Revenge of the Ten Unmediated Pleasures

1. Shocking pink roses, blooms as big as your fist, from a thorn bush that seems to thrive on neglect.

2. The clack and crackle of dice on a hardwood table—and the memories the sound evokes.

3. Pinching out an A minor 7th chord and feeling it snap beneath my fingers.

4. Shadowboxing—the way you pull your fist out of your back pocket for the throw, the way your shoulders swing on the follow-through.

5. Looking out on the back yard, astonished, at a duck's stony plummet out of the sky to paddle on a pool left behind on the lawn in the wake of a summer rain.

6. Early morning at work, aching, sleepless eyes red and sore: I should be miserable with exhaustion, but I cannot suppress a smile (and a shiver) as I remember just what we were up to last night when we should have been sleeping.

7. Cracked-pepper pappadums puffing and distorting in the hot oil, with pear-and-cardamom chutney close at hand.

8. Warm little arms flung round my neck and the toddler's voice fluting, "Hug."

9. Lotte Samkang Melon Big Ice Bars from the Korean grocery down by South Town, near RIT.

10. The way it feels when the words are coming easy.