whiskers on kittens

Because I feel like I spend too much time complaining, I decided to make a list of the simple pleasures in my life. Some are weird. I know there are other strange things that I derive an odd satisfaction from, but here are 50.

1. Using all of the ink in a pen. I hate having billions of pens. If I could, I would carry one with me at all times, use it until every drop of ink was gone and then starting a new pen.

2. Simple items with beautiful product packaging. Like staples or paperclips or something small in a really well designed package.

3. The shape and color red wine leaves as a stain on white fabric.

4. The smell of fresh tires. And cheap shoes, like payless shoes.

5. Rearranging my bookshelf. It is always disorderly because I constantly reference books and never put them back.

6. Peeling glue from under my nails.

7. Fresh shaved legs and flannel pajamas

8. Cardboard rolls. I wish I had something to do with them. Especially the really long ones from wrapping paper. They’re just cool. There has to be some sort of amazing craft out there waiting for me.

9. A sweater that fits perfectly.

10. The little bit of gas that comes out of a freshly opened soda bottle.

11. The sound Toast Titanium makes when it finishes burning a disc.

12. Chocolate covered strawberries

13. Dipping my grilled cheese in ketchup

14. Grass between my toes

15. Not wearing shoes…and wearing crazy patterned socks

16. Getting an email from someone other than apple or school or other non-human entities.

17. Making weird noises when I’m tired for no reason

18. The American sign language sign for “overhead projector”

19. Finding sand in my bag a week or so after getting back from the beach

20. The very bottom of the sugar cone in a Drumstick Ice-cream.

21. Empty French fries (the ones that are a bit darker and have no actual soft potato in them, they’re just hollow and crunchy)

22. Green salt and vinegar chips

23. Stuck together gummy bears

24. Frozen Gatorade rain

25. Eating pizza on a beach

26. The smell of a blown-out match or fireworks

27. Smelling like outside, and also the smell my skin gets after being in the sun for a few hours

28. Finding money in strange places. I used to hide five-dollar bills from myself, knowing I would find them later.

29. Scarf season, hoodie season, and fall altogether.

30. Realizing that it is fall on the way home from somewhere. That brisk feeling in the air and the changed leaves.

31. Going to work and finding out I wasn’t scheduled

32. Peeling the skin off of grapes before I eat them

33. Pulp in my juice

34. Things that fall out of books.

35. Random things that want to be re-painted or covered in something. Like my little glass elephant that wants to be covered in fortunes from fortune cookies, but I don’t eat enough Chinese food to do it lately. All in good time.

36. Burping really big, satisfying burps. File “the hiccups” under “things I hate” by the by, I have a really bad case of those painful hiccups as I type. I have had them for an hour. Highly unpleasant.

37. Letting my shower water get so hot it burns.

38. Baltimore at dusk

39. The target dollar bin

40. The smell and texture of acrylic paint

41. The word “hoodia”

42. “We Tigers” “Woop, Woop Woop”

43. Books. Period.

44. Blowing my nose and actually getting stuff to come out, and the subsequent renewed ability to breathe.

45. Kaluah. Especially the Laurie and Troy homemade version of it.

46. Putting my hand into a really big bag of M&M’s. Also the colors they make when they melt in my hand.

47. Drawing pictures on my fingers with pen and then transferring the image to paper by pressing my finger down really hard.

48. Elephants. Their shape is awesome. I have three carved from oyster shells. ☺

49. Melted chocolate ice cream. I would only eat chocolate ice cream if it was melted when I worked at Friendly’s. Something about it being melted makes it have more of a taste. I swear.

50. Being able to prove that I was right to someone who insisted that I was wrong. especially when someone was rude about it, or tried to make me sound dumb.