check things off.

someone started a thread today asking me to tick off a list of things i love. which is one of those questions that can be super annoying, just for the intrinsically odd pairing of it: Love is a tender, vital matter that seems to cry out for over-wraughtness and deliberation; whereas a list is something reflexive and rote. but i wrote down my answer. and what's interesting is how the answers you give speak to your mind's frame right then, in the moment, but also to the leisurely, considerate place you would like your mind to be. for instance, i started out my Things I Love list with

- harlequin romance
- motorcycle boots
- erect nipples

then looked at what i had just written and realized i could save space by replacing those 3 with

- my own terribly outmoded sense of narcissism disguised as a kitschy/hipster sort of thing

or, i could keep the originals and supplement them with

- modest mouse
- white belts
- modest mouse groupies wearing white belts.

in an effort to cast myself in a less stark, shadowless light -- ie, to not be overwhelmed by self-loathing before lunch -- i re-made my list according to sub-categories. a sampling:

i can't smell anymore; some smells whose memories i love most are
- the smell of the woods after the rain stops
- the way a girl smells right at the nape of her neck
- gasoline

some foods i would consider doing the soul-selling thing before giving up are
- artichoke dip
- brie
- triscuits

i like girls. there's one who i love, and it's all new, and terribly fresh, and not terribly sensible, and when i think about Things I Love and Girls, just the thinking is a weird tingly sort of thing---feels like i'm remembering a fantasy that had never fully formed. some things i love are
- the sensation of kissing lips that are unexpectedly soft. always leaves me dazed
- that moment--sometimes postcoitally blissful, but also sometimes when you're 20min late for coffee and feeling crunchy and stressed. and then you get there and hug, and you remember to breathe, and then your eyes meet; and as she holds your gaze it dawns on you that she's letting you see her soul
- when quick, there's-no-time-to-change-outfits sex turns into messy, juice-all-over-everything sex--there's something in that moment, a fuck-all abandonment of propriety that is truly connective and it's rare and senseless and i love it.