thank you notes 3/3
i'm thankful that i only felt really shitty for about two hours yesterday afternoon, which is a personal best so far this week. i'm thankful that while we ate dinner, d and i watched this week's togetherness, which i realize why people don't like but which i like. i'm thankful for melanie lynskey, who is probably my second favorite actor rn (after elizabeth moss) and who was so real and good in this week's episode. i'm thankful for happy christmas, which is the first thing i remember seeing her in and in which she and anna kendrick are really good. i'm thankful to think of how it's weird to think about how that movie has basically the same dramatic conflict as togetherness, which is the melanie lynskey character in a faltering marriage to a schlubby dude (mark webber/jay duplass) when her beautiful fucked up sister-in-law/sister (anna kendrick/amanda peet) comes to live with her, which is more evidence that we should stop making so many shows about stumbles in the marriages of middle class white people, though like i said, i enjoy both things.
i'm thankful for this great essay my friend c wrote for the awl, which includes the phrases "baby dust," "dildo camera," and "creamy cervical mucus." i'm thankful that c and i got along so well in our fiction workshop in grad school because we are, in addition to being talented writers, both reasonable and uncrazy people, which set us apart from many of our classmates. i'm thankful for the day our first semester when a love story i wrote was being workshopped where i got to workshop early so that i could make sure to get a seat next to d, who i had been flirting with off on and for a few weeks. i'm thankful that c sat down next to me in a show of solidarity about something shitty that had happened in our previous workshop. i'm thankful that i said "would you mind scooting down one seat so that d can sit here?," even though it was awkward and, i found out after the fact that it pissed off c, who is great at being righteously angry. i'm thankful that d sat next to me and was brave enough to ask me for my phone number. i'm thankful that we started texting each other at the bar after workshop that day and never stopped.
i'm thankful for the things d tells me about her character's romances in the fire emblem, like about how her avatar, who is a noble, is getting married to her butler (i'm thankful that when i gchatted her, she said, of her avatar "she's a nohr noble / which is like, lol, a royal class that uses swords, dragonstones, and tome / basically she is is a swordsman, a dragon, and a mage in one") i'm thankful for when she showed the a line of dialogue from the butler where he says to his love, "outside, you're my master, but inside, you're my everything." i'm thankful that this made me think of the a capella/bass version of the song "you're my everything" by the temptations, which i haven't listened to in a long time. i'm thankful that though i hate a capella music, i love recordings that are made a capella after the fact by removing the backing tracks, which always grants some kind of ghostly aura to the voice, the lingering bleed of headphones or other instruments. i'm thankful for one of my favorite examples of the ex post facto a capella, which is the one of marvin gay and tammi terrell singing "ain't nothing like the real thing."
i'm thankful that kanye looks at lists of the best VST plugins (i'm thankful that stars are just like us). i'm thankful that d gchatted me that she thinks "wolves" is her second favorite song on TLOP (i'm thankful that mine is "fade," which makes me feel like i'm the industrial lava pit boss level of a video game). i'm thankful for the student who said "i like your flannel" and how to make her and her friend laugh, i told them about how earlier today, an older administrator, a likable man who in bearing reminds me of george w. bush, stopped me in the hall, grabbed my arm, pointed at the cuffs of the "semi-formal" jeggings i wear every day because i am married and i want to be comfortable and there is no dress code here, and said "i don't want to hurt your feelings, but how do you get your legs into those pants?" i'm thankful i was an advocate for the magic of elastic. i'm thankful for the long conversation i had with the students about their internships this summer and how excited they are and what they're going to do and where they're going to live. i'm thankful they excitedly showed me pictures on their phones.
i'm thankful that when i got back from lunch, my friend t had left a tiny statue of a yellow chick on my desk with a post-it that said ":) this is a loan, please return when you're done." i'm thankful that i looked at the chick and the pile of pastel post-its on my desk and decided to make the chick a spring dress and matching hat out of post-its. i'm thankful that t and her coworker s were impressed with my fashion design skills, and that s, who always has interesting snacks, gave me a vanilla-almond wafer.
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