We just came back from an evening at the Pritzker listening to these guys and dancing our heads off. Megan, you should have been there—they would have banished your blues in a heartbeat.

Erica, do you know how to tango?

Erica tagged me to do this meme, and while this kind of thing isn’t my favorite species of viral Internet phenomenon, I do like saying the word meme, and I also like Erica a lot. Additionally, I am lazy and haven’t written the post I was intending to write last night, or the post I was newly intending to write today (about our wonderful Chicago Architectural Foundation tour). So here you go.

8 Things I am Passionate About:

Good writing.

Good eating.

Clear thinking.

Learning about the world.

Having fun in the world.

The application of the principles of fairness and justice to everyday life (this means you, gym rats).

Ross.

My people (if you’re reading this, you’re my people).

8 (Rather Random) Books I Have Read and Enjoyed (Recently):

No Country for Old Men

Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance

The Dogs of Babel

Stuart: A Life Backwards

Mendel’s Dwarf

The Year of Magical Thinking

An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness

The House of the Scorpion

8 Words/Phrases I Say Often:

“Let’s make a plan.”

“Where are we, again?”

“Oof. I ate too much.”

“I wish we had chocolate.” (Usually heard shortly after the above.)

“Damn it, I forgot my…”

“Eh, it’s not a big deal.”

“I’m a dork.” (This is what I say when I do dumb things. Come to think of it, it should probably be #1 on this list.)

“I love you.”

8 Things I Want to do Before I Die:

Visit Iceland, the Galapagos, the Amazon, the Greek islands, and as much of Africa as possible.

Learn how to speak Punjabi, Cantonese, Korean, and all the Romance languages.

Know enough about biology to understand Erica’s paper.

Know enough about physics to explain the Large Hadron Collider.

Know enough about neuroscience to draw a detailed picture of my own brain.

(Be able to draw.)

Write more. Much more. Every day and more.

Own a cat, a dog, and a duck (not necessarily at the same time).

8 Things I Learned This Past Year:

When you live in a place for nine years, it becomes home.

You can have more than one home.

It’s not as hard as you might think to spend most of your days talking only to one person.

Being your own boss is wonderful.

Cleaning once a week doesn’t actually kill you.

Even I can bake.

Happiness isn’t stored inside success.

Success makes small talk easier.

8 People I want to Tag:
Oh, I don’t think I’ll do that. You guys pick up the meme if you want to. Meantime, here’s a peek at what we saw today.

After nearly two weeks of what turned out to be an utterly charming holiday filled with a bountifulness of dear, dear friends and family, I am back in the land of the to-do list. Yesterday I pissed the hours away on Flickr and Facebook, but today I strapped myself into my red chair and got down to business. Besides work (which is a little complicated, but fine), I now have at least three doctor’s appointments I need to schedule, many emails to answer, an apartment to clean, reading to catch up on, clients to badger and please, and—the indignity of it—I find that I am responsible for planning and making my own meals again.

Okay, I lied. That last one isn’t an indignity. It’s a tremendous pleasure. We’ve cooked dinner every night since we got back (yes, including Wednesday, and our flight didn’t get in until 6:10pm) and this evening another marvelous staple is on the menu: our favorite bacon-tomato-mushroom pasta. It contains fully a cup of white wine (which is a lot, but still leaves quite a lot in the bottle for later), is simmered until the bacon all but disappears, and winds up so rich and delicious that it is served (on long strands of green spinach pasta) without a whit of cheese.

Tomorrow we’ve decided that we’re bringing the holiday back to Chicago and heading to the Loop for an afternoon of great coffee and magazine reading in the Intelligentsia cafe. No work is allowed. (Ross will have a far harder time sticking to this than me.)

For more Boston, go here. Also, stay tuned for a future entry on the subject of “How a Person Can Put Her Entire Life on the Internet and Still Consider Herself Extraordinarily Private.”

I’ve seen more friends and eaten more delicious restaurant meals in the past six days than I have in the past six months. Since I last checked in I have seen Liz’s long hair. I have coveted Steph’s boots. I have clinked glasses with Anya. I have heard Jo’s laugh. I have read Hal’s hat, and it says “Old Guys Rule” (they do!). I have hugged the tall tree that is Michael. And I have eaten momos with Erica. It is a beautiful kind of overloading.

I have also lost my (new) phone, so don’t bother calling me till next Wednesday, when I will have gotten back to Chicago and hooked my old phone (thank goodness I kept it) back up. I would be mad at myself, but that would detract from my joy at being here, so I’m not going to do that. Also, I put the phone down to take a picture of a wonderful mural swimming across a wall in Jamaica Plain. If that turns out well, I’ll count myself lucky.

I do. I am. Lucky like a penny.

Today was a day of wandering, memories, and familiar navigation (”If I got off the train here and walked this way, I’d end up where I used to do that“). It was a strange, sweet, sad sensation; vacation as reunion.

And my bookends, well, those were the best parts of the day: morning with Dana, sunny and warm, evening with Yael*: a silver bell ringing in the cool night.

*and Yael’s two exuberant dogs