Five old little pleasures rediscovered over the weekend:

1. When I lived in Massachusetts and still had a car, I listened to the radio. By which I mean I listened mostly to NPR. New York isn’t really a car-friendly kind of place unless you’re a cab driver or enormously wealthy, so I left my adorably ugly little Volvo behind when I moved and I haven’t really listened to any radio since. I spent Wednesday night at my brother’s, however, and his alarm is a clock radio tuned to NPR, to which we woke up on Thursday morning. It seemed so much more pleasant to wake up to a nice British man reading the news than it is to wake up to my usual phenomenally loud playlist (my own alarm is Audion) that as soon as I got home last night I figured out what number the local NPR station is here and have spent all morning listening to On The Media and The Next Big Thing, which might actually be the best thing ever.

2. A Common Reader is what Amazon Recommendations dreams of being, only so much better. It’s a book catalog that acts as that one friend with impeccable taste who always has a stack of books to loan you, something you just have to read. The reviews are intriguing and well-written, and the catalog constitutes a good read in and of itself.

3. Couch sleeping is something I rarely do at my own apartment because my bed is sort of in the middle of everything. It’s closer to the desk or the PS2 or whatever else might be occupying me to the point of exhaustion, so that’s usually where I crawl when I need to not be awake. My parents, though, have not one but two phenomenally comfortable couches, and when we staggered home from our Thursday feast the one in their living room is where I immediately curled up and enjoyed the first of several extremely satisfying couch sleeps.

4. Squash. No, really - the really bright orange mashed kind that looks phenomenally unappetizing, Vitamin A aside. The neglected foster child of Thanksgiving side dishes. I’ve always rather liked it, but for some reason I never, ever buy any. After my Auntie Chris’s squash this year I’m prepared to go buy the entire supply from any and all surrounding markets - this stuff is incredible, and all I want to know is why I don’t just eat it all the time.

5. Harry Potter is one of those things I’m slightly embarrassed to talk about. I realize they’re kids’ books, and the whole franchise that’s been built up around them is tacky and unappealing, and I cringe as much as you do when overhearing adults discussing the finer points of Hogwart’s history on the subway. And yet, I like it anyway. I read the books last year at Tycho’s suggestion, as my visit to Seattle happened to coincide with the opening of the first movie and we would all be going to see it. I enjoyed the books more than the first movie, but I’ve still sort of had a hankering to go and see Chamber of Secrets since it opened a couple of weeks ago. I wasn’t expecting much; the second novel was my least favorite of the four, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if the second movie had been very disappointing. I saw it on Friday with the family, though, and I have to say I really enjoyed it. My brother pointed out that the movies seem like they’re just on the edge of being really good, but they have these weird loose ends and awkward transitions. I fully agree, but what I like about them is just that you really do get wrapped up in this charming little existence for a couple of hours; it’s mild and unthreatening escapism at its best.

Five new little pleasures discovered over the weekend:

1. The pop tops on bottles of Grolsch seem to have infinite possibilities. Never mind that once having successfully pried one off, I can’t seem to think of any of them. If nothing else, I suspect they would (as Isaac suggested) make really cool keychains.

2. Football is one of those things I’ve always had an unfair bias against. Memories of the unfortunate face-painting Patriots fans in high school and of all those Simpsons episodes cancelled in favor of games that ran long have prevented me from enjoying a game in which the last six minutes somehow always last an hour, but I actually watched a little on Thursday and it wasn’t so bad. I had to have the rules patiently and repeatedly explained to me, but really when you’re full of an excellent breakfast and have nothing to do until an expected excellent dinner, there are worse ways to pass the time.

3. I don’t know anything about wine. No, I mean literally nothing. It’s not that I have anything against wine, but when I’m at the liquor store I’m too intimidated by the incredible variety and my incredible ignorance and usually end up with a bottle of Skyy instead. Over the weekend I threw myself on the mercy of those much wiser than me in such matters and I’ve now got a nice little list of what I liked and what I really liked, and thusly armed I feel fully prepared to go buy my first bottle of wine.

4. That Patrick O’Brien series is something everyone’s been telling me to read for years, but I haven’t because the first of the books mysteriously vanished from my parents’ house and I’m reluctant to start with the second. We picked up another copy of Master and Commander while I was there, which I dove into on my way home. Which brings me to:

5. The train. I’ve always, always dreaded the train ride to and from Boston. It’s long, it’s uncomfortable, it’s frequently delayed. The secret, it turns out, is to either be sleepy enough to just spend the entire trip napping - which is not at all unpleasant - or to have a really, really good book that you have no chance of finishing before arriving at Penn or South Station - which is even less so.