flexagon | 100 things that make me happy (besides money)

A lot of people on 43Things.com say they want to list 100 things that make them happy besides money. I thought this was a good idea that didn't sound too hard, so I decided to try doing it in one sitting...

100 things besides money that make me happy, NOT a complete list and NOT in order and NOT making any sense:

1) Handcuffs. Whoa, I'm probably a bad person for thinking of those first. but there we go.
2) Trapeze school memories.
3) Watching my cat sleep. She is so peaceful and lovely.
4) That moment in debugging when I suddenly know what the problem is.
5) The song "Africa" by Toto.
6) Caramel mochas from Starbucks.
7) Pausing to look out into the pretty atrium in my office building.
8) Waking up next to my husband.
9) Having silly, geeky talks with said husband
10) Having sex with said husband. Oral sex to be specific. Bonus points for occasional combination with #1.
11) Doing anything cool in yoga for the first time.
12) Juggling (I just was reminded of this last night. I need to start doing that again. It's a blast, and free, and not even time-consuming.)
13) French manicures.
14) Long hair.
15) Long earrings.
16) Clothes... miniskirts, soft grey shirts, cargo pants, and nice businessy things all have their place.
17) Anonymous classes in Java (shut up, shut up)...
18) Pair programming with Dan the Cat.
19) Watching buildings get demolished, especially when crawler excavators are involved.
20) Michael Wesely's long-exposure photography (speaking of #19)
21) Harry Potter. Just waiting for July 16 is such exquisite torture!
22) Sequential art... Emily the Strange. The Sandman. Dr. Seuss. Calvin & Hobbes. Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. What the hell, even my own silly comic strip.
23) Candles... or rather, fire in any form as long as I get to watch it.
24) Weightlifting, preferably while caffeinated.
25) Overcoming fear. Any little fear will do, but the worse it is the bigger the eventual feeling of accomplishment.
26) Stretching over my left leg and getting the deep "right hand reaches beyond the foot to grab the left wrist" grip.
27) Manhattan... just the fact that it exists is good enough for me.
28) Good performance reviews at work (now that I have a job I give a shit about).
30) Home ownership.
31) Dishwasher ownership.
32) Folding T-shirts the magical origami-ish way that doesn't leave a crease down the front.
33) The mere fact that I coined the term DITCH for Dual-Income, Three-Cat Household, never mind that it's hard to use in sentences because nobody knows what it means.
34) Seeing pictures and hearing stories about my biological child.
35) Being sterilized, no longer worrying about pregnancy or forgotten pills or whether the "you'll change your mind" people are right.
36) The ocean, which I haven't seen nearly enough times.
37) The feeling of being on a porch, half inside and half outside.
38) Books in general... reading them, holding them, feeling them, buying them.
39) 43Things.com -- just a neat, positive website.
40) BookCrossing, another neat, positive website.
41) Bath beads from the Body Shop.
42) Thinking about our wedding vows ("Since each of you depends for your happiness on the happiness of the other, do you each promise, for the sake of the other, to be as happy as possible?" "We do."). Honeymoon memories fit nicely into this too.
43) Crossing the Charles River on the Red line, and thinking every time how beautiful my city is.
44) Being madly in love with Boston in general -- and believing irrationally that it's reciprocated.
45) MIT, and having gone to MIT. Every time I think of this I mentally flip off the people who said I didn't mean it when I planned to go there. >:)
46) Speaking of MIT... the fact that the greatest institution of engineering in the world now has a female president. Whee!
47) The thought of gay marriage being legal in Massachusetts.
48) Being tucked in by my husband, especially if Nala comes in the covers with me and purrs.
49) Rereading old familiar books.
50) Bacon and eggs with whole wheat toast.
51) Hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps in it.
52) Buying food for myself, almost any time. It makes me feel independent and luxurious no matter how small the item is.
53) Posing for pictures... um, when the photographer is any good, that is, or when it's me.
54) Wordcrafting -- my term for any kind of writing from technical documentation to free-form poetry to this.
55) Falling asleep naked.
56) Swimming in lakes or the ocean, as far out as I feel remotely comfortable going. Once I swam naked in the ocean... mmm. Must do again someday.
57) Aveda foot lotion.
58) Playing strategy games, or just dumb party games, with friends.
59) Really scoring with a present or a book recommendation.
60) The thought that I have a solid friend network, and I feel pretty comfortable in knowing how to make more. Thank you, adulthood, and thank you, Dale Carnegie.
61) Getting stares in the gym for doing pullups, or, more often these days, for working on my headstand.
62) Not being freaky-insecure anymore (HLM is one patient man, let me assure you).
63) Giving people compliments.
64) The "cat butt" magnets I saw in a bookstore yesterday "for real cat lovers".
65) Used bookstores, in general.
66) Having a job in which my work actually gets used by people.
67) Taking care of the bromeliad (really cool plant) on my desk.
68) Watching a program run and do what I told it to.
69) Hanging out at home doing cryptic crosswords with my bug.
70) Getting rid of stuff I don't use anymore--it gives me such a light floaty feeling.
71) The sound of my endearingly crazy downstairs neighbor screaming in ecstasy over some sport or other.
72) The beautifully soft light from Christmas trees.
73) Roller coasters.
74) Wandering in office-supply stores.
75) Mathematics, in general (diffy-q's aside). Something else I really want to pick up again.
76) Living without a car or a TV.
77) Learning any new killer recipe, especially if it's an easy killer recipe that I can cook for friends.
78) Reading about anti-aging science, or the far future prospects of the universe, or megatrends. The future doesn't sound so bad to me--there's reason to hope.
79) Watching my bug play cello.
80) Reading about Lisp, thinking that one day I'll have the 'aha' moment.
81) When the dentist tells me my teeth are all clean, I'm fine and he'll see me in six months.
82) Discovering a great new band or new CD.
83) Walking into TBW's house last night and finding him in conversation with another DSB employee who's interested in the Frog. Ha! I haven't laughed so hard in a while.
84) Eating really healthful food, and wanting it and enjoying it. Doesn't happen 100% of the time, but when it does I feel so clued in.
85) Wall sculpture, Blik, murals and the like.
86) Magnetic poetry.
87) Cobb salad, Vietnamese summer rolls, black bean soup, and V8 (see #84).
88) Any friend who's known me since college... hello,

bluechromis, dear.
89) Drawing.
90) Most of my friends seeming so happy, and sporting sparkly rings, this year.
91) The way Nala plays under the sheets when we make the bed.
92)

vaginapagina, Our Bodies, Ourselves, and any other open talk about sexual health.
93) Laughing -- universal but still a good one.
94) Having a belly-button ring.
95) Dr. Seuss.
96) Reading poetry, seeing all the tricks the language can get up to.
97) The binary roses I get on anniversaries.
98) The fact that we still celebrate our getting-together anniversary as well as our wedding one.
99) My body, overall, in spite of occasional snide thoughts toward the butt. It's gotten me around. I feel fiercely loyal to it.
100) Martin Gardner and all the fun things he wrote about: superellipses, soma cubes, the fourth dimension, negative coconuts and... flexagons. Yay for flexagons.