thank you notes 9/28

i'm thankful that despite my team employing our new strategy yesterday i was still very busy and, despite working hard all day, was still even more behind at the end of the day than when i started. i'm thankful that despite this, i am still confident about continuing to try the new strategy, which will hopefully work better today. i'm thankful that though i was so busy yesterday, i didn't take a break, i will force myself to take a break today, because that is necessary for my continued functioning because i am not a machine. i'm thankful that i am not a machine, even though it seems sometimes like it would be easier to be one, since i don't think a machine could solve some of the hard problems i was proud to have solved for our customers and my teammates yesterday. i'm thankful, more importantly, that i am not a machine because it means that i have worth beyond my use value and productivity, that those are just attributes of what i am rather than my reasons for being.

i'm thankful that d has her annual review with our ceo today. i'm thankful she was able to schedule it for today instead of later in the week because even though she knows it will go well, having it looming stresses her out. i'm thankful to have helped her prepare talking points for the review after dinner last night in our darkened living room. i'm thankful, because she is a very humble person who has at the best of times a tendency to downplay her talent and accomplishments and at the worst of times a raging case of impostor syndrome that makes her blind to how amazing she is, to be able to articulate to her all of the impressive things that she is always doing every day. i'm thankful that she is committed to making the case for a raise, even though that is stressful, not just because she feels that she deserves a raise but because she feels it's societally important for women to ask for raises. i'm thankful to be proud of her for this and for many other things.

i'm thankful that despite the interminable process of trying to pair items with mobile devices via bluetooth, which involves much pressing of buttons and waiting for devices that are inches apart to somehow connect as sonar like beeps play to symbolize this dance, sometimes, after much spinning of progress wheels and figuring out that you need to tap on the device name even though that's not at all indicated by the UI, you are eventually able to pair the items with the mobile devices you want to pair them with and (if you are pairing an audio device) your favorite songs flow through thin air into the speaker, where they are amplified loud enough that when you touch the speaker, you can feel them vibrating. i'm thankful to be able to borrow d's bluetooth headphones to use on the treadmill because it is suddenly too cold to run outside in the morning.

i'm thankful that yesterday it was suddenly too cold, thankful that we didn't have to run the air conditioner all day long and i found myself, instead of my perennial running shorts and t-shirt work from home combo, needing to wear a pair of gray heat-tech leggings as pants in the morning and then in the afternoon to add a hoodie. i'm thankful for the coming of fall, even though the fact that we're going to miami on vacation all next week just as it's starting may lead to a bit of body shock when we return. i'm thankful for this thread of words describing different kinds of wind.