thank you notes 4/14

i'm thankful that one of the visiting lecturers taught a faculty member, who is about to move into a new house, that feng shui is not only about the arrangement of things within a room, but also about the time of the month when you arrange and thankful that she marked up a calendar with propitious days next month for he and his wife to start their life in the new place. 

i'm thankful that yesterday, after the other visiting lecturer told me about his brother's wedding in taiwan, where, as the best man, he had to toast 58 different tables and, halfway through the process, paused to vomit before returning to the banquet hall for more, i taught him the expression "boot and rally." i'm thankful for when he patted me on the back and was freaked out by the bro/manziere thing i am wearing to correct my posture. i'm thankful to have hugged my friend t partly out of affection but also because i wanted to freak her out in the same way. 

i'm thankful that an older faculty member called me into his office for help printing a webpage and was amazed by my use of "ctrl" + "p." i'm thankful that i looked up at him from the chair and the light coming in through his window (plus maybe snot?) made his thick profusion of nose hair look golden. i'm thankful that he clearly dgaf about his nose hair and yet thankful also for the reminder to regularly trim my own.

i'm thankful to have been included today in carrie frye's excellent newsletter and yesterday in this brooklyn magazine post. i'm thankful that there's a new issue of one of my favorite newsletters, my second or third skin, today, and that, among other things (and many excellent gifs) it details the author's love of the folded clock and an awkward interaction she had with heidi juliavits. i'm thankful that in today's alipore post, there's a painting by an artist, luc tuymans, who i don't know if i've seen anything by before (i think maybe, but idk if i'm just seeing richter mirages) but whose work i find very intriguing.

i'm thankful i asked the faculty member who was asked me to proofread her conference presentation powerpoint how her children were dealing with the death of her husband's mother on sunday, which she had mentioned to me earlier in the week. i'm thankful that i walked by her office without asking at first because i was thinking about my own things but then thought of her telling me about her worries for how they would take the death and turned around and went back down the hallway and knocked on her open door and asked. i'm thankful for what it seemed to do for her to be able to talk about it with someone else, the loosening of her face, but also thankful for selfish happiness reasons, because of the laughter we shared when she told me that when she told her daughter, who is 7 and precocious and adorable her daughter, didn't really believe that her grandmother was dead, that her daughter said, "but how do they know she's dead?" and the faculty member said, "well, she stopped breathing, sweetie," and her daughter thought about it for a second and then said, "but are they really sure? couldn't she just be breathing a little bit? did they check?"

i'm thankful for the nice phone conversation i had with my parents on my bike ride home and then with d in the kitchen while we made dinner. i'm thankful that my mom decided not to take the job offer her friend had gotten her because she felt that, even if her current job wasn't perfect, she likes the people and the lifestyle that it allows her. i'm thankful that she talked about how her father on the phone is always hectoring her about getting a higher status job and thankful for how in sync our values are about the worth of money and power versus time and life.