Horses
Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
Fried chicken wings
Irish Setters (dogs)
Swimming in a lake
Winter
Being alone
Reading. I’m 66 and reread my favorite childhood books
Cookies
Potato chips
Shirley Temple songs
Movie: Singing in the Rain
Songs: Calypso by John Denver, Movin’ Right Along from the Muppet Movie, Sing, Sing, Sing by Benny Goodman
Food: Bisquik Strawberry Shortcake (served in a bowl with milk), pea pods directly off the vine, perfectly toasted marshmallows, raspberries directly off the cane, gently warmed by the sun
Experience: Standing on a sandy beach, ankle deep in cold saltwater
Same here. About a month ago, I got out to the coast on one of the first hot days. It was a weekday without work, and I had a nice, leisurely lunch at a favorite restaurant. But the best part, by far, was that first moment of feet in the water. One of few things in (my) life that’s even better than remembered. The sea breeze, the seagulls, the waves caressing the shore… I had to laugh out loud as I approached the water barefoot.
When I was 6, I used to beg my mom to get me a Venus Fly Trap. They used to sell them at Payless. Those always died. Now I have a great Venus Fly Trap collection - careful they bite. They love yellow-jackets in the late summer.
My childhood hack was to dip the chips ahoy cookie into the milk and leave it there until I felt the cookie softened between my index finger and thumb. Once that happens you know the cookie has absorbed maximum milky goodness.
If you ever head up to Colorado Springs, check if Jeremiah’s Carnivorous Plants is having an open house. I’m not huge into them, but it’s an amazing series of small greenhouses with an unbelievable variety.
Animals: reading about them, watching them live or on screens, dreaming about them. Extant, extinct, big, small, endoskeletons, exoskeletons, no skeletons at all. COROLLARY: Plants.
Chicken. So many great ways to prepare it, I love them all. And cakes. Apple cake, chocolate cake, Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte.
The Beatles, of course. And Joan Manuel Serrat and Leonard Cohen and heavy metal and Pink Floyd and Bowie. And then some.
Reading. Comics (though my taste in those has matured, or at least evolved).
Being lazy. Knowing better. Being right.
The window seat on the plane was always the best! I can stretch my legs on the aisle, but I forgo this with pleasure for a look down. But flying is no longer the pleasure it once was. Security, you know? And massification, and bad manners in and around airports, by staff and by the other passengers. A pity, really.
Did someone mention porn back there?
As a kid, I was the only one of the kids that liked liver, so we had it rarely because my siblings whined too much. When I moved to Chicago and got my own place, it’s the first meal I cooked for myself (abetted by the Joy of Cooking and a call to my grandmother).
I remember sitting outside on the sidewalk with my friend and we each had a bag of M&M candies that we’d let bake in the sun until the insides of the candy shell were melty chocolate.
I seek out the same pleasure still but I’ll microwave the bag for 15s or so.
As a kid, I could barely choke liver down. As an adult, I really like liver, as long as it has plenty of onion and garlic, and some veggies. I blame my mom’s cooking for my former opinion.