feel happier this instant.

Glamour magazine publishes a list each month titled “10 Ways To Feel Happier This Instant.” Last night as I picked up my new Glamour and read over this page I started to realize that there are a lot of things that make me happy in the now.

1. Dinner and a movie with good company. No matter the movie. (For the record, Drag Me to Hell may officially be the worst movie ever. But oh boy did I laugh.)

2. Realizing when someone asks you if you put yourself out there enough, let your feelings be known, that you in fact did.

3. Having a great workout with a great friend.

4. Getting a water from the buck before work.

5. Returning something to Anthropologie and turning around and buying more for less.

6. Sending and receiving emails that leave you in stitches.

7. Knowing that a package waits for you when you get home.

8. Lunching with your best guy friend on a Monday as he drives from Charleston back home to Asheville.

9. Having a daddy that can run by your office in the middle of the day to drop something off for you and say hello.

10. Taking another city by storm with your girlfriends. Where Gavin Rossdale is not far off.

i'm secretly upset when celebs i adore get married.

I have for a while been an admirer of Brandy’s The Secret Project (and all things Brandy, if we’re being honest, because who else can make me feel in good company with my love of overindulging and Meg Ryan?). I have, to tell the truth, so many times intended to send Brandy a secret of my very own. But then I’d get to reading it and think OH GOD. SOMEBODY SENT IN MY SECRET FOR ME. HOLY MACKEREL. And then I realize that really, whew!, it wasn’t exactly my own secret. It was someone else’s. And OMG I AM NOT ALONE.

And it’s awesome. Truly awesome, I tell you.

Then reading yesterday got me thinking. I have some secrets I wouldn’t mind owning up to. Some secrets some people might get. Some secrets some people might judge, but who says there’s something wrong with weeding out the judgy folk?

1. I made my high school’s versity tennis team in 7th grade. But in the 6 years I lettered I was never the best. I was a pretty good figure skater but I never could beat my best friend in competition. I swam on the swim team but I was never what you’d call fast. I made all the magnet programs but I was never the smartest. I’ve let the feeling that I’ve never been and I’ll never be good enough hold me back my entire life.

2. Some days, like this past Friday, I’m pretty sure that I know who I’ll end up spending the rest of my life with. The kicker is that I’m going to have to be the one making the grand gesture. And part of that means laying off the tequila and the vodka and the curse words.

3. I really really really like Bojangles chicken supreme combos. Like, really. It’s my feel good (get fat) meal. And I eat it and dispose of it in private.

4. Writing number 3 actually made me feel good. Like, regular m&ms and a Diet Dr. Pepper good.

5. I am worried that my mother won’t be here next year. Or the year after that. And I’m worried that I don’t show her enough love and respect while she is.

6. I hide from people I know in public. They could be a good friend, a high school enemy, or a stranger I know and think doesn’t know me. No matter who, I hide. And go out of my way to avoid being seen.

7. There’s a part of me that has never touched drugs just so that I can try and be half the person my father is.

8. I think THE ENTIRE WORLD is talking about me behind my back. And no, nobody is an exception. I prefer to refer to it as social hypochondria.

9. Sometimes I pretend I really don’t like Britney Spears. (But I sort of do.) Sometimes I take what the roommate says about the shows I watch on tv being stupid and simple minded to heart. (But oh how I LOVE Two and a Half Men.) Sometimes I’m embarassed by the fact that I was an English major but I count every book by Sophie Kinsella in my top 50 list. (And many more chick lit publications.)

10. I hate talking politics because I fear that if I’m not well enough versed in a subject such as health care (but fully educated on immigration reform and abortion rights and gun control) someone will take what I say with a grain of salt and the field I work in with less than that.

25 keys to happy-ness right this minute.

1. Anthropologie. And J.Crew. Obvy.
2. Comfortable and unscuffed black stiletto heels.
3. A John Mayer croon, an unsuspected Counting Crows song playing from a jukebox, Jack Johnson appearances on Pandora or XM, Johnny Cash on a stranger’s ipod, an oldie but goodie country song taking me right back to 10^th grade.
4. A funny and accusing email from Mere that really cracks me up. Because it totally calls me out.
5. Breakfast with the daddy-o that I have been trying to schedule for, oh, a month.
6. Handwritten cards that pretty much say the world.
7. Knowing someone cares enough to say it.
8. Bunko. Or – er – drunko.
9. “Catatonic, in the closet, supersonic, gin & tonic.”
10. BRITNEY. “Confidence is a must, cockiness is a plus, edginess is a rush, edges I like em rough.”
11. Boy bff tripping it through Columbia and coming TO SEE ME! And middle of the night emails from him when he can’t sleep that for serious CRACK ME UP.
12. Twilight dvd previews. SHUT IT. And pretty much anything and everything Robert Pattinson. That’s the feeling that happens when you’re oh so committed.
13. The prospect of a goal. A personal goal. Or two or three.
14. Clemson. Clemson people. Clemson football. Clemson everything. I just can’t help it.
15. Spring. I. HAVE. SPRING. FEVER.
16. Being booked every weekend. I like it. Sure enough.
17. Going home and crawling into bed just because I can.
18. “Man man man man manly man man…” Episodes of Two and a Half Men.
19. A really really GREAT book.
20. Ordering the roommate something online just because it makes me laugh.
21. A well planned out run. For tomorrow.
22. Making plans to attend my next book club.
23. A new dress that fits just right. And an old one that still does.
24. Dreaming about a weekend at the lake that’s just a week away.
25. Not thinking about what others are thinking about you.

the girl's "don't" guide.

• Forget where you came from.
• Have rules about what date to kiss on.
• Think you don’t still need your girlfriends when in a relationship.
• Listen to your girlfriends when they’re unnecessarily harsh.
• Believe everything a guy tells you.
• Stay with the guy who repeatedly tells you things you can’t believe.
• Skip the pizza in favor of the salad.
• Create facebook albums titled “Me and [insert manfriend's name here].”
• Wink on his facebook wall.
• Be his stepping stone. Or his belt notch. Or the one who made him realize what he wants and that that’s not you.
• Forget to obey the rules of linen, seersucker, and white when with a guy. Just because he doesn’t know them doesn’t mean that’s true for everyone else.
• Lose your dignity. Too soon, anyway.
• Out drink your date. Duh.
• Go for too short or too low or too high.
• Think that just because he loves you with no makeup means you shouldn’t be wearing it.
• Trash talk his exes. Because a good guy won’t join you in it and that’s the only kind you should be around anyway.
• Take advantage of him. Or his family.
• Be at his beck and call.
• Respond so quickly to texts. RESIST THE URGE. Trust.
• Talk to people [about a guy] that have loose lips when indulging.
• Always wear a dress so he can take it off real easy. You need to be difficult at times.
• Forget your underwear. Alla Britney. And Paris. And Lindsay.
• Second guess your music taste.
• Sit back and watch him talk shit about your brother.
• Re-read old emails. PROMISE.
• Think every female friend of his is more than a friend. That is just dumb, anyway.
• Ignore every impulse. Or follow every impulse.
• Be overly dramatic in the end. Seriously, that ain’t classy. Just don’t be dramatic. Ever. The end.
• Expect closure.
• Settle.
• Start ring shopping or dress shopping after date one. That’s just frightening.
• Require him to sit next to you everywhere. Or remain attached to his side always. Talk about annoying.
• Give up your dream for his.
• Be a bitch to his people. (I’m aware this should say “be a bitch to anyone” but some people do deserve bitchiness, matter of fact.)
• Make all of his interests become all of your interests.
• Stop believing in the fairytale.