Accessible Luxury

Polaroid of Roommates 

This Thursday I’m participating in an advertising "ideation" on the topic of pleasure. When my employment was thin a couple of years ago I signed on to the focus-group circuit, making my way through tedious arguments and repetitive catch-phrases while trying not to roll my eyes every other minute. It’s amazing how some people actually find a large supplement to their income participating in the round table medium.

One of the more lucrative focus-groups I landed was called the “Dove Manifesto” which eventually contributed to those happy ladies posing for skin firming ads that everyone seems to be talking about this month. I found the Dove discussion via word-of-mouth and pimped myself as a “beauty expert” due to my experience with the visual arts. Midway through the session I found myself arguing with Amanda Lepore about whether or not the size of a woman’s lips directly corresponds to her beauty quotient.

This week I’ll be discussing “pleasure” as a visual artist and member of the “accessible luxury” division of the group. I'll also probably eat too many complimentary croissants. We’ve been asked to bring in something that “pleases us,” as part of an ice-breaker activity, and so I feel the pressure of anticipating show-and-tell for the first time in about 22 years.

Last week JennyJ posted a challenge which falls somewhere between a self-help exercise and stream of consciousness brainstorming. I became absorbed in her list of “100 things you like in no particular order.” It’s quite nice to find you have a lot in common with someone who lives across an ocean, who you’ve only met in the blog realm. I’m not sure how this week's focus-group will play out, but I’d like to remind myself of my own version of accessible luxury, without thinking too hard, just letting 100 things that make me happy fall out of my head, no editing—It can’t be too hard—

1. Polaroid camera
2. fat seagulls
3. walking a new block in New York
4. reading recipes
5. previews
6. a never-ending cup of coffee on the weekend
7. making lists
8. Baltimore
9. coarse salt
10. sleeping in
11. eye contact
12. John Denver
13. running in the street in Brooklyn
14. walking fast
15. cell phone etiquette
16. thank yous
17. canoeing
18. tequila
19. saying "fuck"
20. cars that wait for pedestrians
21. private karaoke rooms
22. deep breaths
23. sweating
24. looking at the tops of brownstones
25. eavesdropping on public trains and in public spaces
26. calling a long-distance friend
27. people who move away from the subway doors
28. cooking dinner for a group
29. meat markets and cheese stores
30. playing charades
31. laughing too long at a stupid joke
32. the tick of a sewing machine
33. missing a character from a book
34. nailing a Q and U in SCRABBLE
35. biking home at night from a friend’s house
36. talking about Rome with Caitlin
37. cracking lobsters
38. the painted steel elf that sits next to my grandmother’s fireplace
39. holding hands
40. a picture of my brother at age 3 wearing Mr. Potato Head glasses
41. thinking about my brother
42. bocce ball
43. the day a new season is evident
44. packing for a trip
45. washing dishes
46. walking around my neighborhood alone
47. night bugs that make sounds
48. drunk giggling
49. small world coincidences and aquaintances
50. dogsitting and catsitting
51. an unopened bottle of wine
52. a bottle of wine with one friend
53. forearms
54. sleeping dogs
55. cigars
56. making pie crust
57. looking out windows at people below, unaware of you
58. creative license
59. learning something new about politics
60. fixing my computer
61. napping with the windows open
62. Jersey tomatoes
63. remembering a word in Italian
64. tofu
65. hands on backs or shoulders
66. my parents visiting New York
67. recharging batteries
68. agreeing to disagree
69. rehearsal dinners
70. sleeping outside
71. jumping off high places into lakes
72. saying goodnight to roommates
73. teaching someone a new skill with words and example
74. curiosity
75. optimists
76. black humor
77. pessimists
78. hammocks
79. going to the movies alone
80. spending long Sundays with friends and their dogs, on a blanket with snacks in Prospect Park
81. exhaustion after a long day of work
82. Ithaca, New York
83. itchy grass in a big field
84. piles of books
85. knowing all the words
86. friends of different generations
87. anticipation
88. wrapping presents
89. mixing ink and water
90. older couples walking together
91. The Great Gatsby
92. talking about our family with my cousin Caroline
93. photosynthesis
94. epilogues
95. spell check
96. admitting a vice
97. apologizing
98. visiting the house a friend grew up in
99. road trips
100. August