thank you notes 2/19
i'm thankful to provide an update on the one hundred branded cooler bags that a faculty member ordered to give away to attendees at a conference, but that all gave off an incredibly strong industrial solvent odor that made everyone who smelled them lightheaded. i'm thankful that as a first trial attack against the odor a couple of weeks ago, we decided to stick lavender-scented dryer sheets inside of and in between each of the bags in one of the boxes (of which there are ten to twelve). i'm thankful that a day after setting this up, we opened the test box and removed one of the bags and aggressively sniffed it and found that, while the industrial smell had not disappeared, it had definitely been muted. i'm thankful that we decided to leave the bag on the credenza opposite my desk for a few days so that we could continue to observe how its smell evolved in the presence of the dryer sheet but in the open air. i'm thankful that we were so impressed by the work the dryer sheets had done, with how every day the bag smelled a bit less like industrial solvents and more like lavender-scented dryer sheets (which did not actually smell good, per se, but were still a huge improvement over the original smell). i'm thankful that the faculty member decided to bring in her young son on the weekend to add dryer sheets to all the rest of the bags, since she didn't want to risk exposing the office to the smell during the week or forcing support staff to work with potentially toxic materials. i'm thankful, though, that when she and her son got here and opened a box,they found that, even without the dryer sheets or any other kind of intervention, the industrial smell had completely disappeared from all the bags in the box. i'm thankful they opened all the boxes and the bags didn't smell like anything anymore, that all that was necessary was time.
i'm thankful for the ways that corny office humor makes my life and the lives of others better, even if it isn't actually funny (i'm thankful that doesn't matter). i'm thankful for the administrator in another office who thought that i was too formal and obsequious in an email to him and replied that going forward, we should always address each other by names featuring the word "bro" (for ex. edgar allan bro, c3pbro, etc.). i'm thankful for the moment when, after a few days of us doing this exchanging bro names bit, after i sent him some syllabi he had requested and signed a message "angelina brolie," he sent me a surprisingly emotional reply in which he said that for some reason he had gotten very emotional and started crying when he came back to his desk and saw my most recent bro email at the top of his inbox (he assured me they were "happy tears.").
i'm thankful that though i was really busy that afternoon and didn't get around to responding then or the next day, when i was in the shower the next evening, i started to feel anxious and unhappy and eventually realized that it was about the fact that i hadn't responded to an email in which he had been generous and made himself so vulnerable to me, which seemed like a shitty thing to do. i'm thankful that in the past, i would have let this thought fester and as time went on, i would have both felt worse for not responding to the email and yet, because more and more time had passed since i had received the message, would have felt increasingly awkward about the prospect of responding to it. i'm thankful that i am better about that now and that i emailed him back first thing the next morning with this message: "Thanks for this nice email, Bromeo! Hope you’re having a nice morning, maybe with a cup of bro. Best, Brosef Stalin." i'm thankful that he responded in kind a few minutes later and we are still continuing this stupid bit which brings moments of levity and connection to each of our days, like most recently when he asked me if I liked "JK Browling" and i replied that i preferred either "Madame Brovary by Gustave Brobert."
i'm thankful that broad city, a show which is warm and affectionate while also being actually really very funny, is back. i'm thankful for the moment where ilana tried to use her teeth to remove a theft protection tag from a shirt abbi was wearing in the middle of an art gallery, which made me gasp and turn to bury my head in d's shoulder like the scare in a horror movie. i'm thankful that d casually used the word "pizzookie" in conversation yesterday evening. i'm thankful that the word/concept reminded me of pączki, the polish pastries which i saw suddenly appear at the supermarket my first spring here and was excited about because they seemed like jelly donuts (my favorite kind of donuts) with strange fillings like prune, but which i was disappointed to discover were nowhere near as tasty as donuts. i'm thankful that i accidentally bought a 2 gallon jar of whole kimchi rather than a 2 gallon jar of chopped kimchi, even though i was very annoyed when i realized this upon when i set out to make kimchi jigae the other night and pulled half a fermented napa cabbage out of the jar, dripping bright red garlic and pepper juice across the counter-top. i'm thankful for the way i awkwardly chopped it by putting it in a large glass measuring cup and then dragging a very sharp knife through it over and over. i'm thankful, though, that once i actually made the soup, i think i got a better flavor than i usually do when i use chopped kimchi, which i wonder is because of the same reason that it's always better to buy canned whole tomatoes and cut them up yourself than it is to buy crushed or diced whole tomatoes. i'm thankful for my adaptation of this blasphemously nontraditional version of kimchi jigae, which is fast and easy to make (i add more onion and more kimchi, add extra butter, and use fresh* ginger rather than dried)(* i'm thankful for one of my favorite kitchen tips, which is, for soups and tea and stuff where textural integrity doesn't matter, to freeze ginger in a ziploc and then just use a microplane to grate the frozen root (peel and all) into whatever you're cooking. i'm thankful for how much easier this makes prep and cleanup and cuts down on waste and really made my life better when i was constantly drinking ginger tea to try to fix my stomach).
i'm thankful that it was warm enough today that i was able to run outside in shorts and a tank top, which is not something i have ever done before or thought i would ever do in february in indiana. i'm thankful for the roundabout in the neighborhoods south of campus which always used to get me turned around and send me off in the wrong direction and how i always know where i'm going now. i'm thankful for the man in brown overalls i ran by who was standing over the bed of his old pickup truck and carefully sweeping dirty sand around it (but not out of it) with a broom.
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