What I Like

Once, when the world began, I heard these words: “Alan, this is Stephanie Pickel”.

Like my wife, I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know Stephanie Pickel. She’s Stephanie Harkins now and lives on a farm in Maryland. She has raised three boys (she was from a family of three girls) and had a successful career in nursing. Now, and this is quite troublesome for me because she is very good, Stephanie has become a blogger.

Her blog is Front Porch Tales-Pursuing Purpose and Passion in the Mid-Life Maze. This is much better than my blog Humor Me-Hey Y’all Here’s Another Booger Joke.

I mention Stephanie’s blog because one of latest, “My Happy List” inspired this week’s posting. Because a lot of humor is negative in nature and I admit that my nature is as negative as it comes. We spend a lot of time in the Humor World talking about things we don’t like. I’m going to be a little different today, thanks to Stephanie. I’m going to discuss what I like.

I like the way my wife smiles at me. It gives me the feeling that she adores this stupid lump of flesh. She could have done a lot better than me-I’m just happy she didn’t.

I like that my son can do impressions. I don’t know what it is about impressions I like, but I like it when people do good ones (like Dana Carvey) and my son can do great impressions. He does an impression of Eric Cartman from the awful “South Park” that will cause you to bust a gut laughing.

I like jokes. I like the way jokes give you all of the information you need up front. “A man walks into a bar with a penguin..” that’s all you need to know about the man, the bar, and the penguin.

I like it when an old friend says, “I remember” about an incident from the past that you know you haven’t spoken to him about but he knows it was important to you.

I like making people laugh. There’s something about the moment when people validate that what you are saying is funny. Especially if it is something you thought up by yourself.

I like coffee. But I like my coffee like I like my jazz: smooth. This coffee that knocks you down and makes you spontaneously start sprouting body hair is not for me. There’s something about a smooth cup of coffee that relaxes me.

I like music. I’m glad I grew up in “The Singer-Songwriter Era”. I like the way Jimmy Buffett said “Life is just a tire swing”. I like the way John Prine says “Eggs” (“Eaigs”). I like the way Dylan sounds on “Lay Lady Lay” and bleats “His clothes are dirty but his hands are clean. And you’re the best thing that he’s ever seen”.  I like the way Mark Knopfler plays the guitar. I like side one of an album called “The Blue Ridge Rangers”. It is John Fogerty of Credence Clearwater Revivial playing every dang instrument and singing the heck out of some country classics.

 I like that I had parents that took care of me.

I like that I have a job and that I get paid for it. My job has one huge perk: I can leave my work at work when I leave work. That and  I have about 100 weeks of PTO hours.

I like my iPhone. It still gets me that I’m carrying around a miniature computer in my pocket.

I like watching college football even though there are a thousand truck commercials (you need more torque!) and middle aged man pills commercials.

I like finding out something new about people I have known for a long time. Like Stephanie’s writing talent. You can read it here: http://mallardsrunfarm.com/2013/10/13/my-happy-list/