thank you notes 8/22

i'm thankful to have beaten mario kart 7 with straight first places in every course except in the final rainbow road, when i was second. i'm thankful for rainbow road, which is always something to both dread and look forward to. i'm thankful for new courses and for old favorites. i'm thankful for the way the blue shell functions as a skill leveler and thankful for the occasions where i know it's flying toward me but i can escape it.

i'm thankful that i feel apprehensive about starting another week of work. i'm thankful to breathe my way through that feeling while listening to soft music from the speaker on the ironing board. i'm thankful for fleece blankets and deep sleep. i'm thankful that i can go for a run before work to burn off nerves.

i'm thankful that the kids who walked through our alley past our bedroom window every morning are back, which means that school has started again. i'm thankful that we realized this at the grocery store on saturday, which was suddenly much more crowded than it had been for months. i'm thankful for happy parents walking their excited nervous children around the store: i'm thankful for one girl, who, looking at plastic jugs of pre-steeped tea, asked her mom "how long after you open tea before it goes bad?"

i'm thankful that starting my sophomore year, i was able to convince my parents, when they dropped me off at school before the beginning of the semester, to buy me a glass jug of cheap burgundy for "cooking." i'm thankful the wine would give me a little buffer for my social anxiety before i needed to find a way to procure booze. 

i'm thankful to remember my sophomore year running into my friend s, who had freshman year been an emo kid in band t-shirts and skinny jeans with a ponytail but suddenly was wearing a dress for the first time. i'm thankful she invited me to go to a party with her and that i got tanked on the wine before i went to the dorm where she was working the desk to go with her. i'm thankful to remember how hard it was to be at the party, where she was the only person i knew, but am thankful that the wine made it a bit easier.

i'm thankful for this essay about sobriety and being a woman. i'm thankful to still be sober, even though work has sometimes really made me wish to have a drink. i'm thankful (every morning) for dana's notes. i'm thankful to get to read this book and this one. i'm thankful for this utterly bizarre toilet paper/baby wipe ad, which i kind of can't believe exists. i'm thankful for the copy, for the strange pinched but pleased smile of the model, for the unnatural, almost dislocated position of her arm.