We’re all good at different things. Sure, we have big, shiny, professional-grade skills, but I’m more interested in the little talents, quirks, and interests that make us us. My older sister can speak in a flat-out flawless British accent, knows how to curl her hair to look like a Pantene Pro-V ad, and has a textbook golf swing. My little sister is an exceptional cook who can whip up calzones one-handed (with a newborn baby on her hip), and has an excellent ability to stay unflaggingly cheerful under nearly any circumstance (airplane travel, the brutal 11th hour of a damp and rainy 12 hour hike up a steep, rocky Adirondack mountain, a run-of-the-mill bad day).

My dad loves malted milk balls. Every Christmas, we wrap up a box of them and tuck it in his stocking. He knows it’s coming, but he always exclaims with surprise and excitement, as if we’ve gifted him a vintage Patek Phillipe. That’s a quality in him that I seek to emulate: the ability to make even tiny things feel like celebrations. To greet ordinary moments with extraordinary joy.

There’s a lot to love about running, but among the many things, is that you don’t need anyone else. You don’t need anything else. Just you, your own two feet, and a path. Empowering and freeing, you can achieve a kind of simple euphoria—physical exhaustion, mental relaxation—on your own terms. Runner’s high is a very apt phrase.

You don’t need an instructor, or a fancy studio. Or a non-fancy studio! You don’t need music. You don’t need the right conditions, or a schedule, or group, or a trainer bellowing at you. You do not need to pay $30. Not needing any of those things is freeing in another way—less goes wrong. Even a bad run is a great run. It’s just you out there. In structured exercise, I find myself prone to fixating on so much: is the room too hot, is the girl next to me fidgeting, how’s the volume of the music, and so on.

Viciously cold outside today. Winter is clinging to the city with a fierce grip. “Let go!” I want to shout at it. “My skin is cold! My hands are cold! Let go,” I silently plead to the sky above. On my walk home last night, I optimistically waltzed into the little ice cream shop on 81 and Amsterdam. I sampled the newest flavor (cherry heartbeet!) before realizing that I was in too wintry a mood even for ice cream. (I know! Who says that?)

As a living, breathing human being, I do love chocolate. I understand why the grocery store check-out counters are lined with chocolate bars. I understand why Willy Wonka is a great movie. (In fact, I completely understand why Augustus Gloop fell into that chocolate river. I’m with you, Augustus! I’d have thrown on my suit and hopped in there with you too!) I understand why Smitten Kitchen has a killer recipe for a cake called the “I want chocolate cake” cake. And I understand why my mom used to hide the chocolate chips at the back of the freezer when we were little. Honestly, she probably still should.

My best writing comes to me at night. It arrives within warning. Sometimes it steps politely, almost tentatively, out of the dusky edges of my mind as I’m falling asleep. My thoughts recess obediently, filing out of my head, and the writing pokes its head in, as if it’s the last straggling coworker in the office, as if to say: “Excuse me? Just a few things quickly before I head home.”

How’s your weekend going? I saw a sign in a shop today—a quirkily illustrated poster with the words ‘have a marvelous day!’ scrawled across the top. It showed 12 hand-drawn squares, each depicting something to marvel at: the scent of roses in a flower shop, a hot cup of coffee, the sun on your face.

I liked the reminder of what the word can be—not just excellent or fantastic but related to stopping and marveling at something (especially little things). How nice to wander through the world with a healthy dose of wonder: willing and ready and looking to be surprised or delighted or both.

I live just a few steps away from a very famous bakery. (No, it’s not my own kitchen, weird right?! Funny how word hasn’t caught on about my mad kitchen skills yet…) People come in droves to buy their cookies; I’ve counted lines of 70+ people on more than one occasion. They make a lot of excellent items—a perfectly domed blueberry muffin, squares of thin-crust squares of pizza shingled with rosemary-flecked potato slices, a dense banana bread packed with chocolate chunks—but most customers only have eyes for their cookies. Granted, the cookies are worth the wait.

Picture it: A campsite, in the height of summer. A campfire crackling away merrily in front of you, spitting showers of orange sparks into the inky blackness of the night sky. You’re wearing a Patagonia fleece, which will smell faintly of wood smoke for weeks. You can just make out the outline of people sitting across the fire from you, clamoring for space above the flames as they roast their marshmallows. Some char them, pulling off the shattered blackened crust to reveal a gooey lump within. Some treat it like an art form, lightly toasting them to a perfectly uniform golden hue. Some (okay fine, YOU) just hang out eating marshmallows straight from the bag. Keeping it real, kids. Keeping it real.

The party dessert platter. You know what I’m talking about. The dessert platter I mean is not a gorgeous spread of irresistible pastries, but rather a catering essential that feels like an afterthought. It shows up at these kinds of gatherings: an after-school soccer team celebration, a piano recital reception, a working lunch with clients, a buffet-style cocktail party. The platter in question is usually on a shiny black plastic tray lined with a paper doily. It sports an array of baked goods—squares of brownies, lemon bars showered in powdered sugar, and slices of pound cake. It suffers from what I call the “Starbucks pastry effect”—it looks inviting, but the second you bite into any one of the desserts, you realize your mistake. Dry. Overly sweet. Pretty tasteless.