11/27/15
i'm thankful for drinking slightly too much in the early afternoon. i'm thankful that when you drink slightly too much in the early afternoon, there is mid-afternoon and late afternoon and evening in which to recover from your excess. i'm thankful for the occasional excess.
i'm thankful for d reminding me, after we watched a television character attempt to tie a cherry stem in a knot with his tongue, that i had successfully done this once at a bar. i'm thankful for the small and silly sense of accomplishment i felt when remembering this.
i'm thankful that even though my run was difficult and my legs were sore and the temperature was uncomfortable (both too hot and too cold, despite what i thought were adaptable layers), i still went running and got a good workout. i'm thankful for the new route north of town that our new neighborhood has given me, though i'm also thankful for my slight fatigue with its steep hills and the way that indicates that maybe i should switch up my route a bit more. i'm thankful that though it is supposed to rain most of the day today, i should be able to get out and get today's run in before it starts.
i'm thankful that we don't have to do any black friday shopping. i'm thankful for five years ago, when i bought my black down coat and warm, thick socks that have become essential parts of my winter armor. i'm thankful, on that same shopping trip, that i bought a pillow and a toothbrush for d, in the hope that she would choose to stay over at my apartment when she came back from thanksgiving break. i'm thankful for the warm sunshine as i carried these unwieldy purchases back across town to my apartment. i'm thankful for my memory of sitting alone in my apartment and playing endless amounts of fallout 3.
i'm thankful for a great night's sleep. i'm thankful for the moment when d and i were apparently each talking to the other in our sleep and then woke up, each confused about why the other person was talking, since we were talking to each other in our sleep and not in real life. i'm thankful for the weird dream i had later in the night, which involved scanning phrases to find iambs.
i'm thankful that i meditated for an hour straight again yesterday. i'm thankful that it was more difficult that time, because that made it feel like more of an accomplishment to complete it. i'm thankful that the head and neck-aches i had went away. i'm thankful for the pain that built up in my right butt cheek over the course of the hour, for teaching me that i might not have been in the right position and that maybe additional cushioning would be helpful.
i'm thankful for the movie inside out, which we finally got around to watching last night. i'm thankful that i did not allow my critiques of inconsistencies in the movie's metaphorical modeling of the emotional landscape or of the obvious plot or of the gender normativity of the parents' emotions or of pixar trying to assuage bay-area start-up parent guilt to get too much in the way of our enjoyment of the film, which was well-intentioned and ultimately enjoyable. i'm thankful for the visual play during the sequence dealing with abstraction and for the imaginary friend voiced by richard kind. i'm thankful for the sequence in the memory dump with the rocket wagon powered by song. i'm thankful for the movie's reminder that as time dims the emotional impact of our past experiences into memory, we can forget how sadness is interlocked with happiness and vice versa. i'm thankful for julian casablancas, who i decided would be my personal version of the "disgust" emotion voiced by mindy kaling.
i'm thankful for the theory i heard, on an episode of this podcast, that ghosts were made extinct by electricity because its light destroyed their natural habitat.