TV.

I made stuffed peppers for dinner, which I’ve never made before. I stuffed a dozen poblanos with black beans and cornmeal and onions and cheese and packed them into a pan full of spicy sauce. They’re in the oven right now.

That, friends, is the first thing that comes to mind on this quiet Monday evening.

Jacob and I don’t have a TV, mostly out of laziness and poverty. We lived in a furnished apartment for two years that had a big flat screen TV in it. We didn’t have cable, but we could hook my laptop up to the TV and watch Netflix or movies we rented on Amazon. When we moved in June, we gave up the furnished apartment and the TV along with it.

Don’t get me wrong - I still watch TV, only on a laptop hooked up to a speaker. We are not purists. Jacob has been working a lot of nights lately, and I’ve been on a raging bender watching every episode of The Mindy Project. Many Friday nights will find us on the couch watching old episodes of 30 Rock. But there is something freeing about not having a TV as a feature in our (very tiny) home.

A few months ago, Jacob brought home a nice little radio that sits out in the living room. It is usually tuned to our local NPR station or the local classical music station. I’ve always been a regular NPR listener, but in the months since the radio came, I'm off the hook. I turn the radio on when I get home, and unless I’m the mood for a podcast, I often find myself listening to the radio through the night and into the evening. I even find myself listening to Tom Ashbrook. I don’t know that having a radio in the background is any better than a TV, but I like it.

I know there are other thoughts, other things that I’ve been thinking about, in the way that I always have my handful of topics that are on my mind at any given time. But what are they? Right now, I can't remember. There are things that have surprised me lately, and I think in part because I allowed myself to let go of expectations. Mostly good surprises (although a handful that were not as great).

But tonight, things are peaceful. I’m taking some stuffed poblanos out of the oven. I’m drinking a Monday-evening mimosa, because there was leftover orange juice and champagne from a Sunday brunch, and you know that business doesn’t keep. I’m folding laundry. I’m listening to NPR. I’m writing. I’m taking in the sounds in the distance, through the open window, the train whistle, the humming HVAC, the dryer down in the courtyard, the airplane, the distant siren.

That all seems to be enough for now.