thank you notes 6/2

bee and puppycat

                            June 2, 2016

                thank you notes 6/2

                        i'm thankful that though there were some crazy thunderstorms yesterday afternoon, they had stopped by the time i had to bike home. i'm thankful that i stopped at the grocery store intending to buy green beans and strawberries, but that they had neither. i'm thankful that instead i got blueberries and materials for a salad, including cherry tomatoes, which d loves (i'm thankful one of d's coworkers gave her a cherry tomato plant, which she planted in the front yard using a slotted spoon from our kitchen as a spade). i'm thankful that though i forgot to buy balsamic vinegar, which we ran out of at the end of our post-vacation salad cleanse, but that there was half an old lemon in the fridge, which i combined with some honey to make something nice and bright (i'm thankful, in writing this, to remind myself to buy another lemon on my way home tonight).

i'm thankful that the oven was working better last night (i'm thankful for d's theory that perhaps we are overloading the circuit the igniter is on by also using it for our air conditioner, which seems persuasive) and so our potatoes were properly baked. i'm thankful they were maybe even slightly too baked for d's taste, though i appreciated the crunchiness of the skin and the austere look it gave them, which reminded me of clambakes or the volcanic looking foraged preparations i've seen in food tv shows about certain scandinavian restaurants. i'm thankful for the "bourbon and bleu" flavored sausages i cooked, even though they aren't as good as the "green chile" flavored ones i cooked the past few days. i'm thankful to have stained my hands with the juices of too-ripe blackberries.

i'm thankful for the report of the week, a youtube channel i was introduced to by d, who was introduced to it by natasha allegri, the creator of her favorite cartoon, bee and puppycat. i'm thankful for the setup, which is the teenage (?) reporter either in a nondescript room or in the front seat of a car, usually clad in a suit with slicked back hair, vampire pale, eating a fast or processed food product and reviewing it. i'm thankful that of the many food reviews that i have watched on youtube, his possess this amazing strangeness which is unique to them (but perhaps owes something to a triangulation of nathan fielder and tom green and ed wood). 
i'm thankful that he doesn't edit out his chewing (or anything) or take tiny bites like other food reviewers do; i'm thankful that after fifteen seconds of chewing, he'll swallow and say something like "i'm going to take three more bites" and then do exactly that. i'm thankful for his atypically short sentences and hypnotic repetitions of key phrases like "the fact of the matter is" and lack of fear of silence. i'm thankful that he's also not afraid to show discomfort or even disgust in the context of the food he's eating (i'm thankful for the extreme distaste he shows for some domino's buffalo wings)(i'm also thankful to have learned that he has literary aspirations: "Lately I’ve been writing short stories anywhere between ten and 90 pages long"). (i'm thankful, while writing this, to have been reminded of the tao lin episode of emily gould's "cooking the books," which will never not be hilarious to me)
i'm thankful for the other food reviewer we have been into lately, emmy cho, who we first found on the tastemade snapchat discover channel but who has a vast youtube archive. i'm thankful that her videos fit well as web examples of the "sweet tv" sub-genre discussed by silvia killingsworth in the context of bakeoff. i'm thankful for the care and phenomenological flavor of her explorations of snacks. i'm thankful for her  warm smile and for the way she cheerfully says "itadakimasu" before she takes a bite.

i'm thankful that emmy's videos are polished and professional without being empty and soulless (which is maybe one of the hardest sweet spots for content to hit). i'm thankful for this interview with darcie wilder in mask magazine. i'm thankful that when i think about the problems i sometimes have with social media, i would also, in giving it up, give up getting to read great new writing like hers. i'm thankful for the part in the interview where she says, "My mom used to call me an acquired taste. Everyone either really liked me or hated me. It makes sense that I would do something where you want my annoying-as-hell voice, or you don’t at all." which i really identified with.

i'm thankful that last night for dessert, after a workday that for some reason left me feeling particularly drained, i ate a pair of the new "chocolatey caramel" flavor of pop-tarts. i'm thankful that d is still trying to cut back on dessert while i gave up on giving that up and so earlier in the week, when i ate my dessert pop-tarts, i did so while standing over the kitchen counter so as not to tempt her, the way i might not drink around someone who's just quit drinking. i'm thankful she said that while that was nice of me, she doesn't mind if i eat them around her. i'm thankful for the pop-tarts, which were good, even though i don't think they touch my all time faves, which are, in no particular order: brown sugar cinnamon, smores, and frosted strawberry. i'm thankful, after finishing the tarts, for the raisins i shoveled in my mouth out of the box to try to fill my craving for sweetness, even though i really didn't need to eat them. i'm thankful for the privilege to sometimes eat things when i really don't need to eat them.

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