AWESOME!
When the free bread they bring you at the restaurant is warm
Hot baked, warm and steamy, that basket lands on your table and heats up your whole evening. So sniff it up, crack it open, and enjoy smearing some butter over that warm crunchy-n-chewy deliciousness before the main course arrives.
AWESOME!
Taking off your glasses or contact lenses after a long day
How do you spell relief?
Baby, it’s gotta be that deep sensation of finally relaxing your eyeballs when you pull your specs off at the end of the day. And whether you’re resting your Coke bottles on the bedside table or peeling your dry contacts out after a long cab ride, you gotta love that big moment of freedom fresh air.
When you pull off your lenses you can just blink twice, feel that burn, and give yourself a well-deserved Pre-Dream eyeball massage.
Because you’re finally free.
Now, if you’re blessed with 20/20 vision, and have no idea what us blind folks are talking about, then let me give you the Top 5 Sorta-Similar Feelings from other parts of your life. Here you go, Perfect Eyes:5. Unbuttoning the top button of your too-tight dress shirt after a long wedding day. You trucked around town in a strangling tux and tie with your neck sweating and brown-collaring your shirt through pictures, speeches, and dancing. When you’re finally back in the hotel room, just pop off that button and let it all go.
4. Flipping your belt buckle open after a big turkey dinner. You packed your stomach with heaping spoons of mashed potatoes, mountains of stuffing, and a boatful of gravy, so when you crack your belt and let your stomach flop on your lap it’s time to droop your eyelids and smile a nice, slow openmouthed smile.
3. Taking your shoes and socks off after a long day at work. It’s hard to beat the feeling of leg hairs straightening out and blood recirculating past the sock elastic imprints in your calves after peeling off a pair of tight socks after a sweaty day at the office.
2. Untying your corset in your dim candlelit castle tower. Such sweet relief from a long day of washing your hair in the courtyard well, attending a stuffy dinner with the King, and sitting through hours of poetry with the troubadours in the town square.
1. Cracking open your ski boots after a day at the slopes and walking around in sock feet. All the bumps and blisters on your feet finally relax by the chalet fire after being squeezed together in a ski boot jail all day.
Now, if you’re still reading you know all these pleasures make life juicy and delicious. So if you’re nodding along and loving these buzzes then you deserve big ups for loving all the tiny moments of bliss wedged tightly in the middle of your busy days.
So today we give you a recognition you truly deserve.
Congratulations on stopping to smell the
AWESOME!
The moment at a concert when the crowd figures out what song they’re playing
Sweaty crowds in sticky shirts scream and scramble for better views between songs. Drums kick boom and guitars get tuned just before the bright lights flip up and flick on. Everyone slides forward on the beer-slicked floor and as the first notes kick in we all catch our breath.
AWESOME!
That one car that randomly travels with you on the highway for a really long time
Highways can be lonely.
See, we’re all strapped in and surrounded by glass and metal, alone in the zone, at one with the windshield as we change lanes and hit the gas to keep zooming along, swerving between trucks, speeding past strangers.
But it’s this secret street solitude that makes it so sweet when you suddenly notice someone cruising the same streets beside you.
Maybe it’s a couple college kids bumping along on a road trip. Maybe it’s a grizzled trucker in a sweaty tank top. Maybe it’s a minivan with bikes on the back heading to the lake for the weekend.
Basically, it’s any car you seem to see over and over again on your trip.
“I swear I saw them before,” you might think, peeking in the window to confirm it’s the same crew. Tattooed shirtless guy with screaming kid in the black Mustang? It’s them! Bigsunglasses girls singing in summer dresses? It’s them! Slowrolling seniors smoking cigarettes with the top down in an old convertible? It’s them!
Your heart lifts a bit when you realize you’ve got company. Suddenly there’s a freeway companion along for the ride. You get to guess who they are and where they’re going and smile every time you notice they’re still driving along.
Sometimes you lose them for a while and think they’re gone. “We had a good run,” you say, before steering into the rest stop for gas and noticing their car outside the diner. You smile and shake your head as you pull up beside them.
“I knew they wouldn’t leave me.”
Sometimes you actually witness the departure at a fork in the road. They head north and you head south, so you say goodbye with headlight flashes or honks that say thanks for the trip, thanks for the moment, and thanks for the memories.
AWESOME!
An inbox of personal emails when you wake up in the morning
A fresh batch of personal emails is like a little basket of gold to start your day.
Grandkids telling you about kindergarten, blurry photos from last night’s party, mom asking what you want for your birthday, and dirty inside jokes between your closest friends, all piled on top of each other in your private little den of secret conversations.
You smile softly because a page full of personal emails tells you one thing for sure: People like talking to you. So pull up your chair, rub your palms together, and get ready to dive in.
AWESOME!
Passing under a bridge on the highway when it’s pouring rain
Your windshield wipers have no idea what’s going on as you enjoy a blissful two seconds of silence.
AWESOME!
Finding treasures in your spring jacket pocket
Dig deep, baby.
When the weather warms up and the snow melts down, it’s time to pull out that thin, dusty jacket from the back of the closet and toss it back on.
Now, just make sure you stuff your hands deep in those pockets and see if you can’t score some buried treasure that’s been held there safely all winter long:1. Your favorite lip balm. You thought she was lost so you bought some cheap impostors from the drugstore to tide you over. But now that greasy beauty’s back in business, baby—faded packaging, slippery tube, linty plastic cap and all.
2. A pack of gum with only one piece left. The top is probably folded down and creased over that one remaining rock-hard rectangle. You can give it to a friend or enjoy the minty molar-shattering experience yourself.
3. A Good Times receipt. This is an old crinkly receipt from a great night a long time ago. Maybe it’s a birthday dinner, grad party, or wild girls’ night out on the town. When you stare back at that distant receipt and slowly remember where it’s from, you’ll eventually end up smiling at the memories. Good times.
4. That one really good pen. That smooth-flowing ballpoint never gets lost. No, it just goes on long vacations to your jacket pockets, pencil cases, or board game boxes.
5. A contact lens still in its packaging. Say goodbye to your blurry winter.
6. A shrunken orange. The bad news is you can no longer eat this orange because it’s been sitting in your jacket for months. The good news is you get to smell like citrus for a couple days.
7. Travel pack of tissues. Sometimes if those small packs have been sitting for a while all the lint molecules try to escape from their plastic prison. When you zip open your pocket you catch them coating your liner in the middle of their slow and methodical jailbreak.
8. Random phone numbers. Sometimes I pull out a piece of scrap paper and there’s just a phone number on it with no name, no context, no nothing. I silently curse my lazy former self and spend a minute debating whether or not I should just dial it up to solve the mystery.
So come on—finding buried treasures deep in those jacket
pocket caves is a bit like Christmas in the spring. Yes, you score some tiny little presents from your past as you start a fresh new season with big beaming smiles and heartwarming reunions with some dear old friends.
AWESOME!
Pulling a weed and getting all the roots with it
Gardening ain’t for sissies.
Nope, if you’re getting down with the kneel down you know planting flowers, growing herbs, and trimming hedges is tough business, baby. Sun’s beating wavy rays, dirt’s clumping in your eyes, and worms wiggle in all directions as you attempt to plant petunias.
Those weeds are the worst of all.
Sharp stems and jagged leaves spread in all directions and slowly smear across the garden—devouring pristine patches of grass and gobbling up innocent tulips.
That’s why it’s a great feeling when you pull a weed and get all the roots with it.
First you eye it slowly and grab as close to the base as possible. Next you gently yank and wiggle it a little bit to lower its defenses and loosen it up. Then it’s time for the big moment when you quickly pull it straight up and outta the dirt.
Seeing a long trail of dirty roots hanging below that weed you just pulled out of the garden?
Say it with me now.
AWESOME!
Driving over a small hill in your car
Let’s hit the suburban roller coaster.
When you’re a little kid riding backwards in a woodpaneled wagon, there’s few things as fun as hitting a guttwisting bump over a little hill on the highway. Or maybe you’re at the back of the school bus, bouncing like jumping beans as you ride the waves, laughing with your snot-nosed pals amongst the slippery nylon seats on your way to the Science Center. Or maybe you’re just cruising down dark roads, slipping through shortcuts, and winding off the freeway and rolling over those small hills gives you a small lift on your long drive home ...
Bumps in the road make life more fun.
AWESOME!
The moment of anticipation before the first kiss
Stare into those eyes.
Pupils grow wide and hearts thump fast as brains jolt and thoughts roller-coaster around. Conversation jumbles and stumbles before fading into footnotes as fingers touch and linger, thoughts twist together, and eye contact drifts and sways before catching and connecting as everything goes quiet ...
AWESOME!
Staying up past your bedtime when you were a kid
Nobody likes bedtimes.
Nope, nothing’s worse than lying under the covers in hot flannel PJs with wide, unblinking eyes while the late autumn sun slowly droops outside your window. As the sky fades to a burning orange, the streetlights flicker on, the moon pops out, and eventually the thin crack of light under your door flicks to black.
And then you just lie there, staring at the ceiling, flipping your pillow, tossing and turning, aching and burning.
Nobody likes bedtimes.
Come on, whether it’s mom chasing a giggling diaper-clad junior around the coffee table or dad forcibly finger-peeling video game remotes out of pre-teen paws, it’s all the same when you’re a kid.
The fun stops when the head drops.
Yes, bedtime is a secret, locked roadblock to a magical mystery tour of late night television, dark downtown scenes, and unknown journeys into all things strange, exotic, and sinful.
But it’s that buildup and curiosity that make it great when you finally do break on through to the other side.
Do you remember birthday sleepovers when everybody drank Cokes after 9 p.m. and watched R-rated movies? Did you have faraway Little League tournaments where parents cracked beer coolers after the game while kids terrorized the hotel whirlpool and sauna? Did you celebrate New Year’s with cousins all dancing to Michael Jackson in the basement as the clock counted down?
Staying up past your bedtime when you’re a kid is like getting on a rickety roller coaster and riding down a dark tunnel heading somewhere you’ve never been and were always told not to go. But then you find sugar rushes, skinnydips, heart-to-hearts, and nonstop giggles all waiting for you deep in the blackness, just around the bend.
AWESOME!
Those rare moments when you’re the only person on the beach
Enjoy the silence.
Maybe you’re an early bird who goes jogging on the cool sand as the sun rises. Ocean waves quietly lap to shore together with twisted messes of dark seaweed and chipped seashells as faint orange sunbeams peek over the horizon ...
Or maybe you’re a sand stroller going for a quick walk around the bend as the family takes a final dip before heading home. Your feet sink into the hot sand as you find yourself alone with washed-up tree branches, quiet circling gulls, and a bright pink sunset lighting up the sky . . .
Or maybe you just discover a quiet patch of secret sandy paradise where nobody can find you. It’s the hidden beach through the cottage forest, the rocky island where you rest your canoe, or the cliff side of a hilly highway where you pull over and hike down to the empty shore ...
Yes, those rare moments when you’re the only person on the beach make you feel like you’re standing alone in front of the universe. Stare up and let your mind drift into the distant neverending sky, fall deep into the thin horizon, and focus down at the tiny grains of sand millions of years old covering your feet ...
Maybe stegosauruses and dodo birds and cavemen and cowboys all stood at this same spot staring out the same way at the same wavy water. And maybe future races will stand at these same places and feel the same spine-tingling sense of
AWESOME!
When your roommate cleans the place while you’re away
My friend Peter has a theory.
We were chatting one day when he mentioned he only does housework when his girlfriend isn’t home. I thought it was a bit strange but Peter patiently broke it down for me in three big points:1. Hugs and kisses. When his girlfriend shows up after a long day with her bangs sweat-glued to her forehead, she’s not always in a great mood. But when she notices all the rock-hard tomato stains scraped off the stovetop and the telltale blue-tinged hint of fresh toilet bowl, her mood cheers right up and Peter scores some love.
2. Ditch the guilt. Then there’s the big problem with cleaning up when your roommate, boyfriend, or wife is lying on the couch. While you’re straightening magazines and vacuuming in front of them, they feel guilty for chilling out. Forget the hugs—this time you’re scoring a big sigh, some lazy stinkeye, and a half-assed helper.
3. Mr. Perfect sightings. Okay, my place is a mess. Sometimes I fall asleep on dirty clothes, use my dryer as a dresser, and leave macaroni-and-cheese dishes in the sink for days. Peter’s not as bad as me, but he’s no Mr. Perfect either. But see, that’s just it—the beauty of his plan is that he gives his girlfriend a chance to dream about her boyfriend cleaning all day. Sure, the truth is that he was probably stuck in Tube World in Super Mario 3 for most of the afternoon, but those clean countertops, spotless mirrors, and fresh vacuum streaks give her hope.
Showing up after a long day to a freshly cleaned place is such a great feeling. Toilet paper has replaced the Kleenex in the bathroom and the rat-sized dust balls behind the TV have been whisked away. Now you get to enjoy an evening with someone you love in a sparkly new joint.
So three cheers for organized shoes, three cheers for empty sinks, and three cheers for your place looking a lot less dumpy. Yes, if you feel this buzz you’re living with someone special. So make sure you give them some hugs and kisses.
Or, if they’re out right now, maybe go make the bed.
AWESOME!
That moment in a shower when you decide to make it a really long shower
It’s a bad scene.
Alarm bells buzz when the clock clicks six and I become a barely blinking lump of groggy stretching noises that sound like Chewbacca after he’s been shot by Stormtroopers. Honestly, it’s a pathetic scene—me lying there with drool stains on my cheeks, deathbags under my eyes, and bent and j
agged bedhead.
Eventually I stumble into the shower and feel my eyes burning and begging to return to the cool and shady Cave of Closure. But I soldier on, shower on, soap on, and slowly let that hot steam wake me up.
Sometimes I just can’t let go.
No, sometimes I enter a little steam dream in the shower and end up slowing down and thinking to myself: This is good.
This is really good.
This should not stop.
Yes, in this magic mist of steamy smiles my brain quickly flips into Nothing Else Matters Mode, where all other thoughts just wash away in favor of showering a little longer and living for the day.
Hitting that moment in the shower where you decide to make it a really long shower is a great feeling. As the hot water beats down you get to keep nudging that faucet a little bit hotter and a little bit hotter to keep the steam swirling and relax into a soothing personal moment of
AWESOME!
Looking at the clock and seeing that it’s 12:34
When this happens it’s like your day is winking at you. It sort of feels like all the mysteries of the world are about to unfold before your eyes as the universe puts up its hand and says, “Hey, stop for a second!”
Also applies to 11:11.
AWESOME!
Tips
“He ate my tip!”
Tara said that with eyebrow-crinkling rage while we were out grabbing drinks on a laid-back patio. She shook her head sternly and surveyed our table of belchy beer drinkers for support.
We offered none.
In my defense I had no idea what she was talking about, so I just took a sip of my beer and casually wiped my foamstache . When I glanced back at Tara, I saw she was still steaming about something so I tossed her a thin-lipped nod and a flimsy halfhearted response.