positivity journal 2022:3

the hilarious thing is this file got deleted as i tried to cut and paste and there was a good 5 minutes where i thought this list was all over. then i frantically hit cmd-z about a hundred times and it popped back up.

anyway, lots about pierogi, a redux on lasagna and gratuitous: 

mar 1: shaved off pandemic beard 2. the good news is i look 10 years younger. the bad news is that’s still pretty old

mar 2: i scrolled through “raunchy comedies” list on netflix, but i’d seen them all already 

mar 3: woke up sick, but the good part is i spent all day on the couch with najah napping on me

mar 4: vince rinehart appreciation day

mar 5: “why would they make defcon-1 worse than defcon-5?”

 

mar 6: made lots of pierogi

mar 7: love watching food i made get the stylist treatment, then photographed for print (see above; 📸: scott suchman; styling: lisa cherkasky)

mar 8: decided to internalize and embrace the commenter that said i should get a pulitzer and ignore the one that called me a tone-deaf oaf

mar 9: big dog at intersection makes a VERY unconvincing lunge at approaching dog, does not even strain leash, backs up and sits at his person’s feet, looks up, and she gives him a treat. i assume dog’s name was oscar

mar 10: “is this the age of the thunder and rage? can you feel the ground move ’round your feet?”

mar 11: office salad

mar 12: played “downeaster alexa” on vinyl and i had hoped it would drive the alexa nuts, but it didn’t seem to care

mar 13: found a trove of najah’s favorite food, which has been hard to get since the pandemic started and i suspect discontinued. bought about 100 cans

mar 14: the optimist newsletter is my favorite at work, so imagine my reaction when it linked my pierogi story

mar 15: “what did we do to deserve pasta?”

 

 

mar 16: i love catching mistakes, particularly my own

mar 17: accidentally watched the st patrick’s day episode of “after party” on st patrick’s day

mar 18: peanut butter pie from becky, then jeremy broke out a bottle of port that was 12 years old when we bought it on vacation 12 years ago

mar 19: made more lasagna

mar 20: delivered more lasagna

mar 21: “success, like happiness, cannot be pursued. it must ensue”

mar 22: detoured to the cherry blossoms on the way to work

mar 23: was really proud of the mushroom bechamel i made for aforementioned lasagne, then while eating leftovers i realized i basically made cream of mushroom soup. which also explains why i loved it

mar 24: found out filter for stove vent was $125 to replace. so obviously i tore apart the old one and rebuilt it with about $10 worth of stuff. possibly better

mar 25: “run and tell all of the angels, this could take all night.” i’m glad i got to see foo fighters with taylor hawkins

mar 26: mixing up beets and horseradish, temporarily went blind

mar 27: attached to couch pretty much all day

mar 28: bob woodward walking around the office is a good sign something is up

mar 29: saw the term “inactive wear” and can officially put a label to my personal fashion style

mar 30: i’ve started a database of restaurants i can recommend for various tastes and occasions so i can do it faster when asked

mar 31: listened to a reporter on the phone talking to someone about Space X. except i kept hearing her say “space sex,” specifically that she didn’t know much about it. i am 12 and now i want to read an entirely different story

positivity journal 2022:2

lasagna plays a prominent role, so you know it was a decent month

feb 1: omg a football player famous for serially cheating retired after lying about not retiring and our long national nightmare is over
feb 2: i went to a website looking for a cookie recipe. it asked me if i wanted to accept all cookies. i did

feb 3: “hornets will sting you just cuz they’re dicks” 
feb 4: fb memories included one of those old “things about me” lists that i did like 13 years ago and it was great to read again, mostly for the comments, and why isn’t fb just that kinda stuff anymore?
feb 5: “waging wars to shake the poet and the beat”

 

feb 6: i’ve been rotating the same two pair of gym shorts for like 2 years, because i couldn’t find any others i liked … until today at target
feb 7: was quite surprised billie eilish had a song called “happier than ever,” then i listened to it and was like, “ohhhhhh”

feb 8: i got a text from fedex telling me i should “take control of my package” and it just surprised me is all
feb 9: best thing anyone has said to me in a long time, via tara: “i can’t believe you thought you were too old to come to this concert”
feb 10: pogiboy for lunch on the deck at the office w nora, courtney and wayne

 

feb 11: fried chicken friday for first time since well before omicron
feb 12: as if on cue, najah demonstrated each behavior i told wayne about as i prepped him to catsit

feb 13: rolled out about 250 linear feet of lasagna noodles 
feb 14: made residual lasagne to hand out
feb 15: on plane, sat next to young dad who clearly thought he was over his head trying to keep young daughter calm, but he did a great job 

feb 16: hugged laura reiley for the first time in 714 days not that i’m counting and talk about nightmares ending
feb 17: epcot fireworks from hotel balcony 

feb 18: 50 pounds of lasagna goes faster than you might think. also, took a break to let a big dog sit on my lap. he seemed to appreciate that there was a lap big enough for him to sit on
feb 19: at my niece’s wedding, told my nephew about an old episode of unsolved mysteries involving a case where he works now, so i’m hoping he’ll finally identify little miss panosoffkee
feb 20: val at wolfgang puck kitchen in wildwood was a delight. also: a blood orange negroni is pink

 

feb 21: pet najah for the first time in 5 days
feb 22: in span of less than 2 hours, heard from one friend who quit a job she’s been wanting to quit and another who got a job she’s been hoping to get and i was super happy for both 

feb 23: meditation app mentioned the word “stillness” which made me think of an reo speedwagon song i haven’t heard in decades, so i listened to it twice
feb 24: bought a stack of vinyl for the first time in probably 35 years? they come in all kinds of colors now
feb 25: made good on promise to have birria w matt adler and now i want to go to poland. these items aren’t always linear

feb 26: got check engine light read for free at autozone. but that’s not it: after reading the code, guy showed remarkable confidence in my ability to do my own tune up. i didn’t know how to tell him
feb 27: started watching tune up videos on youtube. huh. maybe? i dunno

feb 28: took a practice walk to work before official return

positivity journal 2022:1

month 1 of year 4 of this nonsense 

(the first week are official tom rhodes appreciation posts)

jan 1: mini high school reunion in which a lion slayed the hollywood improv 

jan 2: i walked 10 miles and had 3 tacos. so i get about 3.33 miles per taco

jan 3: cruising sunset strip all the way to the sunset

jan 4: wanderlust. both the concept and the ice cream shop in hollywood 

jan 5: went walking on melrose ave. woman at bus stop angrily yells “FOURSOME.”  i looked around. it’s just me and her. i keep walking, never so happy that i never took up golf

jan 6: an array of lunch dumplings

jan 7: stood in the desert looking at snow-capped mountains hundreds of miles away

jan 8: clerk: how did you hear about pioneertown? me: from a counting crows song. clerk: cool … wait, what?

jan 9: i like that most fast food places in california have picnic tables outside. it’s like they were intrinsically ready for all this

jan 10: decided it was more important to wear shorts on the cross-country flight than to be wearing long pants when i landed in 30 degree weather. was correct

jan 11: it was 25 degrees. i went to supermarket. there was a guy in gym shorts and a sleeveless ucf shirt. weirdly, it was not me

jan 12: my phone randomly asked if i wanted to see a slideshow of pictures of my cat. i definitely did

jan 13: aimee mann is doing a comic diary and posting it on instagram and it’s amazing 

jan 14: my phone's screen protector did

jan 15: giant cookies

jan 16: strained nocino which has been steeping for 7 months and my garbage smells amazing

jan 17: 10 years in current job. seems like yesterday

jan 18: subversive backchannel zoom meeting commentary

jan 19: in a callback to the december list, i put a mint sprig in a glass of vernors

jan 20: completed a week of watching a matrix every night by watching the new one the day before hbo takes it off the service. they were all fun, tho i’m not sure any of them were really different

jan 21: socialized three times in, like, 24 hours, like it was 2019 or something

jan 22: while sitting on steps having spiked hot chocolate with wayne, a bird decided my shoe was a good perch. and i think i have a history of trust building with this particular bird (top)

jan 23: after 10 years of complaining about no good hot and sour soup in my neighborhood, i made my own, and it was pretty great 

jan 24: proofing a book for colleagues and my first catch was a nuance involving an reo speedwagon lyric and i knew i was destined for this task

jan 25: “do what’s good for you or you’re not good for anybody”

 

 

jan 26: woke up wondering if duffy dyer is still alive. he is! so then i looked up ed ott, and he is too! for good measure, i looked up manny sanguillen and he’s ok too! all of the pirates' catchers from the ’70s!

jan 27: i try to low key my skills as a means of managing expectations — my own — but i made a catch today that left me unable to deny that i’m really good at this shit sometimes 

jan 28: sometimes all i do on facebook is troll trolls, which is pointless, but it amuses me

jan 29: was able to manage to avoid all the icy sidewalks during a long walk

jan 30: as soon as it hit 19 degrees, walked outside in shorts and a t-shirt just so i could say here that i did it

jan 31: paid for 5-day shipping and it got there in 2. very happy for not paying triple for the 2-day shipping

positivity journal 2021:12

apparently i watched a lot of tv this month. i guess that makes sense.

dec 1: mixed amarena syrup with vernor’s and i’m a genius

dec 2: why is dwayne johnson so good in everything?

dec 3: mixed orange juice with vernor’s and am starting to think i have an idea for a new cookbook 

dec 4: i can apparently resist anything except a challenge to progressively eat fried rice around town

dec 5: saw a teenage girl wearing an iron maiden tour jersey and i love irony so much

dec 6: at dinner, couple made too big a deal about the size of the tip they were leaving waitress, but seemed genuine in appreciation of her, then asked what days she worked so they’d always come in on her days. … it didn’t seem creepy till i typed it

dec 7: “i’d like to think that the best of me is still hiding up my sleeve”

dec 8: drank some vernor’s without anything else mixed in. researching the base line 

dec 9: at eye doctor, woman fitting me for new glasses had opinions on what i should be wearing. it’s her fourth year working on my face. i trust her

dec 10: a very maggie christmas concert

dec 11: “are you the fried rice guy?”

dec 12: started watching an hbo documentary series where helen mirren plays catherine the great so i could compare it to the hulu dramatic series “the great” in which elle fanning plays catherine the great and wow are they different 

dec 13: i kept seeing a link to a story headlined “why are we still obsessed with princess diana,” and each time, i said, to no one but the computer screen, “we are not”

dec 14: my watch didn’t charge right over night so i spent the day not caring if i got my steps 

dec 15: walked past fire station that was fully engaged in their holiday party and really wanted to know what they were cooking 

dec 16: pogi loco moco for lunch

dec 17: explained to ken preuss that sometimes i send him tv recommendations while i’m drinking. it went well

dec 18: i used to do a lot on weekends but have gotten into habit of basically doing nothing on weekends and i kinda like it

dec 19: read a story about guy who did the podcast that became “the shrink next door” and liked the story way more than the tv show

dec 20: “she’s right on time” is a christmas carol.

dec 21: i saw my breath for the first time since probably february. it’s good to have a tangible reminder 

dec 22: it’s nice that the cream cheese disaster of ’21 never really hit here

dec 23: bagels, obviously

dec 24: had to work on the official business holiday, but was done in about 2 hours

dec 25: omg stuffed fried mushrooms merry christmas

dec 26: walked to washington monument in daylight 

dec 27: chips and queso

dec 28: stopped watching an animated spoof movie of american history because it made lincoln and washington contemporaries. it was nice to learn i have standards

dec 29: crazy pie i made for christmas is still good and almost gone

dec 30: richard marx in concert on my tv

dec 31: i’ll keep believing this till it’s true: it’s been a long december and there’s reason to believe, maybe this year will be better than the last/i can’t remember all the times i tried to tell my myself to hold on to these moments as they pass

anyway, that’s it for year 3 of this list. not sure what to think of that, but there it is

positivity journal 2021:11

 oh, cool, 2021 is almost over. anyway, here's this:

nov 1: billy joel released an old recording of one of my favorite songs and it might be my favorite version 

nov 2: as soon as i finished reading richard marx’ memoir, nikki sixx’ arrived

nov 3: i always try to eat the brown candy corn first so it doesn’t spoil the others

nov 4: “roy orbison sangin fer the lonely …”

nov 5: pad thai is so underrated 

 

 

  

nov 6: most of my goals met by noon

nov 7: “on certain sundays in november, when the weather bothers me …”

nov 8: sauerkraut on a veggie burger 

nov 9: had to test a recipe that featured leftover turkey, so had to roast some turkey to be left over

nov 10: there was leftover turkey leftover after test, so it became the star of my salad for dinner 

nov 11: while i was waiting in the parking lot at the vet, a woman pushing a shopping cart down the street stopped to tell me she hoped my kitty would be ok

nov 12: “it’s hard to hold a candle in the cold november rain”

nov 13: i love it when neighborhood dogs start running to me from half a block away 

nov 14: waitress: “who dresses you?” i greatly preferred this to the normal “aren’t you cold?”

nov 15: when i sign on to work, a note pops up that says “digital experience enabled” and while i appreciate the enthusiasm it feels like it’s trying too hard

 

nov 16: “you were written in the stars that we are swimming in”

nov 17: kathy wenner. that's all. just kathy wenner

nov 18: i saw the word “severalteen" used unironically on the interwebs and i was immediately enraged but also loved it and might adopt it

nov 19: technically, my thanksgiving work marathon basically ended just as i was about to start cooking

nov 20: butchering birds

nov 21: i finished the huge bottle of soy sauce i bought over the summer, which tells me i’m cooking a lot, and a lot of the right stuff

nov 22: was looking at our old house on redfin, and it has doubled in value since we sold it, possibly because redfin listing has a photo with najah in it (top)

nov 23: before i got out of bed, got a text asking for a lunch recommendation in savannah and i later learned it worked out pretty well

nov 24: got into a fight on the internet. it was with the son of billy joel’s former manager. i definitely won

nov 25: ate thanksgiving while food was still hot, which is not the way i’ve become accustomed to doing it

nov 26: stuffing leftovers

nov 27: not a huge beatles fan nor of the song “get back,” but maybe i’m amazed at watching actual video of the moment it was conceived

nov 28: i do love pumpkin pie

nov 29: i was not kidding about stuffing leftovers

nov 30: boosted

positivity journal 2021:10

 

late due to general busyness and tiredness. shrug

oct 1: i knew i would like the counting crows show, but i hadn’t been prepared for frank turner

oct 2: “i wrote the story about cauliflower” is not how i ever expected to introduce myself to a musical artist i admire, but here we are

oct 3: “he’s a wigwam and a tepee right now”

oct 4: “fear does not prevent death. it prevents life.” – naguib mahfouz

oct 5: hours after watching laura reiley interview jose andres, watched geoff edgers interview dave grohl

oct 6: got stuck in tunnel and car ahead of me was cranking rem with the windows down. so i turned down my radio and listened to theirs

oct 7: mochi twinkies at lunch, dr pepper clone cocktail for dinner 

oct 8: omg coffee

oct 9: facilitated someone else’s knife shopping 

oct 10: i bought tech without bothering jeremy bowers

oct 11: was excited to break out hoodie to wear on walk to work, but it was too soon 

oct 12: i have never wanted to go out to lunch more than when joe yonan was telling me how much he wanted to go out to lunch 

oct 13: i wore long pants to work, but i had a good reason

oct 14: when editing, whenever i read “ellicott city” i say it to the tune of “paradise city.” and then i add the riffs at the end. i can't help it, and i wouldn’t if i could

oct 15: i appreciate how happy the guy at the salad place is when i walk in 

oct 16: bought plums because they looked good 

oct 17: soundtrack at bbq joint was 3 pink floyd songs, 2 zeppelin, a doors and a beatles and i think i know a lot about the owner 

oct 18: now the hoodie feels right 

oct 19: phil leppert and i had lunch and gave the restaurant a recipe

oct 20: “she swears the moon don’t hang quite as high as it used to”

oct 21: it was take your coffee to work day. at least for me

oct 22: realized “seaside” is an anagram of “disease” and feel confident that can’t be a coincidence 

oct 23: decided to take today off from adding to this list

oct 24: chicken and dumplings

oct 25: i remembered how to print things at work. it isn't as easy as it sounds

oct 26: extra curricular copy editing 

oct 27: managed to not embarrass myself in a conversation about taylor swift with tara mccarty. i think

oct 28: montenegro on the patio on a cool night

oct 29: actually met daniela galarza irl

oct 30: sat on couch next to window. heard people on sidewalk talking. smelled what they were smoking. wait … my headache is gone!

oct 31: breakfast with alara and lawrence and somehow we never stopped talking about deshaun watson, whoever that is