5/28/17
i'm thankful that though i didn't think i would get back to sleep after the dog woke me up at 5am and then, when i dragged him and myself outside, didn't want to pee, i actually was able to get back to sleep. i'm thankful that this dog will only wake us up early in the morning two more times and then we will be able to go back to sleeping as we normally do. i'm thankful for our bedroom at home, which is (physically and aesthetically) cooler than this one and where we have more than one pillow each and bedside tables and the kitchen is nearby instead of downstairs which makes it easy to refill your water glass without having to use the bathroom sink, which i do out of desperation here and in hotels but which always slightly grosses me out. i'm thankful for how happy the dog is to eat ice cubes, which is very cute. i'm thankful for the brief intervals of intense love we have with him in between all of the times he is being a little bastard
i'm thankful that last night we were watching the handmaid's tale after dinner and a dog barked in the show and he barked back at it and then kept barking until i took him out, after which i'm thankful he stopped. i'm thankful for this week's episode of the handmaid's tale, which was gripping and powerful even if its use of the extended flashback further distanced the show from the book. i'm thankful for the americans, which ended in a very very dark place this week and which continues to find more interesting things to show us about families and what it means to be in them (i'm thankful in particular for the scene with oleg and his father where his father tells him he wants to protect him not only because he's his son but also because oleg is "good", my heart).
i'm thankful for the last two episodes of this season of master of none, which reminded me of the things i like best about richard linklater or eric rohmer, the sense of sitting in a moment and watching it develop rather than rushing on to the eternal next. i'm thankful to understand the critiques that people have of the show and of the MPDGishness of francesca and to find them valid but i'm thankful also to admit that these two episodes were full of moments between the two of them that moved me deeply and that i think they are beautiful things. i'm thankful that i'm okay if the fact that they moved me deeply says something about my unexamined privilege or my limitations as a person or a critic because when i'm moved deeply, those things don't matter to me in the same way (though they don't stop mattering). i'm thankful to be moved deeply whenever possible.
i'm thankful that in the living room of this house there's an acoustic guitar in a case beside the couch. i'm thankful that i got it out the other night and began playing songs that i know to myself, singing hoarsely, and felt very happy doing that and did it some more last night. i'm thankful that though i have avoided the acoustic guitar in my music i think because i feel it's basic and obvious, especially for someone of my demographic, would make me just like everyone else i hate in the most boring way, sometimes there is a joy in the basic and obvious (or in letting yourself pretend for a moment that those categories don't exist). i'm thankful for the sensation of playing guitar after only playing bass for so long, for how sharp the strings feel and how sharp the notes they create attack and sustain and decay. i'm thankful to strum and i'm thankful to pick. i'm thankful to accompany myself.
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