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What makes me happy?

What makes me happy? Beginnings of years often bring up such questions. And, although effectively meaningless, cycles--years, anniversaries, birthdays--are beneficial for just that purpose. Examine, reassess, revel, or stew. Here are my pros and cons of life (in no particular order):

Good Stuff

• The wife - Not to be unduly sappy, but I'm a pretty solitary person and being with someone I can connect to is very nice.
• Recycling - I'm liberal but not a fanatic. However, I'm almost giddy when we take a carload of garbage to be recycled every two weeks. The amount from just two people is staggering--I would almost agree to a constitutional amendment to force people to recycle! OK, apparently I'm a fanatic when it comes to recycling.
• Flossing and listerine - It's the simple things in life. Like seeing a whole popcorn kernel fly out from between your teeth and then burning the residue away with listerine. Ahh. And I know I'm not the only one, so don't call me obsessive!
• Cleaning house - Similar but different. Just having a clean desk calms me--especially when I'm under pressure. The chaos of a schedule shouldn't manifest itself onto my desk. It's sortof like biofeedback [Wikipedia]: by changing the aspects of the environment that I have control over, maybe I can begin to affect those aspects I don't. Or something like that.
• Finishing a song/painting - For any Artwork, the initial idea leaves a deep impression. Feeling that is nice, but seeing it materialize as a work is really something to live for.
• Finishing a software project - Similar but different. The primary joy is that you're molding the world into how you think it should work. You're making it work correctly.
• Smart people - I love that "wow" when I read something that just blows me away. How did they figure that out?!? Thank you, Smart People, for keeping the world surprising.

Bad Stuff

• Other people - I won't throw out the Sarte quote, but many of the difficulties in life can be avoided by isolation. Unfortunately, many of the the good stuff is avoided too. I'm getting better.
• Conversations - Ah, now we're getting to the real problem. It's not other people, it's that I'm a poor conversationalist around other people. I'm trying to get better.
• Piano skills - It was nice to hear my piano tuner say that he purchased a player piano. He once played in jazz combos and is certainly adept. However, few musicians know enough songs to be able to entertain a group of people. People want a juke box, so I always feel kinda deficient when I can't just sit down and play anything. And we all know that girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.
• Drawing skills - I'm always practicing piano and coding: who has time to draw?
• Creationists - I'm OK if you believe it, but geez don't try to tell me it's science.
• My own intolerance - These things aren't that important: fix what you can and get over it!