Wishlist

So, I have this mental wishlist running through my brain--laptop, InDesign, Istanbul--pretty insistently. And of course the longing and coveting is doing nothing for my quality of life. So to mediate the effects of discontent, a list of things I have:

a) a ridiculously cool and well dressed and funny and smart and supportive family. Including nieces and nephews who consistently and delightfully crack me up ("Actually, my dad usually chases me before I go to bed"), a gourmand of a mother, and siblings that magically know when to call or what to have ready to eat or what I'm thinking.

b) amazing friends. Friends I brag about and travel with and who make me laugh and laugh and laugh.

c) the clumsy but good-natured tail end of winter. I have historically been much more antagonistic toward March, but am convinced lately that she's just a little harried and air-headed and forgets occasionally to, like, do her hair or however is best to metaphorically represent late-March snow flurries.

d) a functioning and spunky little car.

e) an oasis of a bedroom in a house I love walking up to. Tall and clean open space and books and a comfy bed.

f) God. Doesn't put up with my game-playing. Loves me insistently.

g) Books. In response to Rachel's request: artists satisfy, capriciously or no, man's urge for immortality because they let us live as many lives as we have time books to read. Because the artist functions as a guide to our creation of worlds numbered, again, only by our time restraints. Because when we read about Odysseus (or Joyce, Lenin, and Tzara) we are in the company of immortals, and we do stand enriched.

h) I work with amazing people (again smart, again hilarious, and breath-takingly supportive).

i) Sometimes my students are geniuses.

j) I have plans! I'm putting together my life in preparation for next year and I'm really excited to see where and how it goes.

k) the pot of soup in my fridge (my powers undiminished by disuse: chicken, bacon, parsnip, potato, sweet potato, carrot, zuchini, rainbow chard, black bean. Hardy and delicious.)

l) um, Google Reader? I suddenly have hundreds of beautiful things at my fingertips. Amy Scott, I don't know you well, but your internet skills have changed my life.

I could go on. I know. Good start. Thanks you all anyway.