Confessions of a Chronic Dork

Singing along to: Death Cab for Cutie, I Will Follow You Into the Dark

I love many things.

I love notebooks filled with beautiful paper I couldn't possibly mar with writing, and I love cheap spiral-bound notebooks with doodles in the margins, scribbled quotations, and snippets of stories I will never finish writing.

I love art, all art, even art I hate, even art I don't understand, because it's there and it's useless, but we all keep making it anyway. I love strolling by myself through hushed museums. I love picking out postcard souvenirs in museum gift shops and taping them above my desk when I get home.

I love the way my paints smell and I love the feeling of brush plus paint plus canvas. I love cadmium red, Mars black, and cobalt blue. I love my favorite paintbrush, the super-cheap 1-inch wide flat that came with a set of brushes I got in my first art class in high school. (All the paint has chipped off its wooden handle, and only duct tape and sheer force of will are holding the handle and the metal ferrule together, but I will continue to paint with that brush until it falls apart in my hands.) I love opening my desk drawer and seeing neatly stacked sketchbooks, my favorite size, 8.5x5", just right for thumbnail sketches, brainstorms, doodles, and traveling. I love walking away from an art project with smudges on my face or paint on my jeans or fingers stained with ink, but an impeccably neat finished piece on the table behind me.

I love flannel sheets and winter nights and falling asleep in a heavy cocoon of blankets, long johns, and thick socks. I love waking up on cold mornings and realizing I don't have to get out of bed yet. I love waking up on Saturdays in the summer with sunlight slanting through the windows and a full day of nothing stretching out in front of me. I love the first day of spring, which for me is the first day I can go outside bare-legged and in flip-flops. I love cherry blossoms, forsythia, and crocuses. I love walking through crispy autumn leaves, and I love bare branches silhouetted against the sky.

I love silly things: piggy banks, bad puns, vintage dishes, owls, stale popcorn, the small rubber monster that sits on my desk and scowls at visitors. I love red shoes, striped rainboots, mary janes, peeptoes, and patent leather pumps. I love the clearance rack. I love sesame chicken, pesto, chocolate milk, hummus on my turkey sandwiches, chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, and coconut cream pie.

I love my bookshelves, perfectly organized and packed tightly with books I have read, am reading, will read, won't read. I love bookstores, especially used book stores. I love the way old books smell, and I love picking up a favorite book, opening to my favorite passage, and starting the story there.

I love sarcasm, dark humor, cynicism, and irreverence. I love fresh flowers and sleeping with the windows open. I love making lists and checking them thrice. I love fashion magazines, design blogs, and newspaper advice columns. I love black-and-white photography and very old maps. I love driving on the interstate. I love singing in the car with the windows rolled down.

On days like this, sunny and 75, I love everything.

Inspired by Jamie who was inspired by She Likes Purple, who says: "I challenge you to make your own list. The only catch? You can’t include a single person you know on your list. No “I love the way my husband laughs” or “I love hearing my little girl call for me.” It’ll be tough, I know. But this particular little exercise is about stripping away everyone who defines you and figuring out what you (not his partner; not their mother/daughter/sister/friend) love."

Labels: lists