It’s almost 11 o’clock as I take my first sip of coffee. I’ve been up since eight, but I feel like there’s a lot more to accomplish before I can even think about getting to work. There is the business of finishing the coffee and the English muffins with strawberry jam; there are groceries to be bought, especially deli meats for lunch and fruits to keep things healthy; I need to swing by Union Market to pick up a pound of their ground coffee beans for the office; and I still have to make and pack my lunch before heading for Midtown.

These are all things that can easily be avoided. I can choose to go directly to the office, perhaps pick up some rotisserie chicken-with-two-sides combo from across the street for lunch, and there’s nothing wrong with coffee beans from Starbucks. I can be at my desk a good two full hours ahead of time, get started on my work right away, and have enough done by lunchtime to feel productive.

But I’d rather take things slowly when I can. These mornings have become a sort of sacred ritual for me, starting with a good forty minute routine at the gym to work up an appetite followed by a few minutes at the laptop reading the Times and ESPN. I’ll be mindful of work-related email as they come in, and sometimes I’ll take my phone along to the gym so I can plan out my day while on the bike, but the focus usually shifts back to the exercise at hand or the food being put into my mouth. It’s a quiet and peaceful process. And it’s time that’s hardly wasted.

The important thing is to remember to put the strawberry jam back into the fridge before I leave.

I’ve been extremely pleased by the way my plant has flourished this winter. My grandmother gave this to me before she moved down to Atlanta with my parents. Last year, it only bloomed two small flowers. This year, it’s been flowers galore. Some flowers have spawned more flowers to give it a double-decker presence. It must be all the sunlight our living room receives during the day (along with more consistent watering).

I’ve been finding it harder and harder to post accurate accounts of how I’m feeling these days. It’s sort of dizzying how things swing from unbridled optimism to pessimistic anxiety and then back to unshakable confidence. I had a great time reading Saul Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March in the first few weeks of the new year. In some ways, I feel like I, too, might be finding myself in ten or so years feeling both comfortable and uneasy at how things turned out, not too bogged down with regrets but sometimes wondering why some things just didn’t work out and, taking all these things into account, trying to ease the tension between hoping for something better and convincing myself that things are quite good. That’s pretty much what I got out of the book, and it had me thinking this way not so much with dread, but with a happy sadness – or sad happiness.

When I think about the plant in my living room again, it reminds me of how the right circumstances at the right time can do wonders, and I try to derive a feel-good message out of this observation, eager to apply it to my own life and work. But then again, the real world is already created (it’ll go on with or without me, I’m sure), and such circumstances are a matter of personal interpretation, or better, of invention. I can accept both ways and stay happy, I think.

My buddy Reggie featured me for his first “Sweaty Guinea Pig Discovered” entry. I’ve been much better about working out in 2008, and I hope it’s something I can continue doing regularly. Oh – and there’s this article too, if you’re interested.

I’ve spent a considerable amount of time in Park Slope the past few weekends. One main reason is that our office gets no heat on weekends. I asked our super Gino about it, and he told us that there was no heat on weekends, period. Then he said he’d talk to the owner for us, but I doubt it. We’re debating how much to tip Gino and his assistants for the holidays. In our slow and dingy elevator, Gino taped a holiday greeting card – laminated and definitely used in previous years – as, we think, a friendly reminder to fork over some year-end cash to him and his team. Gino, who must be pushing seventy, is hard of hearing and shuffles his feet a lot. He’s an old Italian man with unpredictable mood swings. Sometimes he’s helpful, and other times, we know better than to approach him. We like the part-time assistant Shamir, who fixed up our electricity problem when we first moved in (we paid him good money in cash), but overall, the lack of weekend heating, no warm water, and a defective toilet (Gino did a half-ass job of “fixing” it) makes us not want to be in the giving mood.

Anyway, it’s been nice being at home as a result. Most of the time spent here is on the couch with Melanie. We’ll have our matching white MacBooks open and the television on – usually football, Food Network, or Bravo – and constantly think about what to have for dinner. Based on what we decide, I usually think about which wines to get from Slope Cellars. I really enjoy the two avenue walk to what is fast becoming a favorite wine store. A couple more trips and I’ll be eligible to get a $10+ bottle for only 99 cents!

Here’s an overview of things eaten in the past few weeks:

1 Lamb ragu over pasta, went incredibly well with a Chilean merlot. 2 A simple breakfast. 3 Lambchop, orzo’n’cheese, and broccoli rabe. Had it with a yummy petite syrah.

4 Another breakfast, this time with hash browns. 5 A steamed flounder with veggies. Had it with a crisp Gewürztraminer. 6 Italian white bean salad – so simple yet so good.

Sometimes, eating at home feels more luxurious than eating out. We can try better wines without worrying about the heavily marked up price, we can control the portions to our needs, and it’s nice to know exactly the ingredients going into every meal. Doing the dishes is a bit of a pain, and we’re sometimes left craving dessert, but we make do with sliced oranges and tea.

Although I still like my weekends to be productive in some ways, it’s nice to lounge about and anticipate another round of good food and wine. I’m thinking about becoming more of a contributor than the occasional cheese grater, cream whipper, and dishwasher. Maybe I’ll make a Korean dish so that Mel will have to turn the kitchen over to me. A nice kimchi jigae with hefty chunks of pork ribs or even a soothing bean sprout soup might do the trick. The wine pairing for those will be tricky, though.