12/9/15
i'm thankful for galangal, which i bought a knob of on a whim at the grocery store last week. i'm thankful that we have enough international students here that they sell galangal at kroger and i'm thankful for the privilege to be able to buy small luxuries on a whim. i'm thankful for galangal, which packs an incredible amount of complex flavor and power, and which is only rivaled in its intensity, in my experience, by sichuan peppercorns. i'm thankful it's more of a bass herb, as opposed to the lemony treble of sichuan peppercorns. i'm thankful i only ate a small piece of it. i'm thankful that i survived the period where i was eating raw garlic daily because i was inspired by ilana glazer saying she did it in some interview. i'm thankful for one of the most painful experiences in my recent memory, when, inspired by this, i ate a tablespoon of finely minced raw garlic on an empty stomach early in the morning and it felt like there was a flood of molten lava burning a hole through the center of my body and i collapsed on the floor with the pain of it, sweating profusely. i'm thankful that that experience, as horrible as it was, was one of the most painful experiences in my recent memory, since it was brief and contained and could have been much worse.
i'm thankful for poached eggs. i'm thankful that d cooked them last night and got the yolks just the way i like them. i'm thankful i remembered to put beers in the fridge in the morning so they'd be cold for dinner. i'm thankful for discovering last year how much better roasted asparagus is if you roast it longer at a higher temperature (i recommend 450). i'm thankful for the maillard reaction. i'm thankful that i did not leave the pot of israeli couscous i was waiting to cool out on the counter all night, like the last time i made israeli couscous. i'm thankful for the box of peanut butter fudge that a faculty member got gratis from a business partner and gleefully regifted to me. i'm thankful that d's friend in her japan sent her a box of the sweet potato kitkats that she wanted to try, and i'm thankful that though, in trying to toast it on a small sheet of aluminum foil as we were instructed to do for maximum flavor value, we really just ended up melting it into a puddle of white chocolate surrounding the wafer, it was still good and did taste uncannily of sweet potato.
i'm thankful, in the hallways and on the sidewalks of campus, for the end of semester bustle of wool and down and scarves and sweaters. i'm thankful that the girl who was running across a parking lot to make her bus made it just in time. i'm thankful to hear the kindly mormon faculty member's voice get the angriest i've ever heard it as he told a telemarketer to never call him again, using polite language but in a tone that i, for example, would use to tell someone to "fuck off and die." i'm thankful for another faculty member, who is at a conference in australia right now and asked me to water his plants. i'm thankful for his pale pink orchid, which is miraculously still in bloom. i'm thankful for the treasure chest of hershey's nuggets that he always keep well stocked to motivate his fellow faculty. i'm thankful for the funny (by the standards of office humor) sign i made and put on his door to inform his many visitors of his absence. i'm thankful for the student with a pixie haircut and a large black cyborg brace on her arm, who told me that she broke a bone in her elbow while in her friend's kitchen making cinnamon rolls when, for some reason, she began doing high kicks.
i'm thankful for how nice it feels to be able to give a student office supplies or to print or copy something for them when they're stressed and trying to get things done at the last minute. i'm thankful for the relief they exude when i tell them that yes, they can borrow my stapler. i'm thankful for how much this tiny gesture might affect the emotional contours of their day. i'm thankful for the long conversation i had with a doctoral student about lap steel guitar, alternate tunings, the fairport convention, and nick drake. i'm thankful that i had a nice conversation with the coworker i made the bitchy comment to the other day, about her dating life and her plans for her long vacation. i'm thankful that we had this conversation while we decorated the office with a small but well-lit christmas tree and various holiday tchotchkes. i'm thankful for the hilarity of learning that what she thinks the game twenty questions is is not what most of the world thinks the game twenty questions is.
i'm thankful for the minor but important distinction between being told or telling someone "have a nice day" and being told or telling someone "have a good day." i'm thankful that though occasionally on the phone or in formal settings, i'll slip into the robotic cliche of "have a nice day," i almost always use the warmer and more meaningful "have a good day." i'm thankful to remember how OCD and anxious i was in high school, when i depended on my mom to tell me to have a good day every day when she dropped me off at school, because i thought that that was like an incantation and that if she forgot to say it, i was sure to have a bad day (not that the incantation always prevented me from having a bad day). i'm thankful that while i still think of the phrase as a kind of protective spell, and while i tell it to d every morning and she tells it to me, i am not so dependent on its effects to ensure my happiness. i'm thankful for my customer service role, which affords me many opportunities every day to tell people, with genuine feeling, like making a wish for them, to have a good day. i'm thankful for every opportunity to tell them, and you, and myself, to have a good day.