11/28/15
i'm thankful for the line "my mama don't like you and she likes everyone" from the justin bieber song "love yourself," which made me laugh out loud as i scanned through the spotify "viral 50" chart in the car. i'm thankful that the number one song on the chart was inexplicably (since the chart is usually 75% edm and 25% meme-hop) a lovely lo-fi jangle of a song called "looking out for you." i'm thankful for spotify's discover algorithms, which do actually sometimes tend to point me toward music i want to hear.
i'm thankful for this kathryn schulz piece on weather in fiction in a recent new yorker that i read in a hot bath while it rained outside. i'm thankful to read that the early christians thought adam's mind was made from a pound of clouds. i'm thankful for reading that nabokov described his marriage to véra as "cloudless" and thankful for the new york times list of notable books for the year, a part of which paired with that description to make me want to read his book of letters to her. i'm thankful for the fragmentation and darkness of the michael cisco book i'm reading, but i'm also thankful to have cloudless books i can step into whenever i want.
i'm thankful for kourtney kardashian and her continued commitment to the quotidian. i'm thankful for the focus on food in the most recent kuwtk, the foregrounding of smoothies and cookies and grocery store trips when often food is an ambient big salad, bites of which are used to punctuate dialogue (though i'm thankful for those big salads too). i'm thankful for the hilarious face kim made while pretending to enjoy kourtney's warm avocado health pudding and for the shakespearean aside of a smile that she gave the camera when scott entered the kitchen from stage left. i'm thankful for the way that kourtney's problems with scott are in her mind not fundamentally about an addiction to drugs or alcohol but an addiction to events (he feels "trapped" in their home after spending too much time there and needs to escape to the clubs where he hosts, a death drive kourtney can only understand vaguely because of her personal mental makeup). i'm thankful that malika's presence was limited in this episode and has been limited in this season so far, since she is a character who exists solely for the sake of creating and advancing plot and tension and is for that reason the enemy of the essence of the show.
i'm thankful for a really excellent night's sleep and i'm thankful i haven't taken any stomach medicine in several days.
i'm thankful that we're done watching the man in high castle, which started off decently and ended atrociously. i'm thankful for wikipedia, where i could read about the book and about the differences between the book and the show. i'm thankful that we're done watching the man in the high castle and can now watch another (hopefully better) show.
i'm thankful for meditation. i'm thankful i did 30 minutes yesterday and 20 minutes this morning. i'm thankful that even if every session isn't perfect, it's worthwhile. i'm thankful that it's worthwhile in the micro sense that even in a weak, distracted session, there are moments of mental peace and recognitions of unique sensation and the deep calm in my nerves when the chimes ring and i return to the day. i'm thankful also in the macro sense that every session i complete is a link in the chain of practice and that i feel confident that the value of this will add up over time.
i'm thankful to be inside while it rains heavily on the roof of the house. i'm thankful for this vacation, which has been restorative, and i'm thankful that even though i started to get waves of that mopey "end of vacation" feeling yesterday, which felt weirdly like a sunday, we still have a whole weekend in which to luxuriate. i'm thankful that i have a job but i'm also thankful to have a break from the job, and thankful that it will not be too long until i have another.