thank you notes 4/22
i'm thankful that i am ready to claim that i am legit sick and it isn't just my allergies anymore. i'm thankful, even though it sucks to be sick, because in some way it's better to just accept being sick rather than to hover in that liminal period where you aren't sure if you're sick or not. i'm thankful, even though i wanted to go running on my lunch break, that i knew i didn't have the energy and so i just did some lazy yoga. i'm thankful that i'm losing my voice and am congested, so that these markers indicate to the people around me to me that i'm sick and they express their sympathy. i'm thankful that decongestant doesn't give me anxiety attacks anymore. i'm thankful for ibuprofen. i'm thankful for flonase. i'm thankful for kleenex.
i'm thankful that in bed last night while i tried to fall asleep, which was difficult because i couldn't breathe through my nose, i listened to the space rocket history podcast's story of the apollo 7 flight. i'm thankful for the story of how the launch was uneventful and that the biggest story was that astronaut wally schirra experienced some sinus congestion. i'm thankful for the phrase "pretty good blows" in schirra's radio communication with earth on the issue: "houston, i have developed a head cold and have taken two aspirin. i've gone through eight or nine kleenexes with some pretty good blows."
i'm thankful that the nasa situation room and its on-call surgeon radioed back and forth across the atmosphere with apollo 7 about whether schirra should take aspirin or a decongestant or antibiotics. i'm thankful for the podcast host's brief exploration of the problem of having a cold in weightless space, how there is no gravity to let your sinuses to drain. i'm thankful that he was eventually told to take a decongestant.
i'm thankful that there was a 2AM press conference about schirra's cold, which was the first illness ever experienced in space, and that, because of a lack of other news, the astronaut's congestion was a front page story in the next day's newspapers. i'm thankful to imagine finding out that the whole nation (maybe the whole world) is thinking about the state of your cold, for the way that when you are sick it feels to you like your sickness is one of the most important things in the world and nobody else can fully grasp that (even if they're sympathetic or caring) and so the idea that the whole world cared about his cold as much (maybe more than) he did is beautiful to me for some reason.
i'm thankful to link to this entry in andy warhol's diary. i'm thankful for this 1967 john ashberry essay about cornell boxes. i'm thankful in particular for this paragraph:
"For Cornell’s collage, Surreal as it is, also has extraordinary plastic qualities which compete for our attention with its “poetic” meaning. He wishes to present an enigma and at the same time is fascinated by the relationship between the parallel seams in the ship’s sails and the threads of the web, between the smoky-textured rose and the smudged look of the steel-engraved ocean. He establishes a delicately adjusted dialogue between the narrative and the visual qualities of the work in which neither is allowed to dominate. The result is a completely new kind of realism. This, I suspect, is why Cornell’s work means so much to so many different kinds of artists, including some far removed from Surrealism. Each of his works is an autonomous visual experience, with its own natural laws and its climate: the thing in its thingness; revealed, not commented on; and with its ambiance intact."
i'm thankful for the faculty member who told me that he had learned ice cubes to water his orchids, which slows their absorption of water and helps to prevent their roots from rotting. i'm thankful for my friend t, who i thought was trying to fist bump me in the hall in a cold medicine daze but who rotated her hand and dumped three of the new coffee peanut m&m's that i've been wanting to try into my palm (i'm thankful they were delicious). i'm thankful for heather christle's erasures of the transcripts for the moon landing: 1, 2, 3. i'm thankful for the girl i saw stop on the sidewalk to pick up a dandelion and blow its fibers into the breeze.
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