passed, and I so wanted to stop and make conversation—but I knew it wouldn’t be long before we both ran out of things to say…

A beautiful, scruffy Irish Wolfhound the size of a small pony, ambling with its owner past the movie theater! I slowed my walk to look at it and it whuffed abruptly at me, nosing the air for my scent in a friendly way. Its owner maneuvered it on and I stepped beyond it on the road, but not before my heart slipped out and flew away.

…because after making a delicious pot of masala chai, you decide to drink it out of the gorgeous handmade cups Peter gave you when you got married (the cups don’t have handles, and must be held cupped in the palm)—and while ladling the steaming liquid into the first cup you are so delighted by the ladling process that you choose this moment to look up from the stove and say to Ross, in a tone of utter cheerfulness, “I love ladling this stuff out!”, thus breaking the eye contact you have on your task and causing you to miss the cup entirely with the next ladle, pouring scalding chai directly (but directly) onto your left hand, which then trembles so hard that the cup shakes, spilling yet more burning tea onto your hand; paralyzed by shock, you utterly fail to set down the cup or the ladle and run to the sink to run cold water on your burn, instead standing still like a ninny in order to helpfully cry “Oh, fuck!” and stare at your reddening skin.

What’s funny about this event is how unsurprising it is in every aspect.

…swirling down the drain, or spiraling up into the skies?

I finally installed Skype today, after listening to a message from Avi on my phone and knowing deep in my gut that I would never, ever, get around to buying myself a good calling card to return his call. I’ll try to stay logged in as often as I can. If you’d like to chat, search for me with my first and last names.