12/27

 

i'm thankful for dragon quest builders, a vita game i got for christmas (and also gave to my brother). i'm thankful for the game, which is very peaceful and pleasant, and for the story of the game, which involves you being a mythical figure called the builder who is sent to a land where people have lost the ability to build things and how you unite them by building things for them. i'm thankful for the parts i have played so far, which involve flitting across the map in search of resources and then returning to build rooms and items for the people in my town. i'm thankful for the things that i am asked to build, which are specific enough to give me a goal but not so specific that i can't vary them when i want to—i'm thankful that this particular intersection of freedom and challenge has led me to enjoying constructing things more than i did in minecraft when i played that years ago.

 

i'm thankful that i went running outside yesterday, even though it was supposed to rain, because it was somehow 62 degrees. i'm thankful that i couldn't not go out into that. i'm thankful for the strangeness of a warm day in the middle of winter, which feels impossible and yet happens. i'm thankful to have gone on a reverse circuit of one of my common running loops, which was a nice changeup, especially because it meant that on the most unpleasant hill i was going down instead of up. i'm thankful that about 3/4 of the way through, i started to feel more moisture in the air and i knew it was going to rain. i'm thankful to have picked up my pace in the hopes that i could "beat the rain," even though this is silly. i'm thankful that the rain is indifferent to my presence, that it will fall when it is going to fall without deferring to me. i'm thankful that it was warm enough and i was hot enough that when the rain did start, it felt mostly refreshing.

 

i'm thankful for node.js, which i have been learning and experimenting with. i'm thankful that i tried experimenting with it once in the past, when i had my old job with so much free time, but that at that job i didn't have full admin privileges on my computer which made it hard to tell whether i was doing certain things in the command line incorrectly or was just unable to do them. i'm thankful that i found it confusing and gave up, but i'm thankful since then for the work i have done at my new job and on personal projects since, which has made me much better equipped to learn about and use it now. i'm thankful for the learnyounode package, which has provided a helpful primer and useful assignments. i'm thankful that after using them often in event listeners but not really understanding what they are or why they're necessary, to finally get the importance and power of callbacks. 

 

i'm thankful that d and i are going into the office today and are having lunch with our coworker/friend. i'm thankful to hope that a lot of our customers will still be on vacation so it won't be that busy. i'm thankful that last night in a rut where i couldn't decide what book to start, i went with the witches: salem 1692, which is great so far. i'm thankful for a sad and beautiful new tinyletter from darcie wilder. i'm thankful for her thoughts on hoarding and editing, among other things:

"my friend asked if i think i'm a hoarder

 

 

i don't really care about the envelopes"

i'm thankful for envelopes both literal and metaphorical, for boxes and all forms of packaging. i'm thankful to have felt similar things. i'm thankful for a space to put the things i have held onto and share them with you: i'm thankful you give me a reason to hold onto things. i'm thankful to have learned that figs contain mummified wasps. i'm thankful for hard boiled penguin eggs, even though i don't want to eat one. i'm thankful for accidental net art. i'm thankful for "costco isn't the same without you." i'm thankful for frank o'hara and for joseph cornell. i'm thankful for this video of george michael rehearsing a tribute to freddie mercury as david bowie looks on from the wings, smoking a cigarette.