Favorite Things

Sing it with me now!
Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things

Okay....maybe not.

Yes, yes yezzzzz I’m trying to perk up after a down few days and have run smack dab into the side of my personality that makes Polly Anna, Anne of Green Gables and Rebecca of, yes, Sunnybrook Farm look like devotees of Nietzsche.

Sigh -- I’ll just never be all mysterious, deeply brooding and roiling with dark creative energies like Dorothy Parker or Emily Dickinson.

OK, how’s ‘bout I begin instead with

Breathe deep the gathering gloom
Watch lights fade from every room
Bedsitter people look back and lament
Another day's useless energy spent

No? Ah well. These are some of the things that can always bring me back from Agitation Island, The Canyons of Crankiness and the vast, treeless Desolation Desert.

Stopping at Louis after work where, honest to god, the entire bar waves hello when we walk in -- yeah, a la Cheers. YOU try frowning after that!

Coming home to my Amazing Bob, getting a big ass hug and kiss and maybe even an oatmeal, butterscotch, spinach cookie (yeah, I said spinach -- please, I have a thing for vegetation -- OK?) fresh from the oven.

Coco, who may occasionally neglect her morning alarm clock duties, will ALWAYS greet me at the door at the end of a hard day in the pixel mines. Oh sure, she wants dinner but she’s willing to wait until I’m done skritching under her chin, patting her head and exclaiming over her obvious kittenish perfection first. She’s selfless like that, you know.

If it’s low tide, a nice post work beach walk puts me right again. High tide? I can sit on the the seawall steps, soaking my hot tired tootsies in the fab cool surf. (christ, I sound like a personal ad 'likes long walks on the beach at sunset.' I'm a goddamned cliché I tell ya!)

Studio action! Oh, you betcha! I just primed a new 6‘X2.5’ canvas and it is just tingling with anticipation, waiting for me to hit it with some vibrant base coat color. Possibly that’s me and not the canvas who’s all bristly, tingly and anticipationy. I’ll have to check on that.

Exercise -- not a fav thing exactly but a good turn on the treadmill or the elliptical will sure as hell burn off some of my bummed out yet manic energy. For that matter, if I’m so down that I don’t have even the finest, most microscopic shred of energy, a solid, fast walk will bring me back to functioning levels again. Funny how that inertia shit works.

And Chianti. Favorite things -- duh.

OK -- tide’s out, sun’s down -- time to go breathe in some salt air versus that gathering gloom crap.