1.) My cat, Annie, forever and always. Among her other perfect qualities, she very patiently lets me smooch her nonstop.

2.) Eggs for breakfast. Hard-boiled, soft-boiled, scrambled, poached, made into an omelette…they really are the perfect food, healing for both brain and body.

3.) My parents, almost 80 years old and with the energy and mental acuity of people a quarter of their age.

4.) Running the entire length of the Stanley Park seawall early in the morning.

5.) My sparkling, spirited, brilliant four-year old niece, Elizabeth, who is the joy and delight of my entire clan.

6.) Being free of my ex-boyfriend, one of those crazed and bleating vegans with zero comprehension of their own hypocrisy and malnourishment. His own child, his exes, his brother…they have all abandoned him. I would expose him, but he isn’t worth it.

7.) Going to bed and waking up sober.

8.) “My Kitchen Rules” Australia. This show is maddeningly addictive.

9.) Men who check me out. I live in the heart of the gayest neighbourhood in British Columbia, so this never happens unless I leave town and realize that there are hetero men who can, and do, appreciate a cute chick.

10.) Strangers who smile at me or say “good morning” as I pass them. Vancouver is a notoriously cold city; this can lift my spirits for a week.

11.) Travelling, although I haven’t been able to do this for a while.

12.) Writing. I procrastinate on it, and then lose myself in it once I get going.

13.) That Chapter on YouTube. Mike O has the best true-crime channel out there, he deserves all of his success, and his efforts are endlessly appreciated.

14.) Iced coffee with pea-protein “milk.”

15.) Realizing I filled my ice cube trays last night, and have loads of ice cubes in the morning.

16.) Autumn, winter, spring. Summer can take a serious, eternal, long-awaited hike into oblivion.

Edited to add: people who don’t look at you like you’re a rampaging Pol Pot when you tell them you hate summer.

17.) Not having zits anymore; took long enough. Also, not having wrinkles. Prescription retinol, kids!

18.) Knowing I never, ever have to teach ESL again for as long as I live.

19.) Finding an unknown horror movie on Prime or Tubi, and it turns out to be totally fantastic. “Caveat” comes to mind.

20.) Watching people make colossal fools of themselves in public or online. I’m not going to be specific with examples here; there are simply too many of them.

21.) Lemon curd and chocolate mousse. Obviously not together.

22.) An empty, or nearly-empty Skytrain car for my entire ride.

23.) Great thrift store finds for almost nothing.

24.) Men who legitimately respect women and treat them as equals. Not easy to find, not at all. In fact, close to impossible.

25.) London Drugs, my favourite store of all time.

26.) Finding money. Hasn’t happened in a while, but the most I’ve ever found was a fifty-dollar bill outside of my building.

27.) Letters and emails: writing them and getting them.

28.) The smell of pavement when it’s just starting to rain.

29.) Fantasizing about waking up one morning and realizing that the Orwellian, backwards, bread-and-circuses, word-policing, intellectually- and rationality-barren, hopeless society we live in was all just a bad dream.

30.) Ace Frehley.