100 things that make me happy: a terribly unorganised list
Since everyone seems to be doing this, and it's a fantastic meme.
1. Books
2. Tea
3. Starry skies
4. Seeing the Milky Way curl across the sky, and Andromeda as a dim smudge just off to the side.
5. Helsinki, despite its cold and dark and snow and shitty public transport.
6. London
7. Oxford
8. Cambridge
9. Little museums with next to no other visitors
10. Sunsets
11. Driving through the night
12. Staying up stupidly late because you're having too much fun to go home
13. City lights
14. My parents
15. My friends
16. Having friends in several corners of the world
17. Getting mail
18. Sending mail
19. Christmas: just the general feeling of goodwill, gingerbread, glögi, the lights
20. The history of science
21. Bizarre, counterintuitive scientific theories
22. My flat
23. Being alone
24. Being around people I like
25. Trains
26. Airports once you're through security
27. Planes and flying, especially at night over cities
28. Getting a proper night's sleep
29. Comedy
30. Laughing
31. People laughing at my jokes
32. Feeling clever
33. Solving maths and physics problems.
34. The fantastic rush you get when you realise you know how to solve a problem, but don't know what the solution is yet.
35. Learning
36. Professors who get distracted from the topic at hand by something they're excited about
37. Professors who fit so neatly into the absent-minded mathematician stereotype it's absurd
38. Cooking something and having it actually turn out well
39. Toast
40. Snow, but not too much
41. Just the right sort of cold, where bundling up with a hot cup of tea doesn't feel chilly, but waiting on bus stops doesn't lead to frostbite.
42. Public transport that works
43. Vintage cars, with their little quirks
44. Bicycles, especially when you don't have to go up hills
45. Knitting
46. Good wool
47. My Dutch boything and how unashamedly he likes things that on most people would look horribly pretentious
48. Reading and understanding a complex novel
49. Having a comfort book to read and re-read. (Mine's Good Omens. It's seen me through some hard times and a lot of very good times.)
50. Tall buildings
51. Carl Sagan's Cosmos, both the book and the series
52. Feeling like an insignificant piece of a hugely complex universe
53. Being awed by nature
54. Feeling off-balance and like you can feel the world spin underneath your feet. (Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum talks about it.)
55. Museums of science and technology
56. Not acting my age
57. Getting dressed and feeling awesome about the day's outfit
58. Good hair days
59. Compliments
60. Travelling, both the actual going from one place to another and taking holidays.
61. Travelling alone and feeling amazingly competent
62. Travelling with people I like and who know how to do it
63. Breezing through airport security
64. Ticket stubs, boarding passes, leaflets, good photographs
65. Owls
66. Surrounding myself with memories and knick-knacks
67. Flea markets, getting glimpses into other people's lives. I have a photograph of a group of men I've never met, standing somewhere I've never been, and it's wonderful and enchanting
68. Finding just the right word
69. Making lists
70. Being in places at just the right time, not late and not early
71. Being excited
72. Being excited with other people
73. Music
74. Mathematics
75. Physics
76. Birds
77. Giving people handmade things
78. Discovering new favourite things
79. QI
80. Sherlock Holmes
81. Not acting my age
82. Pocket watches
83. Vintage alarm clocks
84. Thinking about time travel until my head spins
85. Horses
86. Feeling like people are proud of me
87. Autumn
88. Tweed
89. Happy toddlers on buses making up games and playing them with me across the aisle
90. Rediscovering things you loved as a child
91. Being good at things
92. Seeing my own habits in my parents
93. People who've known each other so long they understand each other effortlessly
94. Watching stupid tv shows with people I love and snarking the fuck out of them
95. Watching stupid tv shows with people I love and genuinely enjoying it
96. Unironically liking silly things
97. Being unashamedly ridiculous
98. Pretty things
99. Hope
100. That feeling of understanding, when things just magically fall into place
Things that don't make me happy:
1. Being too busy to even think
1. Books
2. Tea
3. Starry skies
4. Seeing the Milky Way curl across the sky, and Andromeda as a dim smudge just off to the side.
5. Helsinki, despite its cold and dark and snow and shitty public transport.
6. London
7. Oxford
8. Cambridge
9. Little museums with next to no other visitors
10. Sunsets
11. Driving through the night
12. Staying up stupidly late because you're having too much fun to go home
13. City lights
14. My parents
15. My friends
16. Having friends in several corners of the world
17. Getting mail
18. Sending mail
19. Christmas: just the general feeling of goodwill, gingerbread, glögi, the lights
20. The history of science
21. Bizarre, counterintuitive scientific theories
22. My flat
23. Being alone
24. Being around people I like
25. Trains
26. Airports once you're through security
27. Planes and flying, especially at night over cities
28. Getting a proper night's sleep
29. Comedy
30. Laughing
31. People laughing at my jokes
32. Feeling clever
33. Solving maths and physics problems.
34. The fantastic rush you get when you realise you know how to solve a problem, but don't know what the solution is yet.
35. Learning
36. Professors who get distracted from the topic at hand by something they're excited about
37. Professors who fit so neatly into the absent-minded mathematician stereotype it's absurd
38. Cooking something and having it actually turn out well
39. Toast
40. Snow, but not too much
41. Just the right sort of cold, where bundling up with a hot cup of tea doesn't feel chilly, but waiting on bus stops doesn't lead to frostbite.
42. Public transport that works
43. Vintage cars, with their little quirks
44. Bicycles, especially when you don't have to go up hills
45. Knitting
46. Good wool
47. My Dutch boything and how unashamedly he likes things that on most people would look horribly pretentious
48. Reading and understanding a complex novel
49. Having a comfort book to read and re-read. (Mine's Good Omens. It's seen me through some hard times and a lot of very good times.)
50. Tall buildings
51. Carl Sagan's Cosmos, both the book and the series
52. Feeling like an insignificant piece of a hugely complex universe
53. Being awed by nature
54. Feeling off-balance and like you can feel the world spin underneath your feet. (Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum talks about it.)
55. Museums of science and technology
56. Not acting my age
57. Getting dressed and feeling awesome about the day's outfit
58. Good hair days
59. Compliments
60. Travelling, both the actual going from one place to another and taking holidays.
61. Travelling alone and feeling amazingly competent
62. Travelling with people I like and who know how to do it
63. Breezing through airport security
64. Ticket stubs, boarding passes, leaflets, good photographs
65. Owls
66. Surrounding myself with memories and knick-knacks
67. Flea markets, getting glimpses into other people's lives. I have a photograph of a group of men I've never met, standing somewhere I've never been, and it's wonderful and enchanting
68. Finding just the right word
69. Making lists
70. Being in places at just the right time, not late and not early
71. Being excited
72. Being excited with other people
73. Music
74. Mathematics
75. Physics
76. Birds
77. Giving people handmade things
78. Discovering new favourite things
79. QI
80. Sherlock Holmes
81. Not acting my age
82. Pocket watches
83. Vintage alarm clocks
84. Thinking about time travel until my head spins
85. Horses
86. Feeling like people are proud of me
87. Autumn
88. Tweed
89. Happy toddlers on buses making up games and playing them with me across the aisle
90. Rediscovering things you loved as a child
91. Being good at things
92. Seeing my own habits in my parents
93. People who've known each other so long they understand each other effortlessly
94. Watching stupid tv shows with people I love and snarking the fuck out of them
95. Watching stupid tv shows with people I love and genuinely enjoying it
96. Unironically liking silly things
97. Being unashamedly ridiculous
98. Pretty things
99. Hope
100. That feeling of understanding, when things just magically fall into place
Things that don't make me happy:
1. Being too busy to even think