PSA: Alicia’s feel-good schedule for the rest of her life

Monday: Cutting and pasting arts and crafts (with construction paper)

Tuesday: Watching dancing – lessons, competitions, or performances, televised or live

Wednesday: Banjo lessons (because, hey, might as well try something new, and it’s true – most banjo music is unrelentingly cheerful)

Thursday: Watching and critiquing movies with friends – either movies with merit, or with MST3000-style levels of absurdity (“Mitchell!”)

Friday: Playing with kittens

Saturday: Reading aloud (with others)

Sunday: On the town near Boston (until relocation to the Boston area, the Sunday plan includes a road trip; after relocation, the “road trip” requirement may be combined with reading aloud or, in a pinch, banjo lessons; it may also replace banjo lessons once complete hopelessness at banjo is established)

All of the above activities are intended to be done in the evening, also known as “the best time of day,” or into the night, in part to allow sleeping in (a feel-good requirement) and the accomplishment of pleasant errands such as trips to the Asian market, in part to take advantage of the joys of anticipation, and in part to allow the enjoyment of outdoor activities during the day.

Other daytime activities may include taking a nice walk; talking with friends; cooking, usually with/for others; being “in nature” (i.e., seeing/piling up/jumping in fall leaves, smelling spring air, gardening); occasional vacuuming; studying foreign languages; writing thesis papers in breezy, well-lit rooms; reading Victorian novels and/or comic book anthologies; drinking tea or hot chocolate in fashionably un-matching mugs from Goodwilled teapots, etc.

Activities that should never enter in to the feel-good schedule include dealing with finances or any type of math (except where theoretically interesting, as in the four-color problem, and then for only a limited duration); talking to people who are distasteful or rude; going to the gas station; laying about listlessly for hours at a time (except in thoughtful reverie); washing dishes or cleaning the bathroom; watching dull movies or eating dull foods; complaining; being sad.

This schedule will commence as soon as a sufficiency of dancing performances, banjo lessons and kittens is achieved.