This is a post about a whale! NO! This is a post about being happy!

Don't get the title above? Click on the picture. (Audio of it if you scroll.)

So. Question number two (only a few hours left for this special offer) comes from Spcknght (whose name I always seem to want to misspell):

What do you mean "IF anyone sends you one" (and that is NOT my question!)? OF COURSE we're going to write in! Who wouldn't want to know more about our wonderful Sexeteria lady?

Ok, my question's somewhat like Circe's...I'd like to know the most intensely happy moment you've experienced in your life--with the wish-rider attached to my question that you experience just as much joy tenfold after answering this.

Now see, this totally confirms Spcknght's claim the other day that he's a snow angel with a slightly tilted halo. Because aw, just read that--isn't he the nicest guy? And yet, his question really bothered me immediately after I read it. Because, dammit, I actually don't think I know if I've every had a moment that was SO intensely happy that it stands out above all others. And dammit, that just seems wrong, wrong, wrong. (I won't say it made me sad, because that would bum poor Spcknght out.)

I mean, I get happy. I laugh a lot more than you probably think I do from reading this blog. I swear to you people, I'm a goddamned delight to know!

Ergh. Before I protest too much...I'll just answer the question as best I can. Spck, I can't think of an overriding moment. I'm not happy about that. But looked at another way, let's just say it means I still get to have my supremely happy moment sometime in the future. I do have some moments I remember where I felt really good, though, most of which involve music, dancing, and travel--some of my favorite things. Here are a few:

1) I was living overseas (in Scotland). I had a passle of roommates from all over the UK and we all loved the hell out of each other (take L'Auberge Espagnole and make it an all English-speaking household, and that's a good comparison). I also had my ideal boyfriend (my ideal at the time anyway), a tall, lanky, smart-as-all-getout, socialist, literary, grungy, demi-alcoholic English prettyboy. And he had a bunch of similar friends who I also loved. And all of us converged on a ceilidh held in the city I lived in, where my one roomate's band was playing. (For those who need a definition: celtic music+square dancing+copious amounts of alcohol, whooping, and stomping=Ceilidh. In other words, ceilidhs are marvelous.) The band was spectacular, the place was packed, and the dances were romantic (waltzes) AND crazy wild (steps where men literally turned around so fast that the women's feet lifted off the ground, propeller style). There was even danceable bagpiping. I was in a country I liked better than my own, in a culture that seemed to be far more "me" than anything I had experienced in America at the time. I was away from all the crap back home I didn't want to be involved in, feeling great and adventurous, knowing that I'd managed to get out and get there and have my own life, surrounded by cool, fun, smart people who I adored. I felt I fit. And I was also feeling a bit like a coveted, exotic treat (British and Irish boys like American girls the way American girls here like their Brits and Irishmen). I never got to sit down the whole night--there was always someone who needed to dance with me (and as we know from previous posts, dancing is heaven for me--and so is getting propositioned to dance by men I like who insist romantically that they will die if I won't dance with them). All of us were together and we were sweaty and drunk and all a little bit in love with each other. And then of course, there was someone who I knew at the end of the night I'd be going home to have spectacular sex with.

In short, it was a good time. I won't bother to use superlatives to describe it--it's was beyond any form of "good" you could use, so why bother. And in that goodness, I was happy and beaming every single minute.

You know, my housemates and I actually took a camera with us and we filled up an entire roll full of film with photos documenting the night--and, then, in the last minutes, some drunken person accidentally opened the shutter and totally ruined the film. But though we were all disappointed, the next day, hanging out in our kitchen slightly hung over and cooking breakfast (probably at 2 pm), we all decided it was really the best thing. Some events, some feelings get lessened by a still photo. We all said, and I still agree, some things you just can't capture--sometimes the memory alone is better to have than the photos.

You know what, Spck, forget it. I don't need to give any more examples. I do have a happiest moment so far. That was it. That night and those people will have a place in my heart for the rest of my life, and I'll always be happy whenever I think about it and them. Thanks for reminding me. :)

Well, yay. Now I feel good and want to share. So, if you're reading this, here's a little chaser of happy you can share with me--my little gift to anyone else who might be having a hard day or week or month or year.

During my difficult last year or two, I've been happy to take any tiny perk of joyous relief I can get. And a few months ago, I heard this, and it made my day. I downloaded it immediately afterwards. Whenever I hear it, I can't help but get happy. Bless that adorable, silly, cheesy, clever Ringo Starr. He's got the right perspective--it probably IS as easy as 1-2-3. Having a bad day? Click to play and dance with me, people. Sing it loud.

To be or not to be,
I don't care...