thank you notes 8/10
i'm thankful that i continue to find the energy to make myself get up and do my job every day, even though my job continues to be very hard to me. i'm thankful to continue to write about that in the hope that it will help me even though i know you would probably like to read about something else. i'm thankful that a work problem i spent a long time thinking was somehow related to a complicated thing was actually caused by a simple thing, the superfluous addition of a closing parenthesis here and a space there, which i did not check closely enough to notice. i'm thankful to have found that out eventually, even though it made me want to die to find it out.
i'm thankful for the coworker who responded to the wall of text i made to try to understand the problem and solicit advice by suggesting that in cases like that it's good to try to isolate something very small and simple, the smallest and simplest thing possible, and focus on that rather than get overwhelmed by the totality of the problem. i'm thankful that this is good advice which i thought i was following but was not and need to keep reminding myself of. i'm thankful that my coworker is always very smart and helpful in this way, even though everyone is always coming to him with their problems to get his help solving them when he also has his own to solve. i'm thankful after being really good at an easy job for years to be okay at a hard job and to be proud that i am okay, for how hard-won it feels to be okay, to be good but not great. i'm thankful that when i almost cry because my job is hard or i'm stressed out, nobody can see it because i am at home working remotely, which at least removes the embarrassment of that, which i can hide behind .gifs and emojis.
i'm thankful that i have been so wiped out in the evenings lately that i can't find anything to satisfy me during my free time, which makes me feel even worse, like i can't enjoy the leisure that i am struggling all day to reach and what is the point if i can't enjoy that. i'm thankful for video games, which usually work well to fill the holes at the end of days like this well and sometimes even do more, like make me feel happy like a child feels. i'm thankful to have been playing the game terraria when this job started, which often gave me that happy child feeling. i'm thankful i thought about getting the new game no man's sky, but i don't know if it is good or if i will like it and i don't want to buy it if not, since that would just depress me further, and the reviews have not come out yet. i'm thankful that instead, i bought starbound, the recently released sequel to terraria, even though it's not yet out on PS4, which is where i prefer to play games. i'm thankful for the PS4, which removes so many hassles in terms of configurations and pluggery.
i'm thankful, since i got the game for Mac, for the contortions i went through to pair my ps4 controller with my laptop and to find both ends of a working HDMI cable to connect my computer to our TV and get the resolution set correctly. i'm thankful to have started the game and to found out that i couldn't use the ps4 controller without some heavy custom configuration. i'm thankful that since the controller wouldn't work, i have a wireless keyboard and trackpad i use with my work computer when i am working while standing up, so that i could pair those with my computer to use to play the game. i'm thankful that for some reason, though they pair successfully with my work computer every day, the wireless keyboard and trackpad wouldn't pair with my other computer. i'm thankful that the keyboard at least appeared in the list of bluetooth devices before refusing to pair and thankful that i gave up after that. i'm thankful to recognize the irony that after a day doing technical support, i am unable to technically support myself, even though that irony fucking sucks.
i'm thankful instead of playing a game to be writing tomorrow's notes now, at 8:28pm, since that at least feels like something i can succeed at and accomplish. i'm thankful for the new raspberry lemon flavor of 'natural calm' magnesium/calcium supplement i got, which is much tastier than the original flavor. i'm thankful for the way that there are always small plastic containers of dates at the checkout of the little specialty grocery store and thankful that they are not that expensive and sometimes i buy them as an impulse buy. i'm thankful that even though a date is really just a container of sugar, i convince myself that it is something more, as if my exotic orientalist fetishization has an effect on a food's nutrient content. i'm thankful that though i was not happy when d bought grocery store brand neapolitan ice cream sandwiches, since i'm not usually thankful for fruit flavored ice creams, especially cheap ones, but thankful that i liked them much more than i expected. i'm thankful to have eaten two for dessert, even though i probably only needed one. i'm thankful for the way that dancing alone to loud music can provide a small measure of catharsis and relief.
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