11/15/15
i'm thankful that directly after saying "this is boring" in the toy department at target, where i was killing time while d looked at makeup, I entered an aisle where a little boy was gasping in awe in front of a wall of action figures. i'm thankful for the way he said "whoa." i'm thankful for the special edition snickers "rockin' nut road" bar we got "free" at the grocery store with our coupon card. i'm thankful for industrial marshmallow. i'm thankful for the spoils of capitalism.
i'm thankful for hot tea.
i'm thankful for this podcast about high fidelity. i'm thankful for a chance to reevaluate something i uncritically loved when i was young, but to do so joyfully and with humor. i'm thankful for "who loves the sun" and i'm thankful for lisa bonet. i'm thankful for john cusack, who is the celebrity d's father said he was reminded of after first meeting me.
i'm thankful that running under the stardust bridge (dedicated to hoagy carmichael, who is from here) while listening to the high fidelity podcast yesterday made me think about the movie stardust memories, which I taped off cable my freshman year of college and watched over and over until the tape wore out. i'm thankful for the chance to reminisce about what was my favorite shot in a movie ever at that point, the moment at the end of the movie where the woody allen character is eating yogurt and watching his lover on an ordinary afternoon and musing about the wonderfulness of that and how meaningful it is while the louis armstrong version of "stardust" plays. i'm thankful that i can now reflect on that movie critically, with regard to the male gaze and, you know, woody allen in general, but also that part of me can access the naive romance the scene made me feel and still feel it while thinking of d and how much i love her.
i'm thankful for this video of spanish women synchronized swimming to "stairway to heaven." i'm thankful that i consciously avoided "stairway to heaven" as a prejudiced teenage rockist so that now it's not overplayed for me. i'm thankful for the power with which they kick the water during the guitar solo, and the way the leader slapping the surface in time with the snare roll makes me think of the who's performance of "a quick one" in the kids are all right and how during the ecstatic "you are forgiven" section, keith moon has water on his drum heads which explodes into the air as he crescendos.
i'm thankful to ride my bike with no hands along an empty stretch of trail.