10 things I loved when I was a teenager and still love in my mid 20s

1. Cartoons. Bugs Bunny and Loony Tunes, The Simpsons and Futurama, and a few others. Everything about cartoons has a special appeal to me, the fact that anything that is on the screen was meant to be there, the fact that absurdity can crop up anywhere, since nothing is stopping the animator from drawing something completely different in the next frame, and just the way the world is created to serve and reinforce the plot rather than as a hindrance or constraint on it.
   
   
2. Queen. The first tape I bought with my own money was Classic Queen, and they were my favourite band ever since. They had a certain lack of self-consciousness that might have hindered their enjoying themselves and doing what they loved.
   
   
3. Long walks. I've always liked to just go out the door and just walk, without really knowing where I'm going or how long I might be. I used to daydream a lot and I think I still do. I read recently that sleeping on a big decision and letting your subconscious mind weigh it often led to better results, I like to think that just letting my thoughts stream around as I walked had a similar effect.
   
   
4. Kitty cats. I'm definitely a cat person. I have a dog now, and she's hilarious, but I just don't understand dogs in the same intuitive way that I think I can grok what a cat is thinking at any given time. I've always said that if I found myself in the body of a cat I could see myself acting just as cats do and being perfectly happy.
   
   
5. Listening to people talk. I'm bad at smalltalk, like extraordinarily bad. But if I can figure out what someone's passion is, or can get them talking about a subject that interests them, I love nothing more than to get them to share their enthusiasm and communicate what makes them interested in some subject. Part of that is learning a little bit about everything, so I can understand the basics and sound like I'm at least somewhat interested. I'm finding that I can engage in superficial chit-chat with someone for over a year and still feel like I don't know them well at all, but if I have the chance to have a nice, deep talk with someone maybe two or three times I feel like I really know them and understand them well enough to be totally comfortable with them.
   
   
6. Cuddling and closeness. Not something I get to experience very often, and I'm really self-conscious about my body in a way that makes it hard for me to not be nervous around people, but if I'm with someone I'm comfortable with I can think of nothing nicer than leaning on someone on a couch and watching a movie or TV. It can be a guy or a girl, it really doesn't matter since it isn't anything other than just being comfortable.
   
   
7. Coffee and Tea. Not the caffeine, but just the act of sitting quietly and sipping on a nice, warm drink.
   
   
8. Playing and listening to music. Musical melodies and rhythms can take over my thought processes nearly completely sometimes. Listening to a song and trying to grasp the nature of it, figure out what part of the melody grabbed the composer's attention when he or she was experimenting and they immediately knew they wanted to make that series of notes into a song. Searching for a song's soul.
   
   
9. Arguing. Not fighting or bickering, but the art of rhetoric and debate, as near as I had a grasp on the subject as a teenager. I probably have my parents to thank for being very clear and logical in the way they communicated when discussing topics like politics and the news.
   
   
10. Breakfast. Mostly for the same reasons as I like coffee and tea by themselves. In University one of my favourite memories was going down the breakfast at the meal hall, usually getting the same food every day, and just talking to whoever happened by. The brainwashing people usually have that scares them to death from going to eat alone didn't seem to be in effect at breakfast time, and people would just sit with whoever was there. It was much more pleasant and spontaneous that way.