Just a bunch of lists

Over the course of the past five years I've

• Held five different jobs
• Lived in four different places, including another country
• Read 182 books
• Lost two grandparents
• Learned so much.

Things I've loved about living in North Beacon Hill

• The sound of train horns in the night
• Growing tomatoes on the deck with western sun exposure
• View of Puget Sound, SoDo, the stadiums and downtown
• Hearing the cannons at CenturyLink Field go off with every Seahawks touchdown and field goal (which then broadcasts on my TV, delayed)
• Having two ovens
• Delite Bakery, Hair Skill Design, Red Apple
• Walking home from work
• Driving to church in eight minutes
• Reminders and memories of my Grandma Yvonne.

Reasons I love Twitter

• The memes
• Curated news and articles
• Black Twitter
• Subtweets
• Heartwarming viral videos.

Things I loved about working in Belltown

• Walking to the Pacific Science Center
• Getting lunch at Pike Place Market (Michou, DeLaurenti, Mexican Grocery)
• Concerts at Westlake Park
• Watching the biospheres construction
• Sitting/standing desk
• KEURIG
• My co-workers <3. 

"Peak Millennial"

• Thinkpieces
• Irony
• Instagram
• Pressed juice
• Sanctimony
• Binge-watching
• Mash-ups
• Complaining about millennial thinkpieces.

Things I loved about Los Angeles

• How it feels like one giant suburb
• Diaspora communities
• TV/Movie billboards that are six stories tall
• Sunshine, Santa Monica, the PCH
• Feeling like I could happen to run into my favorite screenwriter/director/actor at any time
• East L.A. and the mestizaje vibe
• The overall creative *atmosphere*
• The satisfaction that I was, if but momentarily, a part of the zeitgeist.

Favorite demographic data sources

• Gene Balk, "FYI Guy," The Seattle Times
• Nate Cohn, "The Upshot," The New York Times
• Pew Research Center.

2017 Podcast Roundup

• With Friends Like These, "The Help Is Coming From Inside the House"
  A deeply personal, brutally honest discussion between Ana Marie Cox and Joe Moe on depression, chemical dependency and suicide.  
• Another Round, "A Dude Named Hot Sauce"
  Tracy and Heben conduct a hilarious interview with writer-comedian Yassir Lester about his creative process, pop culture news and funny stories from his adolescence.
• Comedy Bang Bang, "120 Adam Scott, Harris Wittels, Chelsea Peretti"
  Throwback episode from 2011 featuring comedy writer Harris Wittels, actor Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation) and writer-comedian Chelsea Peretti (then-writer on Parks and Recreation). The improv in this episode had me laughing until I couldn't breathe.
• The Axe Files, "Ep. 128 - Sen. Kamala Harris"
  Substantive, immigration policy and prosecutorial law discussion between David Axelrod, former Chief Strategist to President Obama, and Kamala Harris, former California Attorney General serving her first term as U.S. Senator. Riveting.
• Pod Save America, "He'll run the country from jail like El Chapo"
  Endearing conversation between Jon Favreau (Head Speechwriter), Dan Pfieffer (Strategy and Communications Advisor) and Alyssa Mastromonaco (Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations), as they reminisce on their days in the Obama White House. I read Mastromonaco's book by the way; it was funny and great.
• The Axe Files, "Ep. 120 - J.D. Vance"
  Thoughtful, respectful and analytical discussion between David Axelrod and J.D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy. Appreciate Vance's perspective on Appalachia, the future of labor and industry, and political conservatism in the Trump era.

Netspeak I find amusing

• mood
• sjw
• soft
• smol
• hbd
• petty
• receipts
• my aesthetic
• it's lit. 

Favorite parts of teaching Sunday school

• All the kids talking over each other because they want to tell me about their week
• Their elation at being able to drink Crystal Light
• Pretend marching around the walls of Jericho with paper plate "trumpets"
• Inadvertently predisposing them to libertarianism by giving them Hershey Nuggets then having tax collector Zacchaeus collect 2/3 of them back
• Yelling "NO SPOILERS!" when a student already knows the Bible story and tries to tell the whole thing to the class
• All tangents leading to Star Wars
• So many Teddy Grahams 
• Being asked, "Do you know what a gangster is?" 

This was fun and maybe I'll do it again. Have an idea for a list you'd like me to write? Request it in the comments.