2/28

i'm thankful that i went to casually mention this to d, that her hair towel had fallen on the floor (but luckily not in the toilet) and that this had happened at least once before and so it might be good to hang the towel in a different, less precarious place. i'm thankful to have been surprised by her reaction of intense disgust and horror at the hair towel having fallen on the bathroom floor. i'm thankful, thinking she misheard me and thought that the towel fell in the toilet, to have reiterated that the towel just fell on the bathroom floor briefly, not into the toilet, and am thankful to have found that she heard me correctly the first time and that it was the idea that her hair towel had briefly touched the bathroom floor that was the source of her revulsion.

i'm thankful for my laughter at this and her laughter and the further laughter we fell into when i said that it seemed that she was more disgusted that the towel had fallen on the floor than if it had fallen in the toilet, which she didn't react to immediately, which i took as a confirmation that she believed it would have been less disgusting for the towel to fall in the toilet, which made me laugh very hard. i'm thankful for the ridiculous hypothetical example i provided of whether she would prefer to eat food that had briefly fallen on the bathroom floor or into the toilet. i'm thankful she eventual stopped laughing long enough to tell me that the reason she would prefer it falling in the toilet is that i would have of course immediately laundered the towel, whereas because of my not understanding the degree to which she felt that the bathroom floor was disgusting, i wouldn't and didn't launder it (i'm thankful that her disgust was compounded by finding out that this same scenario had happened at least once before). 

i'm thankful that she and i both laughed harder than we have in a long time. i'm thankful that she moved the towel to a safer position and told me she will never ever put it on the bathroom door again so as to avoid things like this happening and i'm thankful that i work from home and so can do a load of laundry later today and present her with a clean towel. i'm thankful for her various towels and other items of clothing and hygiene paraphernalia around the house. i'm thankful to be surrounded my feminine things. i'm thankful to remember the weird catholic dream sequence early in 8 1/2 where guido is in a house full of all the women from every part of his life and it's time for his bath.

i'm thankful for madeleine's notion of a grieving period after reading a book, which is a thoughtful way to consider that period after reading a book where you can't get into the next book ("I always considered these extended moments of silence an important part of the process because it makes the warm glow of another world last longer"). i'm thankful to be reading the parable of the talents, which because of its resonances with the present day is far more disturbing than the already disturbing parable of the sower. i'm thankful for the strange position the earthseed religion holds in the book and how i'm still trying to figure out what exactly it means/is (just like the characters). i'm thankful, when that book gets to intense, to dip into portraits, which is wonderful. i'm thankful for john berger's description of images of things or people that are lost except in images and memories:

"The sudden anguish of missing what is no longer there is like suddenly coming upon a jar which has fallen and broken into fragments. Alone you collet the pieces, discover how to fit them together, and then carefully stick them together one by one. Eventually the jar is reassembled, but it is not the same as it was before. It has become both flawed and more precious. Something comparable happens to the image of a loved place or a loved person when kept in the memory after separation."

i'm thankful for this quotation he provides from henri poincare, which makes me think of programming:

'Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things...When language has been well chosen one is astonished to find that all demonstrations made for a known object apply immediately to many new objects'

i'm thankful that the first day of my new job went well. i'm thankful that my team lead is a great person and that they are happy with my progress. i'm thankful for my coworkers, who all seem like great people and who i look forward to getting to know better. i'm thankful for this bot i made to practice using our tools, which imagines new product ideas for kylie jenner. i'm thankful for algorithmic serendipity, though i'm also thankful for the silly ideas that could only come from a human mind (like the idea that kylie should name her inevitable eventual branded marijuana line mj after her grandmother). i'm thankful that i've almost finished porting the slightly more complex mindful_bot from twitter to slack. i'm thankful for slack, which we didn't use at my old job and which i wondered what the fuss was about and i'm thankful that though i still don't really get what the fuss is about, it is a nice tool that does the job.

i'm thankful for this mesmerizing peaceful lovely video of d's sister e making an iphone case. i'm thankful for the intricacy of the work she does, which is so impressive. i'm thankful that e is my sister too. i'm thankful for how happy the case she surprised d with made her. i'm thankful for how happy e is that d has been playing don't starve together with her. i'm thankful my brother texted me yesterday to tell me how much he and his wife like dragon quest builders (which i bought them as a christmas present) and how they are taking turns playing 3 hour stretches of it. i'm thankful to remember when i could spend more than 3 hours at a go playing a video game, but i'm also thankful for the benefits of not having that kind of time available. i'm thankful tonight to get to finally play horizon zero dawn, which i am very excited to try. i'm thankful for open worlds.