They Call Me Pollyanna.

I was going to post this last week, but was loathe to stopper the flow of hilarious bile from the comments section. Also, truth be told, I was having a difficult time posting a list of things I adore when so many bloggers were getting dreadful news, or deciding to stop writing altogether. But if I were going to add items to my list of things I dislike, asymmetry would be one of them (along with any performance that involves audience participation, hard-boiled eggs, and grape popsicles) so here you are:

50 THINGS OF WHICH I AM FOND:

1) Cheese—I adore Taleggio. And blue cheese of any sort. Or–goat cheese flavored with honey. Also Manchego, or sharp white cheddar, or, I know! A nice triple crème like Pierre St. Robert! And don’t forget Parmesan.
2) Cardboard cummerbunds that prevent one’s fingers from being scalded by paper coffee cups
3) Lip balm, or rather lip balm that doesn’t fuck around. My lips laugh at Chapstick. The laugh and laugh, and then they crack right open. Some examples of acceptable lip balm include Philosophy Kiss Me, Smith’s Rosebud Salve, and Kiehls Lip Balm #1.
4) Sex
5) Ativan
6) The subjunctive—practically a whole tense devoted to “if.” It is the wistful tense. It is my favorite tense, and yet it is shunned. LONG LIVE THE SUBJUNCTIVE!
7) Lamb Korma from India Chef Happy Palace
8) The comma
9) Goats—I plan to have one as a pet some day, and name it Schneehopli, and it will eat all of my extra tin cans.
10) Television (particularly Gilmore Girls and The West Wing)
11) Coconut: some of its most inspired uses include Godiva dark chocolates filled with coconut cream, Thai coconut soup, and the Pina Colada.
12) Cinnamon
13) The feature that allows me to moderate comments on this blog and put certain phrases (like “BUY XANAX NOW CHEAP” or “HOT PORN LADY!!!”) on a watch list
14) Toilet paper–such as the lovely Charmin–that does not scrape mercilessly at my nethers
15) Dancing in my kitchen until I am panting and noodle-legged—if there is a more effective mood adjuster, I have yet to find it.
16) Cooking anything, but particularly my spaghetti carbonara, especially when combined with #15 and a cocktail
17) Target
18) When I have been up all night, perhaps worrying, and the sun starts to come up, and everything seems better, and I fall asleep in my bedroom with the window open and birds outside…
19) Cats, particularly this one
20) My books, to whom I plan to dedicate my first book–because without them none of this would have been possible.
21) A nice cup of tea (my new favorite? Stash Chai Spice.)
22) A hot bath, with bubbles, preferably from this
23) People who correctly use the words “fewer” and “less”
24) Taking pregnancy tests
25) Typing when I have just had a manicure
26) Netflix
27) The Internet—and its index, Google
28) Apple computers
29) Looking at water that goes all the way to the horizon
30) Looking at flat land that goes all the way to the horizon
31) Rock beaches on the North Shore
32) Photographs
33) March and October
34) Mose Allison
35) Tuna Melts
36) Saffron, particularly in lobster ravioli with saffron cream sauce from Café Centocette in New York
37) The smell of Gardenias
38) Ginger ale
39) Reading Rex Stout mysteries when ill
40) My whip
41) Trains
42) Room service
43) Bourbon, especially in a Manhattan, which I am no longer allowed to have thanks to my hateful migraines—A Dirty Martini is the new Manhattan.
44) The first person point of view
45) White wine that tastes like butter
46) Sea salt—on everything
47) My eyes, which are blue, quite large, and my best feature
48) Peonies
49) The Nearly
50) My dear readers, sweet as sticky rice, delightful as bacon