It’s been a very long time since I wrote a 10 Things list, though I often think of Steph and wish I had the discipline and determination it takes to reflect so regularly on the things in my life for which I am grateful.

This week, given the season and the fact that I have been feeling a little trod upon by the world lately, seems an appropriate time to resurrect the series and tell you about a few small, sweet brightnesses here in Chicago.

1) Our new parkas. It has finally started to get cold enough to wear them, and we are both astonished at the difference they make on a sharp 20-degree day. Walking around the city in my parka, firm and fluffy as a good pillow, feels a bit like walking around the city while still being in bed.

There is a more flattering photo of Ross wearing his parka on Flickr, but these better reflect our positive frames of mind when encased in parka goodness.

2) We took those pictures last night before venturing out to the Checkerboard Lounge (a South Side institution) for some strong cocktails, delicious blues, and (oddly, but happily) a supper of fried chicken, green beans, potato salad, and meatballs, served to all the patrons of the club at 10:30pm. We had a great time. It’s a funny little place, but it feels real.

3) I talked to Ben using video iChat the other day and though it was not as good as being in the same room with him, we could at least both hug our computers at the end, and that was comforting.

4) Kubhaer and I play Scrabulous on Facebook every day now. He kicks my ass, but it makes me smile like crazy.

5) I’ve been eating slices of pumpkin pie and vanilla ice cream for the past three days.

6) I have new smells, and they are wonderful.

7) Since I last posted, I’ve had a very productive couple of days. I’m not sure how I feel about putting this on a list of things to be grateful for, since frankly I’d rather not have worked a stitch this weekend, but hey. Everything I do now is one less thing I have to do while I’m on vacation. And boy, am I going to need one.

8) Bookmoochers keep sending me books (and I keep sending them away). I get a delicious holiday feeling whenever I look at the pile of new books on my bedside table.

9) I’ll be reading some of those books on the plane—we leave for Singapore in twelve days. Twelve!

10) I just found out that two old old friends I have not seen in a hundred years are also going to be home in December. I can’t quite believe it’s going to happen, but we’re going to get together. Yay!

I’m still a little blue, but this is a good list. And if there were a number eleven, it would be the fact that I’m about to go make ravioli for dinner. And when you’re me, ravioli makes everything better.

This week my Things are 10 dear Flickr-friends—all people I’ve never even met who somehow manage to make my life richer, funnier, happier, more beautiful and more interesting every single day.

1) I like Rachel (whom I like to call MJ) so much—she is intelligent, dry, generous, and wholly herself—that I am almost afraid to meet her, in case I find myself tongue-tied.

2) Greg invited me to be his assistant editor on Utata last year, and for that single pleasure alone I am indebted to him. He’s also one of the most challenging and delightful colleagues I’ve ever had. And I have great colleagues.

3) Pretty much every single day I have the impulse to hug Melissa, whose face expresses all the the love, strength, and beauty in the world.

4) If I tried to tell you how great Lori is, you would probably think I was making her up. She seems to possess boundless reserves of good spirit, and she gives it away. For free!

5) I have a huge creative crush on Liza. She’s fearless and inventive in ways I would give my right arm to be, and her sense of humor makes me go weak in the knees. Liza’s my idol.

6) Kevin is incredibly erudite (I often find myself looking things up after I visit his stream) and also incredibly appealing. These traits are difficult to combine in a single human being—Kevin manages admirably.

7) Maggie is approximately seven different people, and all of them are shockingly fabulous. She lives in Chicago, but she has so many fans I’m not sure she’s going to be accessible. :-)

8) I was trying to pick photos that were all the same orientation for this little exercise (which has so far taken me the last 75 minutes, so it’s not that little)— but I don’t think there’s any other picture of Lori’s (this is a different Lori. Stay with me.) that could describe why I like her so much. Oh, well. You know what they say about consistency.

9) Phil has been an encouraging voice to me for almost as long as I’ve been on Flickr. He’s as gracious and kind as they come, and when he visits he never fails to say something that makes me stop in my tracks and actually think about what I’m doing (not a natural instinct, apparently).

10) Kicey is a star. No, really. She’s a self-luminous celestial body, and she’s definitely visible at night from the Earth. I’m frankly blown away that she even knows my name, let alone that she says lovely things to me. Kicey’s rising in the sky, too. You just wait and see.

There you go—10 of my long-distance love affairs. I can’t get enough of you folks.

Here are 10 more Things I’m grateful for this week.

1) Ross’s decision, of course.

2) Dreaming about moving. It turns out that even when you’re not budging an inch for a good four and a half months, it’s still possible to make any number of detailed plans—up to and including the particular songs you are going to listen to on the (long… so very long) drive to your new city.

3) More good news from friends: Michael and Laura are getting married, and Sean is moving home from bumblefuck, GA, to start his PhD in Classics at NYU. AND Estee is also going to be at NYU this fall doing a Masters program in something I confess I don’t quite understand, but that sounds very esoteric and intellectual. Folks! You two should really get together! Email me. I’ll set you up.

4) Ross just brought me a cappuccino.

5) Ross just brought me a cappuccino.

6) We went to another engaging and edifying lecture at the museum on Thursday and learned all about why Dan Lieberman thinks humans evolved to be such good endurance runners. (Hint #1: Before we invented sharp animal-killing spears, we needed another way to acquire enough energy to feed our big brains. Hint #2: We may not be good sprinters, but given a long enough distance we can run a great many yummy ungulates into a lethal state of hyperthermia.)

7) Blue Moon Spring Ale, brewed with a kaffir lime infusion. It has the barest hint of citrus and it’s beautifully refreshing.

8) I told my (lovely) supervisor at work that we’re moving to Chicago, and she clutched her heart and exclaimed “Oh no!” several times, like a bereft heroine in a tragic historical romance. I know it’s only because the project I’m working on won’t be finished before I leave, and not really because I’m completely indispensable and irreplaceable, but it was nice to pretend for a moment that that was the case. It was also a great relief to finally break the news, and knowing what we’re doing next is helping me to love and appreciate the things about this job that I genuinely like.

9) Ross and I talked this evening (in between several bouts of cooking dal and saag; we are really getting to be pros at this), and I think I’m going to seriously consider trying to make a go of freelancing full time when we move. I’ve been waffling about it when people ask, and in the back of my mind I think I’ve been nervous about it being too scary or too risky, and believing that in the end I would probably wind up in another office job. But we both think that if I fill in the gaps with some part-time work at a bookstore or a restaurant, it wouldn’t be that foolhardy. I’m hesitantly excited.

10) And the nicest thing this week: Avi wrote me a lovely long email, which I am currently savoring two or three times before I write back. It contained the suggestion, a thing we often dream about, of meeting in Europe one of these days soon for drinking and conversation. One of the reasons I’m so inclined to try freelancing, even though it’s bound to be difficult, is that I would love my life to be flexible enough to allow me to spend more time visiting with my friends and family, scattered so widely across the world. If that isn’t a good enough reward for giving up a little stability and taking on a little risk, I don’t know what is.

Here’s the second installment of my ode to 10 Things. It’s dedicated to the lovely Amy Mees.

1) See that stash o’ stuff down there?

That came in the mail yesterday, from the aforementioned lovely Amy. She’s a friend of a friend of a friend (but the internet makes these distinctions very blurry) whose design work I admired out loud last week. Amy, your generosity really floored me. When I opened the envelope you sent and read your note I found myself forgiving all of the crabby people on the T who’d annoyed me that morning, and I assure you that that takes a lot of doing. You are a kind spirit. Thank you so much.

2) On Monday I talked to Sarah over Skype, and it was just like having her in the room with me except that I could not lean over and steal her gin and tonic. Why is that, Skype-engineers? Get on it A.S.A.P., please.

3) On Wednesday I got three emails in a row from Jenn, and it felt like Christmas morning when you’re 8 years old. But damn it, I miss her like hell. Skype engineers aren’t the only slackers here; somebody needs to find a cure for malaria already, for crying out loud, and then maybe she can take a break and come visit me!

4) Hal and I took a wander down Newbury Street on Thursday afternoon and took in the Seuss exhibit Liz wrote about—did you know he made the most awesome imaginary-animal sculptures using real-animal parts? Now you do!

5) Ross made more Indian food and I got to eat it even though I crashed out on the couch and didn’t help. Nothing tastes better than a damn fine husband…

6) …except the green tea with brown rice (brewed from a packet sent by Sarah) he brings you, out of the goodness of his heart, when you are sitting on the bed with your laptop working on an annoying article and happen to express dissatisfaction with your current state of being. Yum.

7) Speaking of Sarah again, #7 is the adorably delirious message I got from her the other morning when the woman got herself hired for a full-time teaching job for the fall—and she wasn’t even trying! Thank you, universe. You finally did something right.

8) It’s been five weeks since I decided not to make any non-essential purchases between now and the time we move. So far, so good.

9) We’ve been making an effort to buy bread without high fructose corn syrup in it (Very difficult! Stop putting crap in your bread, crazy bread makers!), and in the process discovered a delicious rye and pumpernickel loaf which we had slices of for breakfast this morning. It’s perfect because the almost sweet dark flavor of the pumpernickel swirls softens the sharp tangy taste of the rye.

10) We found parking in Coolidge Corner right away when we went out to dinner on Friday. I know it’s a little thing, but it made our evening so much easier.

Pollyanna ain’t got nothin’ on me.

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.