things I like

by Alison Green on August 28, 2012

Three years ago, I did a “things I like” post. It is time to update it!  (Note that one item remains from the old list; some things change, and some do not.)

1. Tea, hot or iced

2. These sheets!  Like sleeping in a bed of spun gold.

3. This blanket! Like sleeping in the embrace of the softest and most cuddly bear in the world.

4. Mr. Knightley. So practical and wise.

5. Interspecies friendships

6. This amazing essay from David Foster Wallace

7. These crazy limes

8. A really spicy tom yum soup

9. Making other people listen to This American Life

10. This place and its goats

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{ 39 comments }

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  3. Esra*

    Are they crazy delicious limes, or just crazy looking? Because they kind of remind me of the innards of that snow beast Solo cut open to keep Luke warm.

  5. Anon1*

    This American Life! You can make me listen to it. And All Things Considered and Prairie Home Companion and Splendid Table.

  9. JessB*

    Mr Knightley! He rocks my world. I got an e-reader recently, which came with 100 classics, so I have been re-reading some old favourites, including Emma. She annoys me a little bit, but I just love him.

    Jeremy Northam as Mr Knightly is my dream man.

    “Try not to kill my dogs.”

      1. Dana*

        From the Gwyneth Paltrow one in the 90s – Northam is pretty hard to beat as Mr. Knightley! (that is, “my” Mr. Knightley)

  11. Andrea*

    I have those sheets! Love them. I have been meaning to buy more, but they’re out of several colors, so I’ll wait. (I also considered getting some for my guest room, then I remembered that I do want guests to go home eventually.)

  12. Anna*

    As long as characters from Jane Austen novels are fair game, why didn’t Lizzy Bennet make the list? Is it because she’s an obvious choice as beloved Austen creation?

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      You know, I don’t love E. Bennet as much as everyone else seems too. I mean, she’s a lovely character, and she’s way better than that milquetoast Fanny Price, but yeah, I guess she feels like such the crowd choice that I’ve always passed her over!

      1. Anna*

        I figured as much. Though you may be able to turn her refusal of that silly obsequious Mr. Collins into an object lesson in not jumping on the first offer you receive if you see too many red flags beforehand. (That said, Charlotte Lucas did manage to do reasonably well at keeping him at arm’s length once she married him.)

        1. Esra*

          Charlotte was knocked up by the end of the novel! I always felt bad for Mary, she and Collins might have made it work. They’d be utterly intolerable to be around, but could be happy with each other.

          1. Anna*

            They would, wouldn’t they?

            As for Charlotte being knocked up by the end — that was a normal (expected, even) side-effect of marriage. Of the Bennet daughters, only Lydia might have plausibly had a pregnancy referred to by novel’s end, but she’d be more likely to just say “Hey guess what I did! I went and had a baby!” There just wasn’t enough time for her to do that, even with running away with Wickham.

  13. Jamie*

    I think I’m going to make a list of 10 things I like – which are easily procured and moderately priced.

    Just in case I get any casual inquiries from co-workers of how to best bribe me it will be nice to have a handout pre-printed.

    1. Anna*

      You know, I should have put together such a list a month ago. I just had another reminder (albeit a small one in this case) that I have a birthday coming up in a week and a half.

      1. Anna*

        That said, I lack co-workers at the moment. It would probably be handed out to people who might otherwise want stuff out of me.

        And on a somewhat unrelated note, is there a technical and/or ideological reason why there isn’t an edit button for comments?

        1. Ask a Manager* Post author

          Technical — my commenting software doesn’t allow it.

          Although when I was reading about options for this recently, I read that a lot of bloggers turn that option off even when their software does allow it, because someone will say something controversial, people will react to it, and then the person will go back and edit their original comment so as to make it seem they never said it. Which sounds like a big mess.

          1. Jamie*

            It can be. That’s why sites with really high volume are generally pretty heavily moderated – i.e. TWOP and editing (for content) something that’s been quoted is against the rules.

            That’s a significant time commitment.

          2. Andrea*

            Is there a way to put a time limit on the edit button? Because when I need/want to change something, it’s just a typo or a quick clarification that I realized pretty much as soon as I hit “submit.” If I had edit capabilities for even a minute or two, that would be awesome. Then again, I am assuming that most people are like that–realizing pretty much immediately that they need to add or correct something–and that might not be the case at all.

            1. Anna*

              Yeah, the short-term edit capability would be a nice thing to have. (One website I use allows the original poster to change the title of a thread on the message boards — provided it’s within a set time period and there hasn’t been a reply.)

              That said, if it’s technical, it’s technical.

  14. HR Gorilla*

    “The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the “rat race” — the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.”

    LOVE.

  15. JT*

    Nice essay by David F. Wallace, RIP. One of my other favorite graduation speeches is “Wear Sunscreen,” spoken by Kurt Vonnegut.

  16. Zee*

    How about a bucket list? What are the top 10 things you’d like to do (it can be anything, not just professionally)?

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      You know, I’ve never made a bucket list. I don’t know why. I’m lazy, so that might be part of it.

      But if I had one, off the top of my head it would include eating kimchi directly from one of those pots of it buried underground on a Korean kimchi farm, living in an isolated farmhouse in the middle of the country for a year, and one-on-one interaction with a chimpanzee.

  17. Anna*

    Mine would include a trip to Paris, since I haven’t gone there yet. (Sooner or later I’ll have enough money to take a vacation. As it is, I can’t even afford a go-visit-a-friend-out-of-town.)

    1. Anna*

      Darn. Meant that as a reply to the bucket-list comments. I’d cut-and-paste it, but there’s no delete option.

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