the meaning of life probably
things that are perfect to me (vol. 1)
happy valentine’s day! i love you, i love love, i love this day, i love making lists — kisses for all <3
the tin cup of leftover Mexican martini or cookies & cream milkshake supplied in addition to my Tajin-rimmed glass by godsent restaurants as a prize for my goodness and/or beauty
apricot jam or any variation of stone fruit (e.g., cherry, plum, peach) as a marmalade, jelly, preserve, confiture, what-have-you spread in prolific dollops across a deeply-toasted wheat slice or just gobbled by the teeny spoonful by a mouse-pretender (me)
googling “[insert adjective] synonym”
sports on the tv at a dim volume amid the lingering warm perfume of dinner at home — the ESPN theme sounds (it’s thursday night! yargh!) and i’m twelve again; my dad is reclined at his usual cushion on the couch and life is simply lovely
coffee shops comfortably cluttered with plush armchairs and velvety loveseats, large, functional tables and battered wooden chairs, mismatched mugs and an air of fevered writing and intent reading that stay open until midnight to serve our most night-owl of needs (if u know of one in nyc, my dms are wide open, please)
playing with friends in a way that is consecutive play and not a thirty-minute coffee catch-up that ends with the party parting ways at the door to make our next appointment (here is an example: meeting at Michael’s to purchase a Disney princess coloring book and then walking home together to color said coloring book with Crayola markers while Harry, Ron, and Hermione play wizard’s chess in the background)
a good mascara day (!!!)
the giddiness akin to a high that hits on a Friday afternoon at 3pm — work is done and there is nothing ahead but a three-drink dinner, hours of girly-swirly nonsense, and the rest of the sunny weekend draped forth like a great sheet of buttery silk
bundling up, like oh so warm, such that my neck resembles a chimney stack out from which my hair poofs like a muffin top
the 110 seconds of layer-shedding under the warm gleam of neighborhood trattoria candlelight during which the server patiently circles our mitten stacks and freshly enrobed chairs to deliver us their opening statement and flopping menus
stopping at intersections to take pictures of the moon as it hangs on strings so slim and wan or full like a gobstopper in the sky (i love the moon so much)
the blissful ritual performed each morning in which I type “skyscanner.com” into an incognito browser and select NYC to Everywhere, one-way for any month of the year
sentences that are so perfect my heart stops entirely and i revel for a millisecond in the simple genius of the mind and the beauty of language molded into poetry (e.g., Forster’s “she could not modulate out of the key of self-abasement in which she had started” or Woolf’s “she was like a fox, or an olive tree; ransack the language as he might, words failed him”)
the sound of cold from outside the windowpane that greets my waking likeness in my cozy wozy bed at the turn of the seasons (science says noises are sharper in denser, cold air so yes, cold does have a sound! i call her Crisp Traffic)
attending an Impressionism tour at the MET on a special bluebird day
making sure everyone knows i have a little sister and that i think she’s super cool now that we’re friends over siblings even though i don’t believe that she’s twenty years old because i am literally twenty years old and also she just ran a sub-two-hour half-marathon like that is soo cool
realizing my parents are their own people like me and were once twenty-three like me; watching my parents experience things for the first time; my parents, in general
keeping promises i make to myself
ending the list here for no good reason at all. boundless oodles of adoration, like boundless. be so kind, there are many little ways to love life. good night, dear void, love karen.
