Simple joys of the past year

As anyone who has ever stumbled across me in any of my Internet incarnations would know, I really, really like to talk about myself. And since I have spent much of the last year being pretty sad, this means I've been making 144 posts in my Blogger and god-knows-how-many in my late Xanga about how lonely and ugly and stupid I am. I mean, this is not just a case of the Mondays. This is serious, coming-of-age-movie histronics: curling up in a ball and crying with the curtains drawn, crying in the shower before work, gazing vacantly into the middle ground while checking out 198 cans of Fancy Feast for the Saturday Hoarders, and so on. So, now, the ass-end of December, might be the time to talk about those times I've actually felt good, and why.

And now, like something out of Family Circle magazine, I present five simple joys of 2005:

1. Meat Loaf.

Irony is a big thing with kids these days, and I bet most anyone who tells you they really like Meat Loaf is just saying that because they saw him on VH1 and laughed a little. When I tell you I spent $3 on "Bat Out of Hell" on casette and listened to it in my Jetta for 2 hours a day for more than a month -- despite the fact that I had a working iPod with hundreds of suitably indie albums on it tucked inside my thrift store purse -- I am not playing.

Meat Loaf made me happy on days when hot baths, long chats, and Lexapro did nothing. "I would do anything for love -- but I won't do that" -- truer words have never been belted over strains of bombastic Wagnerian rock.

2. Boogers.

It took a few conversations in CAPITAL LETTERS to cement it, but now I am positive that booger removal is soul-cleansing as well. Once I was driving home, inspecting my nose thoughtfully to some "Day to Day" on the radio, when I felt the tip of my index finger stick to something substantial. I gave it a little pull and out comes this long, gooey string of booger. I can feel it coming from inside my nasal cavity -- maybe even from inside my brain. As I balled it up between my fingers, visually inspected its color and consistency and wiped it beneath the driver's seat for safekeeping, I paused for a moment to reflect on how good that felt. It was satisying in ways that sex or Pulitzers never could be.

I also really like the fully formed, round boogers that hide out inside. You need only to poke your finger in and you come out with a prize! What other area of life has such a high work-to-reward ratio? Nothing but boogers, baby.

3. That time I decided to go to some guy I met once's party and ended up staying for like, five hours.

I don't know what it is about me, but I don't get invited to many parties. So when this guy I've hung out with on maybe two occasions (once when we put a note beneath an angel food cake, set it ablaze and put it out to Lake Erie, and once when we went to Books-A-Million) mentions in an IM that someone he works with is having a party at his house, which is somewhere near Hurd Street, but he's not sure which house, or whether he even really feels like going, but he doesn't really have a ride anyway, but maybe he should go because they are pretty good friends sort of and he said he might -- I just jump at the opportunity to maybe kick up my heels and make this guy I met once when I filled in at his branch of the franchise for which I used to work's birthday a little bit brighter.

Anyway, yeah, the two drinks I had were delish, the water was great, the drunk twenty-somethings (do people use that phrase anymore?) screaming about "Glass Joe" from an Mike Tysons' Punchout and repeatedly recommeding we watch "Menace II Society" were exteremely memorable. Besides the guy who IMd me, I was the only sober person. That night I realized that I don't hate drunk people. I just thought I hated drunk people because I was really hating the same people I would hate anyway, except more, because they were louder. These drunks were class acts, except for Joey, who passed out in the bathroom and missed his mother's baptism the next morning.

4. Ryan

Ryan told me to add him to this list. We are going to have an au gratin potatoes eating contest. He is good at Photoshop and has a stupid hat.

5. Star Trek

I'm serious. TNG is my favorite series, but I've only ever seen TOS movies and a few episodes of DS9. The more I watch it, the easier it is to talk to my Internet friends. It's ... deep, I promise. IM me if you really want to hear me talk about it; I have this feeling that you don't, really. Just rest assured that the day I skipped five classes and called off work because I really wanted to watch the three episodes that were on Spike TV was one of the best days I've had all year. There are four lights!