Things that are happy. I can do this. I know a lot of happy things.
OK. Here goes.
- Girl scout cookies. I especially love tagalongs. The trouble is that I can eat an entire box without even noticing. Don’t judge. They’re delicious. I happen to have a box next to me as I type. Yes, the box has cookies left in it. For now.
- My awesome of the awesomest friends. Seriously. I don’t know how I got so lucky. Moving around as I’ve done my entire life, I haven’t had much opportunity to accumulate close friends, but somehow I’ve managed to end up with a bunch anyway. Friends who I can talk to anything about, who are there for me, and who are always up for anything. Whether I need them to fly somewhere to go to a funeral with me or drive down the road and meet me at the strip club.
- Glee. Yes, this is a TV show. Yes, this is a stupid thing to put on the list. Yes, I don’t even really watch TV and this show is really not all that smartly written, which is generally a requirement of any show I watch. But the music is SO HAPPY. I have been listening to the soundtrack all day on repeat and honestly, how sad can you really be when you’re listening to “Sweet Caroline”? (Also, did you see that “Like a Virgin” montage this week?)
- Pop music. Where else can you get fantastic lyrics like from that “Carry Out” song, which I didn’t even know until just now is sung in part by Justin Timberlake, who I thought was way more respectable than that, but apparently he’s gotten so respectable that he’s moved on into being goofy. Also, on tracking down the lyrics just now, I came across the video, which is also entirely fabulous and I like him way better seeing him dance all dorky like that as opposed to his “I am a serious artist” phase. And that he’s mocking himself as a spokesperson for McDonald’s. This video may make him almost as likeable as that NSync DVD of an early concert tour when he was like 13 and his mom was with him and he ran up and down the escalators at an airport after eating too much of that colored sugar that comes in paper straws. Yes, I know that sentence was a run on and yes I do have that DVD and it’s THAT good. Just about as good as the video for this song. Choice lyrics:
Baby, you’re lookin’ fire hot
I’ll have you open all night like I-hop
You look good, baby must taste heavenly
I’m pretty sure that you got your own recipe
So pick it up, pick it up, yeah I like you
I just can’t get enough I got to drive through
Have it your way, foreplay
Before I feed your appetiteI can tell the way you like it, baby, supersized
I ain’t leavin’ till they turn over the closed signTake my order cause your body like a carry out
Let me walk into your body until you hear me outNumber one, I take two number three’s
That’s a whole lot of you and a side of me.
Now is it full of myself to want you full of me?
And if there’s room for dessert then I want a pieceBaby get my order right, no errors
Imma touch you in all the right areasDo you like it well done, cause I do it well
Cause I’m well seasoned if you couldn’t tell
Now, clearly this song brings up a few questions:
- “Errors” rhymes with “areas”? I so have been pronouncing one of these words wrong. Although I have no idea which one.
- Are women really turned on by grammatically incorrect incomprehensible phrases that seemingly imply that because a woman is hot she should snap to his demands like “take my order cause your body like a carry out”? Doesn’t this sentence actually mean “you’re hot woman; go make me a sandwich!”
- If you can’t get enough, wouldn’t you want to stick around rather than drive through?
- Do many women like being compared to a house of pancakes, even an international one?
- Is he suggesting two threesomes? Or six girls at once and him? Is that a sevensome?
- Do you suppose someone who says they’re “well seasoned if you couldn’t tell” could possibly be any good in bed? What about someone who says “Imma”?
- I’m not even touching the “baby get my order right” part. But feel free to ask your own questions.
While this song confuses me in many ways, I am utterly delighted by its determination and focus on a singular goal: hot, sexy, fast food metaphors. I could spend the rest of the day coming up with more. Most of them write themselves, of course. We need go no further than that global pancake hacienda: “come hungry, leave happy.”