5/14/17
i'm thankful i didn't do any work yesterday and i don't think i'll do any today. i'm thankful that i had a really bad day on friday, probably the worst one i've had at my job so far. i'm thankful to recognize that, even though it really sucked to experience it after so long being away from those kind of feelings. i'm thankful to know that it was probably because of how hard i've been burning the candle at both ends, working hard in the evenings on projects after the normal hard work of the day is over.
i'm thankful to work at a place where there are so many opportunities for growth and to learn new things, and i'm thankful to take advantage of those opportunities sometimes, but i'm also thankful to recognize that i don't have to do all of everything at once and that when you have a difficult job, it's not only not weak but is actually necessary to give yourself leisure and distance and rest. i'm thankful to the bad day for reminding me of that essential fact, which i will hopefully keep remembering and which will hopefully help me have fewer bad days in the future.
i'm thankful that braindead and shellshocked at the end of the day on friday, with d out of the house having dinner and drinks with coworkers, i ordered chicken wings by delivery. i'm thankful that usually i don't order delivery because it's a small town and i like riding my bike to pick things up, but i'm thankful to have had the option. i'm thankful for buffalo sauce, which is one of my favorite sauces. i'm thankful to soothe my soul to have watched the office episode "pda" (the one where michael and holly are newly in love and can't stop touching each other during the workday), which is one of the funniest half hours of television and made me feel better.
i'm thankful for blooper reels, which i think are one of the highest forms of low art (or vice versa). i'm thankful for their meta quality, how they're the examples of the things that make the people who make us laugh laugh. i'm thankful to watch actors who have made me cry with laughter cry with laughter. i'm thankful to watch them try to hold it together, to keep up the mask of the character, and then i'm thankful to see them give in and break. i'm thankful for the intense concentration of joy in these reels, like they are comedy boullion (i'm thankful to think of the relationship between boullion, cube of concentrated flavor, and bullion, pure gold).
i'm thankful that d is really into playing persona 5. i'm thankful that on friday, she got out of bed early so she could play it for a little while before going to work, which was so adorable. i'm thankful that yesterday it was perfect outside and we took our first long saturday walk of the year. i'm thankful that she told me all about persona 5 and i told her all about zelda and we talked about the books we're reading, occasionally stopping so that she could take pictures of peonies in people's yards.
i'm thankful to have talked to her about how what i love about zelda is that i am lost and don't totally know what i'm supposed to do, which can be annoying but is also so freeing and so encourages a sense of exploration. i'm thankful for the lack of icons and for the sense that you don't know what's going to be on the other side of the hill or on the island out off the coast of the village.
i'm thankful that halfway through our walk, we stopped at a grocery store cafe for lunch. i'm thankful for the slice of cheese pizza i had, which was exquisitely greasy. i'm thankful that the table we were sitting at on the patio was one of those tables that is black and iron and has lots of little holes in its pattern and i'm thankful that i put the pizza on its wax paper down on the table and when i lifted the slice, the wax paper was totally translucent because of the grease.
i'm thankful for how exquisitely tired i was when we got home from the walk, a specific kind of fatigue i hadn't felt since last fall, which was enhanced (maybe even a bit too much) by the extra zyrtec i took because i could feel my allergies kicking in on the back half of the walk. i'm thankful to have laid in bed and alternated between almost napping and reading void star, which is appropriate since so much of void star is about being lost in memories (i'm thankful for this passage from one of the point of view characters, who has a cybernetic implant that floods her brain with memories):
"'Her mind is aglow with power grids, the ley lines of the freeways, water in free fall in the dark. She reminds herself that these are the machine's thoughts, not her own, and that she must let them go, but still they whirl in her memory. She inhales the sharp salt reek of the wetlands, watches the planes' choreography in the airspace over SFO; the fugue stirs, not far from the surface, and she has as sense that planes and bay are shadows and symbols whose true significance is hidden but that revelation is close. Her hand finds a stone on the asphalt, grips it—she grinds her fingers into its surface, savoring its texture, reminding herself that she is here, in this morning, in the world, not lost in the pages of some vast and secret book. She thinks of coffee, its heat and bitterness. Breathe, she reminds herself, staring blankly at the Bay's glitter."
"'Her mind is aglow with power grids, the ley lines of the freeways, water in free fall in the dark. She reminds herself that these are the machine's thoughts, not her own, and that she must let them go, but still they whirl in her memory. She inhales the sharp salt reek of the wetlands, watches the planes' choreography in the airspace over SFO; the fugue stirs, not far from the surface, and she has as sense that planes and bay are shadows and symbols whose true significance is hidden but that revelation is close. Her hand finds a stone on the asphalt, grips it—she grinds her fingers into its surface, savoring its texture, reminding herself that she is here, in this morning, in the world, not lost in the pages of some vast and secret book. She thinks of coffee, its heat and bitterness. Breathe, she reminds herself, staring blankly at the Bay's glitter."
i'm thankful that at dinnertime i roused myself from bed and made pasta because we were too tired after our walk to go to the grocery store and i'm thankful that there were two leftover chunks of parmesan in the meat and cheese drawer. i'm thankful that over dinner we watched the first episode of the new season of master of none, which was lovely. i'm thankful to consider how since my primary lens on italy is old movies, italy is a country that in my mind i always see in black and white. i'm thankful that i took time to meditate yesterday evening and ate half a toffee/pretzel chocolate bar. i'm thankful to have fallen asleep early and woken up late.
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