Joy Lists

About 4+ years ago, I was bored at work one day, and I sent out emails requesting that people take a pause in their daily hecticness and make up a list of things that bring them joy. I then requested that they email the list back to me so that we could let the lists keep accumulating chain-letter-style and spread them around friends, as a way to brighten up each others' days just the tiniest bit and remind each other that the world doesn't always suck ass. I'd kind of forgotten about the lists until today, despite the fact that I've kept them tucked safely away.

So I started reading them this afternoon, just for the hell of it. What surprised me most, looking back at them, was how long everybody's list are, as though they started off just trying to humor me by responding but then it just started pouring out of them like a leaky sink that they just couldn't plug up.

Re-reading them put a big fucking gushy smile on my face... because they are quirky and cute and true and sincere and lovely, every damn one of them. And because they've reminded me of what I love(d) about the people who used to be in my life but have slipped through the cracks, the people who continue to scamper in and out of it, and the people who JUST WON'T F-ING LEAVE (and that's why I love them).

So I thought I'd share some of my favorites with you all. I hope that they make you smile as well.

{{And strangely (and I'm not sure why, as I saved all of them) some of you are conspicuously missing lists, presumably because I never got one from you or some sorta other random mishap (Ms. Dorklepork, for example), so if you feel inspired and want to send me your own, feel free and I'll add them on.}}

Christian

• Hoodies


• Throwing pots

Lisee

• The look of shitty, distressed buildings and cities in general


• Firescapes


• My constant compulsive habit to make everything not lonely, ie if there is just one slab of residual food left on a plate, I have to cut it into to pieces so its not "lonely"


• When everything looks green after a tremendous thunderstorm. Or the look of the aftermath of rain on the street at night when its accented by the streetlights


• The feeling of the concealed cold sand when you dig real far down into it, especially when they top layers are boiling from the sun

Allison

• Being called a feminist


• Warm towels out of the dryer


• Watching America's Funniest Videos stoned


• Roman History

Kristen

• Baby ducks when they are yellow and fuzzy and say,"Cheep, cheep"


• My mother's gentle voice


• Big fat mugs


• God

Holly

• Laughing at myself every time I say "that's fortitude" whenever I see a person running on a snowy sidewalk in the middle of winter when it is like 8 million degrees below zero


• The time I was in Union Station in St. Louis, feeling Thomas Wolfe's aura even after 80 years


• The times I drove home from concerts at 2 am, shirtless and bra-less


• Eating ketchup the morning of a hangover


• Women who aren't afraid to be physically strong


• Tim Curry--all vamped out

Adam

• girls


• being wrapped up in a blanket


• peanut butter


• trying your utmost to win, and then doing so.

Patrick

• 50's love songs


• Beating my wife at Scrabble


• Dancing to anything when nobody is looking


• Smelling the hair of someone I'm close to


• Televangelist women with huge pink hair


• The part in the 'Humpty Dance' where he makes the synth sounds with his voice.

Pavel

• Telling a joke for the 12th time and demanding that it is funnier with each telling even though it is not.


• A shot of good strong moonshine chased with a pickled tomato.


• Being told I look like a longshoreman.


• Using the word "transmogrify" as often as possible. (Hey buddy, can you spare some transmogrification?)


• Bird.

Marla

• Having my good friend give me spitting lessons after an evening of drinking


• Really hot baths on really cold days


• The sound of my youngest niece squealing when I pretend like I'm going to stuff her into the oven

Eric

• Someone adopting the runt of the litter


• Those three seconds in the middle of the night when things seem to make sense.


• Someone falling asleep on your lap.


• Thumbing through a book from the 18th century and thinking about how many hands it has passed through.

Linda

• Friday afternoons, when anything seems possible.


• The back of the neck of a man with short hair.


• Switzerland, just because.


• Tom Brokaw (don't ask).

Mike

• Seeing the Space Needle from far away on your way to Cedar Point


• Getting water in your ears on a hot summer day.


• Getting that damn water out of your ear on a hot summer day.


• Dancing while drunk

Jef

• Monkeys.


• Sex with love.


• When bad things happen to bad people.


• Staying in hotels & drinking in hotel lounges.

Maura

• my father's pot belly.


• lyndsey lantz art.


• doing anything naked.


• childhood pictures of the people we've known only as adults.


• red wine.


• a freshly showered body.


• having best friends live down the hall, or down the street, or a floor above you. (in the same state is good too.)


• mixed tapes, the making and receiving.


• reading lips under water.

Lesle

• running my fingers along the walls as i walk


• when streetlights go out just as you pass by them


• Roald Dahl books


• people who sit alone in restaurants


• wrestling with friends when you both end up accidentally hurting each other


• when people’s glasses get bent


• when you are walking straight towards someone and you go to walk around them and they move to the side that you move to and then you move to the other side just as they do then you both smile and stumble around each other


• sleeping naked with only socks on

Me

• Lying naked in bed on a hot summer night where just the lightest breeze is tiptoeing through the window and across your skin;


• Listening to old men whistle tunes;


• The smell of basements;


• Sharing a bed with friends;


• When songs suddenly become a soundtrack for a moment;


• Corn teeth;


• Chicken toeing;


• College tech prep commercial misspellings ("cirriculum");


• The mother and daughter arguing with each other in sign language at a red light;


• Crushes;


• Guys' hands;


• Reading in the tub;


• Flannel sheets on freshly-shaved legs;


• The overly-affectionateness of drunk people;


• The mysterious heart that someone drew in the snow on my car one morning;


• Finally peeing when you've been holding it in forever;


• How my brother occasionally gets the urge to pick me up and throw me over his shoulder despite my protests;


• Sucking something loud and metal up into the vacuum cleaner;


• birdie hair


• beating boys at pool,


• being caught off-guard with a kiss


• remembering how it felt to wiggle a loose tooth,


• how my cat Franny will only be lovey and affectionate and come up close to my face when I'm burrowed down beneath covers and nothing except my head is showing, and how any other time, all I have to do is stare at her for too long, and she gets scared and runs away,


• when my cat Zooey crawls up as high on my chest as possible to sleep so that she can cuddle up as close to my face as she can possibly get,


• rereading emails or letters you'd long forgotten about and having it make you feel warm and fuzzy inside.

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