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I am lucky enough that I get to work from home.  There's no better feeling than shutting the door behind you to your own private study and knowing that whenever you want to take a break and smell your flowers from Valentine's Day or take a break for a run at the gym, you can do so.  I am obsessed with the <a href="http://dailyroutines.typepad.com/">daily routines</a> and private workspaces that people employ.  This intimate photograph by Ethan Hill accompanied this sad and beautifully written <a href="http://www.esquire.com/features/roger-ebert-0310">article </a>by Chris Jones for <em>GQ. </em>

I had no idea that Roger Ebert had cancer nor that he was undergoing surgery.  I once saw him at a lecture he was doing in the loop (the South Loop is the name of a neighborhood in Chicago and I believe this was at the Graham School) but I was too afraid to speak to him.   He smiled at me as he walked by where I was hiding in the back of the auditorium and I remember being so happy about this.
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This article is a heart-breaking look at his illness but it highlights two beautiful things:  the love between he and his wife Chaz and this wonderful <a href="http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/">blog </a>that he writes.  The article really takes the tone that Ebert is trapped in the past while the blog provides an outlet into an Ebert that we have never seen before.  For me, the article shows a man who is still surrounded by his passion:  movies, his ability with words, and a cultural legacy that is enviable.

Two beautiful pieces of prose highlighted in the article:

<em>On Death and Memories:</em>

<em>I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear,</em> he writes in a journal entry titled "Go Gently into That Good Night." <em>I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. What I am grateful for is the gift of intelligence, and for life, love, wonder, and laughter. You can't say it wasn't interesting. My lifetime's memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris.</em>

<em>On Happiness:</em>

<em>I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.</em>

<em> </em>

<em><span style="font-style: normal;">I wish I had the courage to have said hello to him that day I met him.</span></em>

<em><span style="font-style: normal;">Ebert <a href="http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/02/roger_eberts_last_words_cont.html">responded </a>to the article written about him in </span><span style="font-style: normal;">Esquire.  <span style="font-style: normal;">Again, I love the feeling that we are getting the inside look at another relationship on par with Alice and Calvin Trillin and that we have blogs so he can write so candidly about everything that jumps into his mind. </span></span></em>