10/23/19
i'm thankful that for some reason miso was in a good mood yesterday evening and, while we sat on the couch after dinner, she nestled between us and let us scratch her head and side and back and belly and seemed to enjoy it.
i'm thankful for rhythm and flow on netflix, which i have enjoyed and think i will continue to enjoy more than your average american idol or the voice, partly because the hosts are actually cool (last night's atlanta episode featured, among others, killer mike, big boi, and a zen-level-stoned quavo) and partly because there are new dimensions of critique
i'm thankful to have put an old yoga mat under our treadmill to stop it sliding around. i'm thankful for the cheap projector i bought for the basement which has made it possible to fill the wall in front of the treadmill with video games or netflix or whatever while you work out. i'm thankful that past me wouldn't have made this decision, but that present me appreciates how helpful this has been for keeping me exercising daily when it's gross outside and how important that is.
i'm thankful for another day yesterday where i got to focus in on some engineering work all day long. i'm thankful to refactor and reduce technical debt. i'm thankful for the PR review to have invited another engineer in addition to the one i usually pick to review my PRs for this repo, because a) i think that'll make the other engineer feel happy and included, b) they're both busy with other projects and so it gives an easy out if one of them has other stuff to do, and c) a recent disagreement with the one i usually pick, though we've resolved it now, was a sign to me that it would be better if it wasn't just the two of us but there was a third person to show a different direction and/or break ties. i'm thankful that though i wouldn't have been confident enough on this codebase to do major refactoring in the past, i do feel confident enough now, which is a welcome sign of growth i should celebrate to counterbalance constantly castigating myself for not being good enough.
i'm thankful that the weather is warming up a bit this week, even though staying inside because of the rainy chill has not been a problem for me, because i love the sun. i'm thankful for the song "who loves the sun" by the velvet underground (
https://open.spotify.com/track/1rJi8cf8OWsrX4CqBnMSoQ). i'm thankful to remember, at the last company retreat, how i was sitting at a dark bar and called one colleague i'd never met who is a POC the name of another colleague i'd never met who is a POC, which was one of my most embarrassing incidents in recent memory, to be one of those people that does that and makes someone feel othered, and i'm thankful that afterward i remember sitting for several minutes awkwardly on the couch in the bar next to the colleague and wanting to die of shame and not knowing how to start a conversation now (we were in a deep couch that somewhat isolated us from the other people in our group, though not enough that they hadn't heard my misnaming) and the bar played "candy says" (https://open.spotify.com/track/3tsFGpQxRG7fTFOS6Do0YC) and i decided to say how much i loved that song and that album, that they were my favorites when i was in college, the bedroom mix, and i'm thankful that she, with grace and generosity, said she loved them too and then we started a new conversation about the velvet underground and the music that sticks with you that was nice. i'm thankful for the opportunity to start a new conversation.
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