Friday List: Weird Loves

Oh look, another Friday and another list.  This has been a week of somewhat dragging frustrations so I decided to end things on a high note.

In every life, there are the things that make us happy that, yeah, everyone gets and it's easy to understand why we like them.  But in other cases, the things that make us happy are inexplicable and very subjective.  I wanted to talk about some of my strange little loves today.

THINGS THAT I LOVE FOR SOME WEIRD REASON

1. I love to see footprints in carpet.

I did some major cleaning on my room the other day. Okay, I've been in the house for three years, and I still haven't completely unpacked. I'm getting there, dammit! Anyway, I got more of the boxes off of my floor and once it was vacuumed, I walked over to check on something and left a footprint in the carpet.  I noticed this later and just grinned about it for like five minutes.

I have no idea why seeing footprints in carpet makes me so happy. My guess is that when I was really young, someone pointed it out to me and I latched onto the idea that it's neat.  I don't remember, but whenever I see them, I get that kind of gooshy, happy childlike feeling that you get when you think about stuff from your past. Well, you know, the good stuff. Not the suck. But yeah, it's that kind of happy, all innocence and rainbows.

2.  I love the way my roommate talks to animals.

By this, I do not mean the way he talks to them when they annoy him. I mean the way he talks to them the rest of the time. His voice takes on a certain gentleness that I find to be just beautiful.  It's very calming and soothing.

More than that, he speaks to the animal as if it is very special, very loved.  There is a lot of respect for the animal in his tone, the kind of way you speak to something or someone when you truly care.  It is a kind of individualized tone that shows the depth of how he views animals.  He doesn't just like a cat because it is a cat. He likes it because it is that specific cat, with its own specific personality.  It's a very beautiful thing to hear.

3. I love the feel of dishes right out of the dishwasher.

You know, like when they're still hot. Kind of like the dish version of clothes out of the dryer.  There is a certain level of hot to them that just feels very good to the touch. Not so much to hurt you, but just enough to make you quite aware of the heat.

Oddly, as good as it feels to hold one dish when it is this hot, it makes me even happier to hold like a stack of them.  And no, there is no "glad to be in the kitchen" bullshit to this. I just like the heat.

4. I like it in movies when people turn out to be secret androids.

Even though it is cheesy and often predictable, I weirdly love it when the quirky human in the group turns out to be an android. I think this might have to do with reading Asimov at a young age of how when I saw Bladerunner, I so, so wanted Harrison Ford to be a robot. It just made so much sense to me.

Maybe it's because with androids, you get all of the good parts of a human with none of the messy bits.  And the irony always is that it's the messy parts that the androids wish for, the fluid imperfection of being human. The point being, even as much as we strive for perfection, it's never satisfying.

And so there you have it. Four odd little loves of my life.  During the week, when you find yourself happy for no reason, think about the stuff around you. You'll soon discover strange little loves of your own.