like the island

Never be ashamed of what you happen to like. Life’s too short. Here’s some of the things/people I’m proud to be a fan of:

1. “Lex-i-con Valley,” a linguistics podcast produced by Slate magazine
2. “The Bartender Song,” by some band whose name I forget
3. 90s country music
4. Ampersands
5. Any character John Cusack has ever played, including that weird dude from Being John Malkovich, and especially Igor, who was animated but doubly lovable
6. Anything even vaguely associated with the Harry Potter saga
7. Arrested Development
8. Billie Joel
9. Celine Dion (an interest I share with my father, the rugged woodsman)
10. Charlie Sheen’s “winning” phase, esp. that epic auto-tuned song that came out on YouTube after his meltdown during an interview
11. Charlotte Brontë
12. Coca-Cola, as both a beverage and an icon, even if their marketing strategies make me grimace
13. Cole slaw
14. Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
15. Edith Wharton
16. Ellen DeGeneres
17. Exactly ONE Jethro Tull song, and it’s not “Aqualung”
18. Gaelic Storm
19. Green Day
20. Guys with beards (Really, just the beards. Sometimes the guys are douches.)
21. Hart of Dixie
22. Hedgehogs (I aspire to own one and name it Poe.)
23. Jay Baruchel (I’m not particularly infatuated with him, but I do just have this feeling that I’m supposed to run into him at a coffee shop somewhere and flirt with him a little bit and eventually have his oopsie baby, whom I think he’ll be a decent and responsible enough person to stick around and support.)
24. Lena Dunham, if not for her talent and grace, for being someone whose face I can make my profile picture during Facebook’s Doppleganger Week
25. LEONARDO DI FRIGGIN CAPIO (who was, I’m confident, the trigger for my early onset puberty)
26. Libba Bray and any work she’s ever produced
27. Maroon 5
28. Most of my teachers
29. Natasha Bettingfield’s “Unwritten,” (and her brother, Daniel, who really seemed to be underrated in my opinion)
30. New Girl
31. Paul McCartney, at all ages
32. Penguins
33. Puns and any variety of literary humor
34. Ralph Waldo Emerson (though it took me a while to realize how much I liked him)
35. Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”
36. Scissor Sisters—the band, not whatever else you might find on Urban Dictionary under that listing
37. Star Wars AND Star Trek
38. Sweettarts
39. Taylor Swift music
40. That Jay-Sean song, “2012,” which was pretty irrelevant after the world didn’t end and January 1^st, 2013 happened, but I still rock out to it
41. The ABC Family original series, Greek (of which I became so deeply invested I fell into a pit of anti-social tendencies for three weeks and burned through a laptop charger just so I could spend every moment on Netflix watching it)
42. The Discovery Channel’s new series, Naked & Afraid, which is, without a doubt, the most watchable survival show I’ve ever come across
43. The first few seasons of Hannah Montana
44. The HBO hit, GIRLS
45. The Office
46. The Police
47. The Tube in London
48. Truly terrible music videos
49. Twitter
50. Waffle House

People may say they judge you for the things you like, but in all actuality, they probably couldn’t care less about that Cher album stored safely in your glove box. It’s not about what you like, but what you’re like. As long as you’re a good and decent person, people will like you. If you have respectable tastes but never tip your waitress, cut people off in traffic, or always “forget” to flush the toilet, then you’re probably going to live a pretty lonely existence.