10 Things that make me Happy

1. This print of a polaroid by the lovely Spaniard Urizen Freaza. I bought it from Etsy, a brilliant place to pick up art on the cheap.  Ilya absolutely hates it, but it makes me absurdly happy-- of course, as I'll be posting other works that I've bought, it will become clear that anything with additional wings makes me absurdly happy.

2.Did you know, that when you open a Breathe-Rite strip (ie those snore strips) in the dark, their adhesive makes blue crackly light? This has brought me the first real jolt of unexpected joy in a long time. Not to mention it cuts down on A Certain Famous Poet's less than lyrical night-time sound effects.

3. Scented candles. This has been a life-long obsession, but some weird hoarding instinct has always prevented me from actually BURNING them, until the last six months or so. I credit my friend Chrissy's lesson in ambiance-- which basically consisted of plonking a bunch of candle holders down and lighting a match. God bless her.

3.. Self-help books. These are less the "I'm Okay, You're Okay" sort (incidentally, my father's Most Life-Changing Book, which should come as no surprise to those who know him. Or me.), but rather, the "how-to-live-life" sort. For example, I just picked up (at no small cost) Colin Cowie Chic: A Guide to Life as it Should Be, a book in a faux-alligator cover, which presents such titillating tidbits as "Lighter colored cigars usually taste milder than darker ones, though there are exceptions." I find this kind of advice comes in rather handy at the most bizarre moments.

4. In general, I consider myself pretty much the opposite of vain. But I keep growing out my hair, which is higher-maintenance than the rest of me put together. Honest. In the time it takes to comb, wash, and condition my hair, I can shower, shave, eat breakfast, learn to paint in encaustic, and find the cure to eczema. Why don't I cut it? Cause it makes me happy. When I'm not combing it, or washing it. Or not washing it. Or bitching about it...

5. Organizing my clothes by color. Even if they're on the floor.

6. Shelfari.com  There is a longer post to come on all the reasons I love it so, but moving books from "Books I'm Reading" to "Books I've Read" once I've finished them is almost as satisfying as reading them in the first place.

7. Hershey's Dark Chocolate Brownie Mix, WITH walnuts, people. One of my prouder moments in becoming an adult is realizing that baked goods without nuts are like... like... Othello without Desdemona? Why is that coming to me now?

8. Whole classes devoted to reading one author. Although this can be a really exhausting proposition, it's always been the most profound and wonderful experience at the same time. I'm taking a whole class on Faulkner right now. I'd always meant to read Faulkner-- I love the Southern Gothic aesthetic, and two of my favorite authors are Flannery O'Conner and Eudora Welty, both Southerners writing around the same time Faulkner did. So it was Time. And it's been a really fantastic, if devastating, experience-- as Faulkner is a really fantastic, if devastating, writer. 

The last class I remember taking with such a focus was my "Plato" class in high school, with the crankiest professor on earth. He could pull his lower lip a full six inches away from his face-- it was horribly fascinating. He assigned a one-page summary of each of Plato's dialogues, and I turned each one in, written in 2 point font. He read them all with a magnifying glass, commented on every one, and gave me a Classics prize at the end of the semester. I still dislike Platonic philosophy, but at least I can talk about why. 

9. Mock orange in bloom. It's possibly the world's most perfect scent.

10. This blog's 12 day anniversary! It's small steps, people. Small steps.