Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears

i'm thankful that though i got very lost in boston on a cold night trying to get to the izakaya where the company was having a dinner for me, i finally figured out my way and was only a few minutes late. i'm thankful that when i got there, the teammate ordering for the table asked if i had any no-gos foodwise and i said that i liked everything and they all joked that it was a test and i had passed. i'm thankful for how much laughter there was at the table and also that this company has very different norms about casual profanity, which is fucking great

 

i'm thankful that though the restaurant was very loud, there were still lots of good conversations i got to be a part of. i'm thankful to have discussed the use of net produce bags at the grocery store with a teammate had them. i'm thankful that people liked one of my favorite ice breaker questions i discovered at my last job, which is asking what direction people face when they're in the shower, a question that you probably have never thought about but almost certainly have a strong position on.

 

i'm thankful, in writing the first paragraph, to have been reminded of the song "lost in boston" by the walkmen, one of my favorite bands of all time but one i haven't really listened to lately. i'm thankful, on my way to the airport, to have used the Government Center subway stop memorialized in the classic modern lovers song. (i'm thankful to have gone back and read one of my favorite thank you notes from the very beginning of this*, which is about his song "the morning of our lives": https://tinyletter.com/thankyounotes/letters/thank-you-notes-1-8).

 

i'm thankful i get to work with kh again, which means talking to her every day like i did when she worked at my last job. i'm thankful that i found out i got some stock options, which i have never had before. i'm thankful that my new computer came and that i ordered a new ultra-wide monitor. i'm thankful to have gotten to start over with my work email and to try to do inbox zero going forward, which i did not do at my last job and have not done in this mailbox, which currently has 1,100 unread emails. i'm thankful for the feeling when i got home for my first day of remote work yesterday of starting my workday without fear or dread or anxiety, which is such a welcome change.

 

i'm thankful that i had a window seat on my flight home, even though i generally try for aisle so that i can have more space and because hydration is important to me which means also easily getting up to pee is important to me, because the flight was my first flight in a long time that wasn't completely full and so the middle seat was empty and also right when i needed to pee the man in the aisle seat also got up to pee so i didn't have to disturb him. i'm thankful to have watched, via inflight wifi, the fast and the furious: hobbes and shaw on my phone and i'm thankful that it is exactly what you would want from that movie. i'm thankful for the experience of looking out the window of a cross country flight on a clear night where you can see stars above and lights below and it feels like being in space.