75

So instead of a snarky, cynical piece today, I'll be happy. Why? It's 75 degrees outside! I'm sure everyone else in in agreement about moods today, hopefully. I know it wasn't a bad winter but winter is still, winter. When I can open all windows and see the curtains wafting in the first soft breezes of spring, that'll boost my disposition several points.

So, it got me to thinking, what else can boost my mood, if only for a few minutes? I was surprised the list is long. Then again, it's a matter of what you focus on all day long and the shit that life splatter on you is far too easy to zero in on.

Here's one. That first bite of pepperoni pizza that's been properly cooked. The crust has to somewhat shatter as you bite down and since I can be a salt freak, the sodium in the pepperoni goes off like a grenade! I love it! The other 45 bites are just an excuse to stuff yourself to the point of immobility. It's always the first bites that is the best.

Soda lovers, and especially Coke lovers will understand this. The first sip off a can, not bottle, but can of Coke and how it feels. I admit the can impart a slight aluminum taste but that's not what Coke lovers want. What we want is pain.

Huh?

When you sip that first sip on a fresh Coke, the carbonation hits the heat of your mouth and sizzles. For some reason I swear it activates, on a low level, nerve endings that alarm of pain. It's a bit of cold burning sensation if that makes any sense. The best part is when it hits the back of your throat and really starts to out-gas as you hold it there just for a second longer. The sizzling pain there is even greater. Feeling it slither down your esophagus is the last of it.

AND...most Coke adherents agree, the carbonation in Coke vs Pepsi is different. The best way I can describe it is that Coke, produces smaller bubbles. You'd have to be one of us to “get it.”

If they carbonated Syrah, Merlot or any other wine like Coke, I'd probably drink that too and sound far more convincing when speaking of Coke like a sommelier.

Anyways, I've always loved that first can opened up. Small delights!

There's a look girls can give guys that'll make us halt in our tracks at times. It's the “look back over her shoulder” glance. You don't see that flirt coming but it's devastating if done correctly. It has to have direct eye contact coupled with an easy, comfortable smile. It may last not even one second but wow! A second, even shorter glance over that shoulder only confirms and nails that message. I've always loved that look. It's an instant endorphine hit.

Arriving at the beach for the first time. That was always nice and it's not the sights, but the smells that can put me in a far better mood. I'm not talking about stinky clam flats (but perhaps a bit of that is there) but the smell of the ocean, salt marsh hay and god knows what else I pick up can alter my mood fast. After an hour of that and I can start sliding into that California-ah-who-cares-what-time-it-is state.

It can probably uncover every memory I have of the beach as a kid too.

I've always loved to sleep but what sucks about it is that your unconscious for most of it .You don't really get to feel it. There is, however, a brief time you do feel it, and that is the last few seconds when you are drifting, hazy and numb before you black out for the night. You can't force it but at times, I'm half aware of it and is the most comfortable place I've been. Since my mind is like a monkey in a tree, thoughts hopping from one branch to the other, even those same thoughts take on that dreamy state. I'll get very dreamy visuals of doing my taxes accompanied by a complete loosening of the entire world.

When I was a teen and had no problem sleeping to 11 AM on the weekends. I noticed I'd awake during that morning, numerous times, to get that feeling of slipping into unconscious again and again.

Now, being a full blown adult, even if I were to have three weeks off in a row, sleeping that late seems terrible waste of the day for me.

I've never had opiates due my hated of needles and blood born pathogens...and real, raw opium isn't around, but I swear if it puts you into that state, I can sort of understand why addicts have a hell of time stopping. That world you encounter is too good to leave.

What else? The ozone smell of thunderstorms, the sickly sweet scent of hurricanes. They do have one, it smells of tree sap. Think of 540,000,000 leaves being pureed into the air. The sound of a song where they install a halting, stressful moment it it when the whole songs stops, just for a moment and then proceeds again. Beauty! That and the rasp of guitar pick on the wound strings, small, subtle and hardly noticeable but wonderful again.

Lastly, and I could go on...is the surf of the beach. Way back in the Jurassic, when I was 25, I fell asleep on a dingy couch that was on the porch of a beach house in South Kingston. We had just come back from seeing the B-52's at the Windjammer in Misquamicut. The rest of the house inside, had every sleeping spot taken and D'Arby and I had to made do with a couch on the porch. The last thing that I heard, that lulled me to sleep was the distant thump of a wave hitting the sand. The first thing that awoke me, at a decent time too, was this alarm clock that spaced out it's call every twenty seconds, “THUMP!..............THUMP!.............THUMP!”

I awoke easy, pushed D'Arby's hair from my face and tired to ascertain where I was. The surf, smells and porch pinpointed me. “I'm at the beach...on a porch...it's Sunday...” and I couldn't have been more relaxed or comfortable with everything.

Life doesn't always suck...does it? And I can't think of too many cynical things about beaches, Coke, pretty girls or the riff to Whole Lotta Love.

Hell, it's 75 today...of course I can't.