thank you notes 6/22
i'm thankful for small planes that tow banners. i'm thankful for how when i lived in miami and laid out on the beach in the afternoon reading or working on my tan, they would be an almost constant presence in my field of vision, like chyrons for the sky. i'm thankful to have learned later that planes don't take off with the banners attached, as i had assumed, but actually take off without them, then swoop down to the landing strip again to catch the tow wire of the banner with a hook hitched to the the fuselage, pulling it up into the air. i'm thankful for the complicated magic of that. i'm thankful to remember standing outside at a bar in the summer drinking wheat beer with an orange slice in it and and telling my grad school friend n about having learned this and thankful for how happy i was that she found it as interesting as i did.
i'm thankful for this delectable emily gould essay about the state of the domestic goddess. i'm thankful for the book drugs, which is not any great shakes really but is a fun easy read if you like drug stories. i'm thankful for the book get high now (without drugs) that i bought for my dad and my brother for christmas; i'm thankful that they liked this as much as the doctor pepper can stashboxes i bought them the year before. i'm thankful that the valerian tincture i made turned out well and that i think i'll try to start some new ones and maybe do a fresh batch of kombucha with my time off before starting my new job next monday. i'm thankful for the binaural beats iphone apps i have, which i'm not sure have any effect but i do enjoy plugging in to my brain (via my ears) occasionally. i'm thankful that i felt too lazy to meditate last night and so gave up five minutes in and instead ate a bowl of blueberries in vanilla almond milk and half of a toffee and coconut chocolate bar. i'm thankful for the way that the addition of mixins can improve dark chocolate, which i normally don't like as much as milk chocolate because i am a simple person.
i'm thankful for this magical realism story i thought of about blake shelton when i heard he doesn't like for other people to see him naked. i'm thankful that i don't have any shame or embarrassment about my naked body anymore, even if there's ways i would change it if offered that ability via a magical realism story style device (i'm thankful to hope that it's not too late for my life to become a magical realism story). i'm thankful to walk around the house naked or in my underwear, which is one of the many wonderful things about not living with roommates. i'm thankful for the little scar i have on my hip from leaning in too close to an oven rack while roasting vegetables in my underwear. i'm thankful to remember one time when d was out of town and our friend k was coming over to bum some weed and i had done laundry that day but the dryers in our building sucked and so, not realizing i would have any visitors, i had laid my faded rainbow of american apparel across the floor to finish drying and he came by and i suddenly realized that he could see all my underwear and he didn't say anything and i didn't say anything and it might have gone unspoken but later, lazily stoned and lonely, i accidentally sent a sext (or really more of a lovt?) meant for d to him instead and we all laughed in text about this mess.
i'm thankful at how i cannot seem to make myself read zero k and how every time i try to read it, the prose and dialogue feels so mannered and ridiculous and not only can i not understand how i once thought don delillo was my favorite writer but can even see past that to how his influence osmotically shaped my earlier writing and how people in workshop would talk about problems with my style, the endless repetitions and clauses, the saying the same thing over and over again, but with a certain kind of rhythm and cadence, saying it again and again, swinging from comma to comma, turning it over to see new angles, and i would think they were such philistines and they were such philistines tbh, or at least most of them, but also tbh now i kind of understand it. i'm thankful that after talking shit about how bad i think tim burton is, the trailer for his new movie came on as preroll advertising for a youtube video and i watched the whole thing (the ultimate contemporary sign of approval?) and think it looks good, even though it will probably just end up being a less interesting version of beetlejuice.
i'm thankful for all the promoted tweets i have seen for the new power rangers movie, which reminds me of the power rangers toys of my 90s youth. i'm thankful for the gloves my brother and i had that had little buttons under the pad of your thumb which you would press in as you swung a fake punch at someone to get a "whoosh" sound effect. i'm thankful that this amazing technology conflicted with the way we our brains had programmed our mouths to make the "whoosh" sound when we swung fake punches and so often we would end up with a kind of polyphonic chorus of analog and digital wooshes as we fake battled each other. i'm thankful to remember my indignation about how when we played power rangers together or with other kids, i always got stuck with billy, the nerd power ranger, because i wore glasses, which i felt was deeply unfair. i'm thankful to remember how my dad had bought a set of boxed power rangers toys, which he was going to save until they became valuable in the decades beyond and how when we moved from north carolina to virginia, the power rangers were lost in the move and he swore that they had been stolen by the movers, who i guess were supposed to have seen their value as an investment? i'm thankful that after a later move, the box reappeared. i'm thankful that the movers didn't steal the toys, even though it probably would be a better story if they had.
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