B.S. 2
One of my favorite pastimes is making lists. It’s meditative. It grants an illusion of control and gives me faith that the sun will rise tomorrow. I have two long-running lists: What I Like and What Brings Me No Pleasure. Here’s a sampling of What I Like:
Everything my wife Michelle Maguire creates. Random occurrences. Obituaries. Strangers. Flea markets. Estate sales. Vintage postcards (especially ones that feature '70s and '80s sports arenas). Amateur '80s rock concert photography. Un-staged anything. Market Square Arena memories. 1970s New York movies. Shelley Duvall. Charles Bronson. Mike Judge. Reno 911. Eastbound and Down. Four-door cars, station wagons, and vans. Scientific names of plants and trees. Crossword puzzles. Newspapers. Magazines. Cooking all afternoon. Ice cold Pilsners. Listening to music while driving. David Letterman. WKRP. Saltines and cheddar. Natural peanut butter. Burritos (the perfect food). Beans and rice. Ramen. Pho. Cinnamon rolls. Tuna salad with sweet relish and tuna casserole from scratch. Tavern-cut pizza and New York pizza slices. Chinese restaurants with no windows. Indian lunch buffets. Potatoes cooked any which way. Stovetop popcorn with Tajin or Old Bay. The soothing sounds of lawn mowers and leaf blowers in the distance of an afternoon. Graph paper. The NBA. The NFL. MLB. The Cavs, the Pacers, the Packers, the Reds, the Bengals and the Browns. Memories of watching the Browns with Doll, my 92-year-old great aunt-in-law — R.I.P. — who looked like contemporary Keith Richards. The elderly (most of them). Utilitarian cycling. Walking. Stretching. Instagram. Black Sabbath and everything that inspired Black Sabbath. Heavy snow and hot sunshine. The country music of Dwight Yoakam, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard, Johnny Paycheck, Keith Whitley, Hank Snow, Tom T. Hall, and Loretta Lynn. The clarinet jazz of Lester Young and the jazz fusion of Herbie Hancock. Bob Dylan, Ice Cube, the Geto Boys, the Rolling Stones, Van Halen, Motorhead, Roxy Music, and Ratt. The name Boz Scaggs. Dr. John's early scuzz-psych period. New Orleans. The Allen Toussaint song A Certain Girl, as recorded by Warren Zevon. Levi's. Size 4E Red Wing boots. Colorful basketball shoes. The Phil Hartman-era of SNL. CBS Sunday Morning. Mexican blankets. Sturdy socks. Sending gifts, birthday cards, and letters through the U.S. mail. Letters and stories from my nurse brother in Oregon. Famous Monsters magazine. Regional cookbooks. Shrimp. Scallops. The Undertaking (Thomas Lynch), The Cay (Theodore Taylor); Cruel Shoes (Steve Martin), It’s So Easy (And Other Lies) (Duff McKagen), and The Last Picture Show (Larry McMurtry). Rita Dove’s poem Silos and James Tate’s poem Goodtime Jesus. Every song by James McMurtry, the son of the guy who wrote The Last Picture Show. Alphabetizing albums, CDs, and tapes (and weeding out my library every year). The voices of my and my wife’s grandparents in my memory. Our eldest teenage nephew’s love of automobile engines and our youngest nephew’s love of skateboards. Black Sharpie markers and retractable ink pens. Rural roads. Shirt pocket notebooks. The coast of Oregon. Canton, Ohio, Greensburg, Indiana, and New York City. The hills of San Francisco, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh. The sound of a killdeer faking a wing injury in a springtime corn or soybean field. The blast of red on a male cardinal in the wintertime. Beaver dams. Statuesque hawks on telephone lines and oak tree branches along Ohio interstates. Groundhogs. My parents’ gigantic Indiana garden. Cats. Dogs. Eastern redbud trees. Watching a movie while listening to the audio on a primo set of headphones. Listening to the Cincinnati Reds’ radio broadcasts on WLW. Bars where I know nobody. Fireplaces and fire pits. Sitting in New York City parks to read and watch people walk by. Making lists. Conversation starters.