11/14

i'm thankful to have roasted a chicken, which is something i hadn't done for a long time because of our broken oven and then because it was summer. i'm thankful that though i didn't have a lemon to prick and stuff in the cavity, i had some limes which were just going to go to waste. i'm thankful that i don't know, in an america's test kitchen kind of way, whether stuffing citrus in the cavity actually makes a difference in terms of moisture or flavor, but am thankful to have tried anyway. i'm thankful for the new potatoes that i cut and roasted on a sheet of foil until they were nicely browned—i'm thankful that i neither over nor undercooked them. i'm thankful for the particularly tart batch of clementines that we bought and for the two that we had as palate cleansers.

i'm thankful for arrival, which we saw in the theater on friday. i'm thankful for a science fiction movie which is not about fantasies of war or conquest or exploration (which almost invariably involves fantasies of war or conquest), but which is instead about communication, about how difficult it is to communicate and about what can result from the work of trying to express and understand. i'm thankful to have embraced d, who was crying as the credits rolled and the lights came up, and am thankful to have cried a bit myself.

i'm thankful for chewing gum, which we watched two more episodes of and which is so wonderful. i'm thankful for the amazing face of michaela cole, the writer and star, and thankful for all of the wonderful contortions she does with it, her smiles and grimaces and snaps and laughs. i'm thankful for physical comedy. i'm thankful for the subplot about used dildos and for the one where she accidentally does ecstasy at a fancy party where she is trying to impress someone.