12/22/15
i'm thankful for how a few months of commuting on my bike has given me access to a whole world of driving feelings that i never experienced in thirty years as a passenger. i'm thankful to now understand how necessary road rage can sometimes feel, after years of not being able to figure out why my dad couldn't get over asshole drivers and of worrying that the bulging vein in his temple meant he was going to have a heart attack or stroke (i'm thankful that he is more mellow about it now). i'm thankful to finally know what the danger of moving through freshly slick streets feels like viscerally. i'm thankful, as a passenger whose m.o. in a car is always "oh well, it's okay that we missed that light—we'll just wait for the next one," to crank my quads so i can blast through the end of a yellow on my way home and get there thirty seconds sooner. i'm thankful for the way my body knows the rhythms of the traffic lights downtown, thankful to be able to feel, without counting, how much time i have get from one green light to the next to the next before the sequence starts to change.
i'm thankful for the opportunity to take pictures of graduating students with their advisors and mentors. i'm thankful to get to say silly things to make them smile more genuinely. i'm thankful that the exuberance of their relief at finishing papers and projects gives me an echo of the feelings of freedom i used to experience when i was a student in similar circumstances. i'm thankful that both my bosses loved their christmas gifts and expressed particularly the feeling of being known based on what i'd chosen for them (a mug that says "i'd rather be boating" for one, a bottle of sweet wine and a handful of scratch-off lottery tickets for the other). i'm thankful that the gym by the office is open this holiday season, since it was closed last year and that was annoying. i'm thankful that rather than letting the stray basketball headed toward me at the track pass by yesterday while i was running, i tried to kick it back to its owner on the court, even though i didn't do a good job and looked stupid (i’m thankful that i made the effort anyway). i'm thankful for the old towels being rotated in at the gym this week, which are light brown and smell weirdly like cucumber (whereas the usual towels, which are green, the color of cucumber, do not smell like cucumber). i'm thankful for my work friend t, who just gave me a printed photo of two knit cat butts (with tiny pink knit buttholes) that says "merry christmas" with a candy cane taped to the top. i'm thankful that a faculty member's son is coming to the office this afternoon and i'll give him small jobs to make him feel important and then play frisbee with him in the empty gym. i'm thankful i had the foresight to buy him a little christmas present in case i saw him over the holidays and i'm thankful that d wrapped it nicely in shiny blue paper.
i'm thankful for sun salutations, which i must always remember are essential. i'm thankful that i slept on them for the past few weeks in favor of more headstands and warrior and seated forward bends during my daily practice and started gradually feeling like things were getting stale. i'm thankful that yesterday evening, i did them for a half hour straight and felt incredible afterwards, like my body was new to me again rather than the shell of matter it felt like it was becoming. i'm thankful for the opportunity to do more yoga on vacation and to learn new asanas to add to my repertoire.
i'm thankful for keeping up with the kardashians. i'm thankful that the cold open of this week's episode was an extended scene at a natural foods grocery store of kim asking mason's opinion about the smells of various natural deodorants because her normal deodorant was not holding up to the stresses that pregnancy had exerted on her body. i'm thankful for the beautiful images of st. bart's, which reminded me of the tropical fantasia in just cause 3, which i played for about two hours on sunday after renting it from redbox. i'm thankful for kris's exasperated line to kim that "i would never speak to anybody the way you speak to me" and i'm thankful for kim's devilish child eyes and ridiculous need to impose her will on everyone. i'm thankful for the family's fears about kourtney being obsessed with intricate instagram stalking and to think that people who are famous still are just as crazy as everyone else in terms of checking who liked a particular photo and who's mentioned where (i'm thankful to think about miranda july asking rihanna what apps she had on her phone in that one interview (i'm thankful for this essay, which reminded me of that)). i'm thankful for tyga, whose music i have never listened to but who seemed like quite a pleasant and agreeable person to go on vacation with. i'm thankful for how he squirmed uncomfortably on the paddle board in deep clear water, white knuckle gripping the edges
i'm thankful that today's lenny letter has a new short story from emma jane unsworth, and i'm thankful that though normally i don't like or read short stories (which graduate school ruined for me), i did read this one and did like it. i'm thankful for her novel animals, which d read while we were on the beach in miami last year and kept laughing and having to read funny bits to me aloud. i'm thankful for the novel, which i read myself later and which is great. i'm thankful for this song, which i came across on soundcloud yesterday while walking home in gray spitting rain. i'm thankful for the synth acoustic guitar plucks and the sampled vocals and the distorted synth and i'm thankful for the way those elements and more are combined by the ADD headphone aesthetic of the producer, for the way new sounds appear in basically every bar but the whole thing still feels minimalist for the most part thanks to constant subtraction accompanying the addition, as well as judicious EQ. i'm thankful to have learned from the new york times daily briefing that the annual christmas lottery is so important in spain that it continued during the spanish civil war, only with two separate drawings, one for republicans and one for fascists.