3/30/17
i'm thankful that my eye appointment went well. i'm thankful that though i made us late because i thought d and i's appointments started at 10:30 when actually just my appointment started at 10:30 and d's was at 10:15, it wasn't that big of a deal (i'm thankful that d didn't stay mad at me, even though that would have been justified, as we both hate being late to things).
i'm thankful for one of the machines they used to test my eyes, which involved looking at a one-point perspective cartoon picture of a red hot air balloon rising into the blue sky above a green horizon at the end of a gray road. i'm thankful to have wondered why that particular picture was chosen and i'm thankful that the internet has an answer. i'm thankful to wonder who made these images, which on the one hand are quite banal and simple and yet on the other hand provide focus and comfort to millions of people during a stressful time and help facilitate them being able to see the actual visual world, in its infinite richness and detail, more clearly.
i'm thankful, since the eye doctor is kind of shitty, that most of my exam was conducted by a fourth year medical student, who was very nice and who reminded me a bit of alison brie. i'm thankful that i didn't remember how much the drops they use to dilate your eyes burn, so that i wasn't really that apprehensive, even though i was then surprised by the sudden pain. i'm thankful that pain was shortlived and i'm thankful, in the interim while i waited for my eyes to dilate, to have taken a pair of those dorky temporary sunglasses they give you and gone to kroger to buy a snack for d (a bag of goldfish crackers) and me (two subpar donuts).
i'm thankful that when i returned, i went to aimlessly try on glasses without expecting to buy any, since the process of finding glasses is usually lengthy and interminable and full of compromise for me, and was surprised to find that i loved the first pair i tried on (a pair of raybans with desaturated purple frames. i'm thankful to have gone back to them multiple times to make sure i wasn't somehow misleading myself and then to have chosen to buy them on the spot.
i'm thankful that d came out of her exam, dilated herself and without her contacts in, and i told her about the glasses but she couldn't see them. i'm thankful for the older lady sitting beside her in the waiting area who told her/me that she had noticed me trying them on repeatedly and thought they looked very good on me. i'm thankful that she said they made me look "quite sophisticated." i'm thankful for compliments from strangers. i'm thankful, when her husband came out of his eye exam and they got up to leave, to have made a point to turn and warmly tell her to have a nice day.
i'm thankful, while waiting to go back in to have the final part of my exam, to have had a lengthy and vibrant discussion about the merits of different varieties of goldfish crackers and novelty flavors of lays potato chips. i'm thankful to delight others with my strong opinions about various snacks and am thankful for snacks as a topic that very different people can discuss freely and easily. i'm thankful to have made the receptionist laugh very hard when one of the men waiting said that he likes cappuccino and he likes lays but he does not like cappuccino-flavored lays and i said that he probably wouldn't like lays-flavored cappuccino either.
i'm thankful for people who follow traffic rules even when it is not wise to do so though am also thankful for this video of al franken at the gorsuch hearings and for the way his question demonstrates the power of narrative. i'm thankful for the differences between british and american reality show contestants and between online and offline selves. i'm thankful to remember when the new niceness was actually new. i'm thankful for this thread about downloading pizza. i'm thankful that there is a new lana del rey album coming out because i fucking love lana del rey. i'm thankful for paintings of ghosts. i'm thankful for the realization that bowser's game over laugh and the boo giggles are the same soundbite at different speeds.
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