Sixty Things

Sixty things that are simply unpleasant:

cheese; peanut butter; buses;
people who smell of cigarettes and rain at the same time;
liars and the bad mannered; rejection - or rather, the feeling in your stomach like something in there is crawling;
being too scared to watch a horror film alone; throwing up;
a tissue in the washing machine; waking in the middle of the night and not knowing why;
when friends live too far away; toast that keeps burning;
fast food outlets' pathetic french fries - undeserving of the glorious word 'chip';
waking up to the close-up technicolour starfish of a cat's arsehole;
being unable to say no;
realising unsavoury things about yourself; candles - where does the wax go?
feeling jealous; overstewed tea or instant cappucino;
crying in shop changing rooms

(back when I was once very fat, it took me weeks to buy a swimming costume. I had to try on one per day, with an 8 second mirror flash, followed by slumping on the floor, crying, and drawing the costume. Awful, to come out of changing rooms with red eyes);

queueing for nightclubs or a taxi; long hairs in the bath; melitzanasalata

(once when I was living in a Greek nudist colony, rats in the melitzanasalata made me puke everywhere on the beach. What could I do? I covered it up with sand. Years of guilt);

pretending not to notice that your friends in a couple are arguing;
used matches; sports/leisure wear; playing draughts;
wishing I really really hadn't slept with someone;
limescale in the kettle; the cold! feeling tired or paranoid in public;
fire alarms, car alarms, shop alarms, alarm clocks;
administrative tasks and bureacracy; forgetting your keys;
if people are too nervous to speak to you;
crisps; boring bad sex that lasts way too long;
being asked to be critical when you don't want to be; nightmares; your tea goes cold;
stubbing your toe or hitting your funny bone; Marmite; lumpy hard painful poohs; racism;
dentist's injections; aniseed; getting groped in public in every predominantly muslim country I've ever been to;
when hayfever makes your eyes water;
swimming in deep water when you can't see the bottom;
drizzle;
feeling impotent or powerless to change things;
bad handwriting; the smell of bins with old meat in them; having no money;
seeing little girls who've been over-sexualised - in make-up, thongs, and thigh-split skirts;
confusing instructions;
politicians; when someone I trust invites confidence, but I'm just too weary to take them up on it;
war-mongering, hypocritical, smug politicians;
trying to sleep when your feet are cold.

Sixty simple pleasures (read this first):

fried eggs;
the sudden zip of energy inside when you eat an orange while feeling run down;
torrid cloudscapes, whether it's raining or not;
kittens and cuddlicious lap-cats; railway stations; travelling a long way home and finding a big hearty stew ready for you;
the sound and impact when you dive from a height into cool water;
sleeping on a fluffy rug on the floor;
fresh coffee; driving; watching little kids drawing when they're too young to worry if they're any good at it yet;
my |genericjob| on a good day; chatting to friends over food;
variety;
St Paul's cathedral - the single best building in London, bar none (despite it's terrible cafe);
taking a few hours to draw someone from life, particularly if they get their kit off ... cough ... splutter ... I mean, if they don't initially seem attractive - spend a few hours drawing a face and it always begins to look beautiful; writing with a pencil or a fountain pen;
farting in a bookshop; the buzzy loud atmosphere of fairgrounds - even if you don't go on a ride;
finding where the Elephant House is at the zoo; the National Portrait Gallery basement;
sharing an umbrella with someone you rather fancy;
Bonfire Night, with Guy Fawkes, treacle toffee, baked potatoes in foil and fireworks;
when you smile at people in the mornings, and despite yourself, their smile infects you with cheeriness;
the smell of brand new books;
going downhill on a bike (with the brakes half on! I'm a chicken!);
leaving it as late into October as you possibly can before you start wearing winter woolly gear;
finding it in yourself to accept a compliment graciously;
The Embankment at half past ten in the evening; Autumn; skimming a great flat pebble in front of your dad;
sitting watching the action on the golf course from the quiet inactivity of the club house;
doing someone a simple favour;
pulling the car over into the Lane of Death - even temporarily - on a motorway;
walking for hours around central London on Christmas day

(it's always like a scene from Day of the Triffids - you'll see only yourself and three other poofs, all day);

gorgeous European countries - Copenhagen, Cologne, Prague, Hungarian fishing villages, the contrast between Swiss lakes, green Swiss valleys, Swiss glaciers and Swiss vineyards, the Portuguese coastline, Edinburgh winters;
spotting Orion's Belt or Venus, even through a smog ceiling;
jatb's extraordinary/traditional Christmas lunch (beans on toast! rah!);
Turkish food - the finest on earth;
writing a poem;
cups of tea (I seriously have a tea-drinking song);
live gigs - what a rush; the mild temperatures in central London, even in winter (childhood winters in Lancashire make you really value the warmth);
old forts, ruined castles, and ancient burial grounds (particularly if al fresco bonking is involved);
lying upside down on the sofa to answer the phone; the feeling in your neck and hands just before take-off or landing;
a morning lie-in, in a peaceful room with a fresh duvet;
getting off the train after a really long journey; snow;
modern classical music; watching a movie so good that you instantly want to watch it all again;
going out to a heath or a forest or a reservoir to look at the moon;
enthusiasm;
finding a novelist who's so talented that you can only read a bit at a time, for fear you'll run through all their works too early before you die (Orwell, Coetzee, Amis, Schlink, Nabokov, Highsmith for me);
dressing up; dressing down; icy cold water;
no noise in your house in the evening;
reading an Alan Moore or Jaime Hernandez comic for the first time; a hug.