Some Things That Make Me Marginally Happy

I should probably take these less for granted.

Starting a new notebook when you’ve just completed a previous one, even if it’s full of missives and doodles that if read by an unbiased source they might recommend you be reprehended to Arkham Asylum.

When anticipation is actually welcome. Like when you’re waiting for some edibles to kick in or it’s Christmas Eve or you know for sure you’re going to get laid once you and your girlfriend let the mussels and frites properly digest.

The time spent trying to choose a new TV show or movie to watch. So much possibility lies ahead, and there’s something Zen about spending as much time as it would take to watch one episode of a series trying to figure out that’s actually what you want to watch. (You almost have to get Zen about it or that shit will drive you out of your mind.)

The smell of a bookstore. Nothing compares or is even remotely similar. I do all my reading on my iPad’s Kindle app because I’m a monster and also because I have yet to lease an apartment large enough to accommodate the amount of “real” books I’d buy in a year, let alone the past decade. But I still go to bookstores, where I take pictures of titles I like and/or promptly add them to my Goodreads “Want to Read” shelf. And while there I contemplate planting copies of my own book on the shelves, just to see what if anything will happen.

Putting my belt on in the morning and being reassured that I’m still comfortably on the last loop.

Cooking my own little dinner even if it’s far from exquisite, well-planned or even including all of the allegedly pertinent ingredients. Some things just taste better if you put in even a very little amount of work to bring them to fruition.

Wearing the same pair of jeans for a week straight and occasionally finding some sort of unexpected treats in the pocket that you left there the day before and totally forgot about. Like one of those real good buttery mints you sometimes get at a classy Italian joint, for example.

Ordering copious amounts of shrimp toast with maybe some peel-and-eat shrimp and doing my Little Shrimp Toast Dance while I wait excitedly for it to arrive, throwing in some air guitar here and…