I love...

• Watching people: How they talk to the people they're with, how they talk to themselves when they think no one is watching, how they walk & carry themselves (my walk was once defined as half Marilyn Monroe, half General Patton – whatever that means… I walk the way I walk, in my opinion – no flavor or artificial colors). I love going to the beach before sunset and seeing the dark silhouettes of people as they stand at the shore watching the sun go down on the day – the composition of that image in my head is more about the interesting ways to interpret their stance… their posture… it just says more than they can explain in words about how their soul feels. Watching the setting sun.

• Facial expressions of children when they're talking about something of utmost importance… like when I ask them what super power they would want if they could have any superhero power in the world. That is the best. Kids are compact Oracles of simple truth & wisdom. Especially when you can give them back to their parents after they need a bath or ask you where babies come from.

• The smidgens of conversations one catches when walking by people on the street – I love to string them together to make complete paragraphs, seeing how funny they sound when read aloud. Each smidgen it's own mini-drama… being important enough to be spoken in public, not at all mindful of twisted eavesdroppers like myself poking fun at them.

• Being read to in bed. God, that's so sexy… Venus in Furs, The Story of O, Lolita, The Sun Also Rises, Anna Karenina, anything by Ayn Rand, hell, Roget's Thesaurus works too… who needs foreplay? Okay, I do – but reading to me is a good way to start.

• Singing "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…" to my dogs in the morning and watching them put their paws over their eyes because they're not exactly morning dogs.

• Watching Yoda run at top speed through a field – just to run through the field – and reading the purely felt, unadulterated joy on his little doggie face

• When stuck in traffic, finding life unfolding in unlikely places. Like a mama bird returning to feed the baby birds perched at the top of a lone, anemic, Charlie Brown-style sapling on the side of the freeway