Ten.Two Thousand, Six Hundred & Forty-Five

1. Today’s the day.

2. I take my time getting out of the door, which is a bonus, because it means that I am walking in the daylight.

3. Her face and her voice and her laugh. Has it really been seven years since we last saw each other in person. The world has changed so much since then.

4. First stop: the ocean.

5. Collected shorty stories by Lydia Davis while listening to the waves crash. Young women8 who look they should be in school walking along the shore line. But surely, if I lived here, I’d skip, too.

6. Grocery store sushi because I forgot to eat breakfast.

7. A hug from him in the main office.

8. A hug from her, our first time meeting each other in person, in the dining hall before I pile on more chicken and chimichurri onto my plate.

9. I slide scoops of chocolate pot de creme with a coconut whipped cream into my mouth and text her that the food is still a 10 out of 10.

10. A little bag of caramel corn for a late night snack.

Ten.Two Thousand, Six Hundred & Forty-Four

1. Icy and Hot.

2. Morning light. Lingering a little bit longer before remembering that you need to do some more math before the day begins.

3. The logistics of everything.

4. Mount St. Helena —> Montelena

5. Coffee, sparkling wine, salad, French toast, a hasselback potato.

6. I should go to the beach. I should add another day. What if I never want to come back?

7. I write the same formula over and over and over again — FV=PMT[(1+i)ⁿ-1/i] — until I get the problem right.

8. I find enough time for a quick call.

9. I really want one of those ice cream cones.

10. This is almost the last one.

Ten.Two Thousand, Six Hundred & Forty-Three

1. Time.

2. Baseball camp, long-sleeve button-up, and linen shorts. We’ll try that for today.

3. Thinking about how to stuff a little bit of learning into the day.

4. The delight of a gentle breeze blowing through, catching the spaces between your neck and the collar of your shirt.

5. They swear Dave’s Hot Chicken is so much better.

6. Reminding myself that I still have two more days added to this weekend.

7. I try to pull up the tickets for the play, but then remember that I took all the apps off of my phone.

8. What a surprise.

9. We spend the intermission talking about work and math and the future.

10. Missing my own warmth.

Ten.Two Thousand, Six Hundred & Forty-Two

1. A later start, a little more light.

2. There’s that quote again.

3. I shouldn’t drink any more regular coffee, but it’s good and the oat milk is frothy and warm.

4. Is it just me, or does this feel weird?

5. I recognize that today’s extra attention to the grout is another method of procrastination.

6. Three more days.

7. It only took me two hours to figure out what I kept getting wrong with the problem. MAT 119 is going to test my grit.

8. Always crying during a cooking show.

9. Delete. Delete. Delete.

10. Needs something more.

Ten.Two Thousand, Six Hundred & Forty-One

1. Permission.

2. “We are kept from our goal not by obstacles, but by a clear path to a lesser goal.” - Be Your Future Self Now

3. A swirling undercurrent of determination and resolve.

4. So many mosquitoes in so little time.

5. Literally running to the bathroom to avoid a dress code infraction. All is well until you get below the ankles.

6. Daydreaming about the ranch.

7. But first, this walk.

8. The longest 1st inning ever.

9. But at least the night is cool and comfortable, not too hot. It could be worse.

10. Reliving high school with this TI-84.

Ten.Two Thousand, Six Hundred & Forty

1. I should probably slow my pace.

2. There’s something strange about smelling the scent of jasmine in the air when there’s no sun.

3. I should never take the kind of call in the car again.

4. TomaRashi.

5. Can you imagine? They all think we had a part in this.

6. “…imagined, felt, or implied…”

7. I can’t keep my eyes open. I’ll take it as a sign.

8. It wouldn’t be the worst thing.

9. Craving something that doesn’t exist.

10. Smug.

Ten.Two Thousand, Six Hundred & Thirty-Nine

1. I said I wasn’t going to walk this morning, but I can’t not.

2. Where is the moon?

3. Another round of applause for the tulips and a bright morning sky.

4. I think I need to buy an actual calculator.

5. It’s not my news to tell.

6. My jaw is literally on the ground.

7. I already knew this, but caffeine makes me punchy.

8. Too hot. I think about ordering a personal fan because I can’t do summer feeling like this.

9. Avoiding.

10. No ice.

Ten.Two Thousand, Six Hundred & Thirty-Eight

1. No need for handwarmers this week. 62 degrees!

2. Voice notes to myself in the dark.

3. Wet tulips glistening in the morning sun.

4. I get to decide what kind of day this will be. Maybe.

5. Solo staycation booked.

6. I can’t wait for tomorrow at the office. The gang will be together again.

7. He’s still sitting at the table, and that means that maybe he’s listening.

8. I wonder if they really think that this will be the thing that helps fix it. It’s not. It won’t be. It never is.

9. He asks me how much coffee I’ve had.

10. First day of classes.

Ten.Two Thousand, Six Hundred & Thirty-Seven

1. A little cup of coffee while waiting for the sun to rise.

2. Another floaty web. The walls and the ceiling glowing red from the morning light.

3. Instead of music, just the noises of the forest.

4. Two eggs—scrambled, bacon, and hashbrowns.

5. Ripple effects.

6. I let him do the driving. He says that if he drives, then I can just relax. I could if he stopped going above 75 miles per hour.

7. Time limits for dressing rooms.

8. Don’t settle.

9. Sometimes, silence is the best response.

10. The way the colors of the sky change as we make our way down out the hills. Nature at work, putting all of its beauty on display.

Ten.Two Thousand, Six Hundred & Thirty-Six

1. 4:14 a.m. Do I get up now, or do I try to sleep for a few more hours?

2. He tells me that we have to leave in 10 minutes but I’m still putting on lotion.

3. No water.

4. I add the sugar to his latte. Nineteen years in, I should know by now.

5. There are still 20 more minutes before the next game begins. I slide into the sun and lay down on the skinny metal bleacher.

6. Before he leaves he says he will try to come to a game next season.

7. What’s missing?

8. “…excellence requires intimacy.” - The Way of Excellence

9. “Remember when you used to dream about what you have now.”

10. Nighttime turkey calls.

Ten.Two Thousand, Six Hundred & Thirty-Five

1. A smaller slice of moon.

2. It smells clean.

3. I love this season of light.

4. Oh, yes. I knew this was coming.

5. Massican Gemina. Frito misto. Mussels. Beef carpaccio.

6. The commitment to solving this mystery is top level.

7. Fage?

8. Maybe you weren’t meant for this?

9. It’s already time for my classes to begin again.

10. What is freedom?

Ten.Two Thousand, Six Hundred & Thirty-Four

1. One of the fastest times of the week.

2. “Vision is the starting point of all high performance. You create things twice; first mentally, then physically.” - The 12 Week Year

3. Kids running the joint again today. My favorite kind of office days.

4. It is already almost the middle of March which means we are already almost a quarter of the way through the year which means that I keep feeling like time is slipping between the cracks of my closed fist. Where is it all going?

5. Only a handful more days left of freedom.

6. 2024 La Sirena Moscato Azul and 2022 Relic Ritual Red Wine.

7. What I love about these conversations: meeting new people; seeing old friends again; inspired conversation; seeing the human behind what is so often reduced to a product; and being with people who don’t view it as just a product but as a vehicle for connection.

8. My mind starts to drift into a daydream of sorts.

9. Eating a plate of chicken pot pie while standing up, because even though you didn’t think you were hungry, you realize you still are.

10. Why can’t it be easy?

Ten.Two Thousand, Six Hundred & Thirty-Three

1. Turkey gobbles in the distance.

2. Awash in the light of the garbage truck.

3. How could you ever tire of the way the sun turns green leaves gold? And the way the morning always feels so fresh? And how you still get scared by the squirrels that scamper by? And how you can see every star?

4. The perfect Wednesday.

5. Negotiations.

6. Is the electric slide now becoming ancestral knowledge? Are they all too young to know, or is it a regional thing?

7. It’s the Andes mints that are going to do me in this season.

8. A hot walk. So hot I have to take off my sweater.

9. I couldn’t do that job, not even for only two days a week.

10. “Rain on leaves.”

Ten.Two Thousand, Six Hundred & Thirty-Two

1. Can’t find my flashlight.

2. A waxing moon. A waning moon? The moon is losing its light.

3. Holding it in.

4. “Without a strong desire you will struggle when the implementation gets difficult, but with a compelling desire, seemingly insurmountable obstacles are seen as challenges to be met. The desired end result needs to be meaningful enough to get you through the hard times and keep you on track.” - The 12 Week Year

5. These mid-day walks with them are the literal best.

6. If I just book it, it will come together.

7. The last bag of salt and vinegar chips. A handful of sour patch kids. Water.

8. She says that the woman called 9-1-1 and told them it was a car collision. Thank goodness for a good friend mama bear.

9. Nooooo. I left my air pods at work.

10. At least he’s home.

Ten.Two Thousand, Six Hundred & Thirty-One

1. The colors of early morning.

2. I start to count the cars in the parking lot. Something isn’t right. At least the drive home is a short one.

3. Sunlight on my face. Yes, more of this, please.

4. A little bit of email. A little bit of laundry. A lot of not getting the things I actually want to get done, done.

5. Chinese chicken salad.

6. Girls walking through the door to eat more pasta. One day, this will not happen again. One day, I will miss this.

7. This version of getting my nails done is tops.

8. Quiet car. Mountains in the distance that look like an old painting.

9. But what do we want the rest of these days to feel like?

10. Early to bed, early to rise.

Ten.Two Thousand, Six Hundred & Thirty

1. 3:12 a.m. Still too hot.

2. This is also the problem with going to bed too early—waking up too early.

3. Feeling the tightness.

4. Things you only see during yoga practice: spider webs, the imprint of a bird in flight against the window, insulation sprinkled on the deck from the woodpeckers’ holes, the way the sun stretches across the ceiling and the walls, and the stone on the fireplace.

5. She takes a look at the picture and chuckles. I tell her it’s for my basketball banquet. But who wouldn’t laugh at a stuffed cougar in a glass box?

6. But I still need the trunk space.

7. I remind myself that he said I don’t need notes. “Just speak from the heart.”

8. I’m already sweating.

9. I could really use a another Sunday.

10. The sound of the frogs.

Ten.Two Thousand, Six Hundred & Twenty-Nine

1. Shadows on the moon.

2. Dust morning sky.

3. I hear the turkeys, but I can’t see them. .

4. Malaise.

5. In moments like these, a little bit of compassion and understanding can go a long way.

6. Blue sky, green hills, no people. 2012 Piper Heidsieck Vintage Brut. Shrimp ceviche. Truffle fries.

7. Cognitive dissonance of what you assume a person to be versus how they treat you.

8. I will never find the time to clean this weekend.

9. The perfect kind of weather for a late-night game. They ask where all the kids are. I never know. It’s always like this, though. Can’t manage to figure out the disconnect.

10. “Ain’t no way!”

Ten.Two Thousand, Six Hundred & Twenty-Eight

1. Turkey calls.

2. The colors of sunrise. Reflection of trees in the water.

3. A break away from the screens to get a cup of coffee. A little moment like this that makes the day a little brighter.

4. Honeycomb Latte and an Everything Knot.

5. “It’s been a day.”

6. “Don’t dabble. Engage.”

7. Buster’s BBQ.

8. He says that if we’re trying to go to bed now, we’re uncs. They say that it’s the first time we’ve all been able to sit and have dinner together in a long time. It’s not time to step away just yet.

9. “All roads lead to yoga, bro.”

10. Maybe we’re doing okay.

Ten.Two Thousand, Six Hundred & Twenty-Seven

1. What are the turkeys doing all the way over here?

2. At least I still get this one day a week where I can drop them off. But they don’t like my music, and I don’t like theirs.

3. Did I plan my solo getaway? No? Did I think a lot about it? Yes.

4. I tell her the story and watch her facial expressions. She’s trained not to react, but she couldn’t help it either. “Needless to say, I think I need to make some decisions.”

5. So much sun.

6. The downside of so much gear is that there is so much gear.

7. On a mission to finish this project. And look, we finally see the floor.

8. What is his baby book doing here?

9. It’s only Wednesday, but this group of tourists is running wild in the Safeway.

10. I want to be great, but I can’t stay up long enough.

Ten.Two Thousand, Six Hundred & Twenty-Six

1. When you only have to make one side of the bed.

2. From here, I can see the thick, cottony fog stretching over the valley floor. The way the sun is filtering through the fog makes me feel like I am walking through a dream.

3. Turkeys.

4. This is what it feels like to finally see.

5. A tiny pot of decaf.

6. The best thing about the office is the snacks. The worst thing about the office is the snacks.

7. Every time I open the browser, I see a war update that shocks me even more.

8. Fallow field full of goats and sheep. Clear blue sky touches tops of mountains. Cover crop creeps high against the vines.

9. Had I known it was going to go like this, I would have just gone home.

10. Did they hear anything I said?