Things that are currently making me happy

[misslynx]

Many things are making me happy today, even though I still have lots of work to do and stresses to deal with and what not. Here are some of them:

1. The side streets in my new location being so green, full of big trees and lush gardens, so that even though my apartment itself is right on the corner of a busy street and has no balcony or garden space itself, I do not suffer any lack of "green time" -- every walk with Kiska is restorative to me. (Interesting side note: there's actually scientific evidence that exposure to nature helps reduce ADD symptoms).
   
   
2. In particular, the fact that lilacs are currently in bloom.
   
   
3. Likewise, having two decent-sized parks very close to me, one a mere two blocks northeast, and another, about four times bigger, five or six blocks south. Also, a huge ravine about ten blocks north and another (part of the same riverbed) eight blocks east or so.
   
   
4. And the Wychwood Farmer's Market, just a couple of blocks east -- even though I missed the opening day of it last Saturday due to DrupalCamp Toronto and will be missing the next one due to the Radical Business Intensive. But both those events are happy-making in their own way.
   
   
5. And the fact that the Green Art Barns will be opening later this year, just a few blocks southeast.
   
   
6. Seriously, living here is the next best thing to living in the country -- but on a street with lots of cool little stores and restaurants and a 24-hour public transit line, a 5-10 minute ride from the subway. Best of both worlds.
   
   
7. Visits with Aidan -- I was there yesterday and will be again on Wednesday. I still miss being able to see him every day, but things could be a lot worse.
   
   In particular, yesterday I found myself enjoying the way that he can managed to be insanely cute even when doing something really annoying. He had spilled water all over his shirt -- for some reason he absolutely loves drinking water from a glass, but hasn't quite got the process under control yet, so there's usually a lot of spillage. So I was trying to change his shirt afterwards, and got the old one off with no problem -- he's always happy to get clothes off him, but putting the new one on turned out to be, er, challenging. He may not have good water-glass control yet, but he has excellent reflexes and is incredibly wiggly, and can get both his arms in under the shirt and push it up off his head in much less time than it takes me to pull it down over his head, all while simultaneously twisting and wiggling in about 17 directions at once.
   
   I think it took me about ten minutes to get that shirt onto him, but he was so cute in the way he fought it off that I was laughing the whole time and it all felt kind of like a game.
   
   
8. I am also happy that my eating habits have changed enough since the last point when I lived on my own that my fridge is half full of fresh vegetables, because the vegetable drawer is nowhere near big enough to fit them all.
   
   
9. And finally, the song listed in the music field of this post is massively happy-making. I was all prepared to hate the new version of Nightwish after all the drama with them publicly firing their lead singer, but when I first heard "The Poet and the Pendulum"... Oh Gods! *faints*
   
   It's a 14-minute epic that's divided into several parts so that it's like a number of songs blended together, or maybe the separate movements of a symphony, given the level of classical influence. In particular, there's a part about a minute and a half in where the very slow and soft intro shifts into this breathtakingly intense sort of -- I don't know what to call it -- neoclassical explosion that's equal parts metal aggression and symphonic precision, with strings and guitars and what not blended perfectly -- words don't really seem to quite be able to do it justice. All I know is that no matter how many times I hear that song, that part always makes me have to stop whatever I'm doing, close my eyes, and just listen...
   
   It's the musical equivalent of a really earthshaking orgasm. I kid you not. Listening to it actually tends to leave me flushed and hyperventilating, with my pulse racing... It's not the only piece of music that's ever hit me that way, but there are very few, and fewer still where the recorded version will do it -- usually that sort of reaction is more likely to happen with live music. If you haven't heard that song, and you have any liking at all for strange fusions of classical music and rock, you really, really need to. Preferably on good speakers, with the volume turned up really high.

And now that I have shared at least a representative sampling of the happy that is today, I should really get back to work. Because actually getting some long-overdue projects finished and being able to invoice for them would be another kind of happy, one which I am very much looking forward to.