thank you notes 6/1
i'm thankful that yesterday evening attempting to bake a potato in the microwave tripped a breaker. i'm thankful that i don't usually have to microwave baked potatoes, but had to yesterday because our oven is being finicky (i'm thankful this worked out for the best this weekend, making my low and slow rib cooking lower and slower than i intended and producing the best ribs i have ever made).
i'm thankful that my attempt to reset the breaker led to a long and frustrating series of tests of breakers and electrical outlets throughout the house which seemed to be broken but were in fact not. i'm thankful that the eventual solution, which i should have thought to have tried at first, is that the surge protectors plugged in to those outlets have to be reset after the breaker is switched back. i'm thankful, since i got increasingly hangry through the electricity troubleshooting, that i was able to pull together dinner quickly after restoring power (sauteed sausage, green beans with lemon juice). i'm thankful for the microwaved baked potato, which was not as good as an oven-baked potato (mealy inside, soggy out, not particularly flavorful), but was still (barely) edible.
i'm thankful that today my usual locker was taken at the gym, even though i found it mildly annoying. i'm thankful because that forced me to take a locker in another part of the gym and thankful that, unlike in my usual part of the locker room, there is a fan there that blows down on you at high velocity. i'm thankful i took advantage of the fan and for once did not return to work red-faced and drenched in sweat. i'm thankful for how empty and quiet the gym and track are, even though i miss the spirit of informal unspoken competition with other exercisers.
i'm thankful to have realized that the fear i feel from d when we're watching asian beauty snapchat and someone is rubbing mandelic acid with a q-tip across her tretinoin-primed skin at 2 in the morning and saying, "it doesn't burn too much!" is just like her fear for me when i say things like, "i bought a self-accupuncture pen from amazon! it delivers a small electric shock through the skin using crystals!" i'm thankful that our fears for each other are just mutations of our love for each other and desire to be able to stay alive together for as long as possible.
i'm thankful that while making a joke about stealing a key from the key box in the dean's office, i accidentally stole an entirely different key. i'm thankful for the frantic call i got from the staff member whose job is to oversee the key box and thankful that when i returned the key, she lept up and gave me a big relieved hug. i'm thankful that she showed me the paperclips she had used to pick the lock and that she appreciated my compliment on her skill.
i'm thankful that this morning, i disassembled and reassembled part of a cubicle in order to get access to an ethernet jack. i'm thankful that i eventually found a socket wrench that fit the bolts. i'm thankful for the moment when i got things aligned so that all of the bolt holes were exposed, even if one of the bolts had to be screwed in crookedly. i'm thankful to remind myself that putting things back together is usually harder than taking them apart, but thankful that this increases the feeling of satisfaction when you do get them back together.
i'm thankful to have caught myself "well actually"ing someone and deleted the tweet.
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