“Maybe happiness didn’t have to be about the big sweeping circumstances, about having everything in your life in place. Maybe it was about stringing together a bunch of the small pleasures. Walking barefoot, watching your favorite movie, eating a brownie with vanilla ice cream. Maybe happiness was just a matter of the up sticks (the traffic signal saying “walk” the second you got there) and the down sticks [the itchy tag at the back of your collar] that happened to every person in the course of the day. Maybe everyone had the same allotted measure of happiness within each day. Maybe it didn’t matter if you were a world famous heartthrob or a painful geek. Maybe it didn’t matter if you’re friend was possibly dying. Maybe you just got through it. Maybe it was all you could ask for.”