March 2007

The First List


It's hot out.  Too hot.  Too damn flipping hot.  "Aren't you enjoying this wonderful weather?"  No, as a matter of fact, I'm not.  I'm not enjoying it at all...and I want to put a brick through the face of just about every person who asks me that question.  If I wanted upper seventies in March, I wouldn't live at this latitude.  I hate summer...and days like today and yesterday are nothing more than cruel reminders of the four or so months of misery that are rapidly approaching my universe.  I'm a winter girl.  A complete and utter penguin.  I never get sick of cold, I never wish for warmer weather, I never curse the presence of snow, I live for wind chill factors, and I never get sick of winter.  That's just who I am.

While walking from the train this morning, internally cursing the fact that I didn't need a jacket and nearly choking every person I saw who actually had one on, I took it upon myself to think of ten things that bring me joy.  Little, simple things that bring a smile and make me forget that the city will soon be an inferno that will drain my will to live with every bead of perspiration.  I thought I'd share...

1.  While I am still only a burgeoning addict, my caramel macchiatos delight me.  I have one every day.  I can't help myself.  And that first sip, when the caramel is still melting on its bed of foamy milk, is nothing short of pure euphoria.  I swear, Starbucks puts heroin in their coffee.  I drink decaf, and still I crave it.  It's absurd.  I used to never even walk in the place...but I spent a fair chunk of time with a friend who went in there all the time and out of companionship, I joined in.  It started with eggnog lattes at Christmas....and now you can pretty much hook me up to the macciatos intravenously.  It's glorious.

2.  Harry Connick, Jr. played at full blast on my not-pod while walking downtown makes even the ugliest things seem adorable.  If the song being played is "A Wink and a Smile", all the better.  There are days when Harry is my heartbeat....and I thank God for him.

3.  Opening Day of the 2007 baseball season is less than a week away.  Baseball is one of only two things that make summer bearable.  Tennis is the other.  I am looking forward to baseball with every ounce of my being.  Go Mets!  Go, go, go...and then break my heart like you always do.  I'll love you anyway!

4.  I have a wonderful Easter hat.  It's blue and white and gigantic.  It belongs at the Kentucky Derby.  It's entirely ridiculous.  I'm incredibly eager to wear it. 

5.  I have recently indulged myself with a spanking new set of Ralph Lauren towels.  I am not usually one to spoil myself much, let alone on something as mundane as towels...and especially designer towels.  But, they were on sale at Macy's and they were the most perfect color, so I got some.  If you have the means, I really recommend getting yourself some.  I never understood spending such an amount on towels but now I totally understand why people do it....just as I discovered why people spend stupid amounts of money on bed sheets after I purchased my first set of 800 thread count sateen cotton sheets.  It's absolutely superb.  These damn towels feel like Ralph Lauren went to heaven, stole God's robes, dyed them blue, and turned them into towels.   I'd dress in them if I could...and, honestly, I probably could.  I got washcloths, hand towels, bath towels, and bath sheets.  The bath sheets are HUGE!  I can wrap one of them around myself almost twice.  Yards and yards of fluffy blue splendor.  It's fucking great!

6.  I am reading this book called "Founding Brothers".  It's a discussion of things that shaped the American Republic in its infancy and the handful of men involved.  It's terribly verbose...even moreso than The Lord of the Rings, which is really saying something.  But, it won the Pulitzer, so I figured I'd give it a shot.  It's fantastically boring but really interesting at the same time and the sentence structure is so complex that I often have to read sentences over twice to make sure I'm getting the full idea.  Right now, it's a quest more than a pure desire to finish it.  Aside from all that, the book's lexicon is a delicious jubilee of really advanced vocabulary.  I mean, really advanced.  I love that I can read this book and never have to use the dictionary.  It makes me feel entirely smart.  I know that's a really conceited thing to say but when I can fly through sentences containing words like manumit, circumlocution, incontrovertible, mesengenation, propitious, superannuated, and obfuscation, I feel like a brainiac.  I like being smart.

7.  There is this enormous black man that works in the Starbucks I go to in the morning who calls me 'baby.'  I'm sure he calls about a million women 'baby' but that's besides the point.  He calls me 'baby', and that's enough.  There are two Starbucks locations closer to my office that I could go to but I go to the one I go to because that guy is in there and he calls me 'baby' every morning.  I don't really get that kind of vebal affection anywhere else.  And I'm an absolute sucker for that particular term of endearment (there is a reason why, and it's a really stupid, long story), so that little bit of fluff gives me a warm fuzzy.  If I could get the guy to give me a hug, I think I'd be in a great mood.

8.  I am going home tomorrow.  It's only a 48 hour trip...but I know I'm going to step out of the airport and inhale the sweet smell of seawater and taxi exhaust and I'm going to know right down to the core of me that I am home.  There is NOTHING better on Earth for me than going home.  Nothing at all...regardless of which of the two places that I call home which I'm going to.  Either or, nothing is better.  Tomorrow will be the geographical home and I'm quivering with excitement.  I don't even care that I have to get on a plane....

9.  I think I may have mentioned this before, but Trix has gone back to its roots and reinvented itself in its original form.  Gone are the horrible tasting puffed fruit shapes!  Enter the fantastically crunchy fruity orbs of my youth.  They claim this is a "new shape" but it's not.  It's the original shape and it's the best thing ever.

10.  I have recently starting watching the American version of The Office.  I've been a fairly loyal fan of the British version for a long time....but the previews of the American version always seem to make me laugh and I adore Steve Carrell so I started Tivo-ing the show.  Holy Good God, that show is friggin' hilarious!  It makes me quake with laughter.  I originally thought that this show was nothing more than a rip-off of the original but being that Ricky Gervais (the main character on the BBC version) produces the American version, I guess it's not as much of a rip-off as I previously believed.  Regardless, it's damn funny and I can't get enough of it.

So, there you have it.  Ten happy things.  I encourage you to do this when you're feeling a bit glum.  It really is a mood lifter.