this photo of a sunrise or a sunset (not sure which)
the interesting quar phenomenon of everybody (including me) constantly looking at their cloud photo app of choice's "{n} years ago today" feature and reminiscing/fantasizing about their past lives. according to mine:
i'm thankful that in my annual performance review, my manager marked all my boxes as "exceeds expectations." i'm thankful that she was so genuine and generous in her verbal praise as she marked the boxes. i'm thankful that since it's on the one hand impossible for me to get a raise or promotion in my position and on the other hand, extraordinarily unlikely that i will be fired, which would cause huge problems in terms of workflow and coverage for the department, the performance review was perfunctory and for the sake of a piece of paper that will rest unexamined in a folder in a file cabinet and was therefore not a subject of anxiety. i'm thankful that my manager and i ended the review with a hug, the second hug i shared with someone at work that day (i'm thankful for the first, which was from a faculty member after i finished copyediting his 44 page tenure review dossier). i'm thankful that i felt particularly annoyed at my coworker for most of the day on friday for some reason; i'm thankful, even though it was unpleasant, because this annoyance is a chance to once again meditate on the fact that though there are things about her personality that get on my nerves, in a way that i sometimes find almost unbearable, she is a good and nice person who is friendly and works hard and is good at her job and i'm lucky to have her as my coworker. i'm thankful to remind myself that her success and satisfaction is a good thing, for her and for our department and for the world, even if the way that she manifests them gets on my nerves, and that life is not a zero sum game, that for things to go well for her has no bearing on how things are going for me and so should be a thing i should continually work hard to find a way to genuinely celebrate. i'm thankful to muse on the fact that perhaps part of what i experience as a dislike of her is actually a reflection of my sometimes dissatisfaction with my own job. i'm thankful, all this said, to be reminded of how useful it can be sometimes to wear headphones at my desk to block out the noise of the world around me and the voices of the people in it.
1 year ago today, i was at a disney world resort near the end of a work trip where i had quit my job on the first day of the trip right after getting off the plane. the thing i most remember from this particular day of the trip, other than going to dinner at a benihana-style place in a strip mall and later doing karaoke of "death by a thousand cuts," was how this impromptu last meeting of the day i was having poolside in the late afternoon sun ended and technically this was a time i should have jumped into the support queue for a "power hour" but t and j were going to go to target together and asked me to come and i thought about for a second, i always made the "responsible" choice in these situations, and decided fuck it life was too short and then we got stoned in the parking lot and ate dried orange slices giggling in the back of an uber through magic hour and went to target where they sampled makeup and a random liquor store where we were found by a driver named jesus. all through this year when i've felt sad about not being able to see my friends i think back on that moment and feel very grateful to have made that choice.
2 years ago today, on another work trip, this time to new orleans, korean barbecue dinner with many friends where ec pounded the table and gently changed "we want meat! we want meat!", a funny selfie of me and p doing a shot, fancy donuts
3 years ago today, no photos but a thank you note
i'm thankful that i feel worried about something tomorrow but i'm thankful even though that isn't fun to know that this worry is finite. i'm thankful for endpoints. i'm thankful to find ways to distract myself from the worry. i'm thankful to have productively struggled with git on sunday afternoon and, after much typing at retyping at the command line, to have successfully deployed something to a remote server. i'm thankful for digital ocean, which has quite affordable hosting plans for purposes such as mine. i'm thankful that though there are still things that confuse me about git, i feel less confused than i did when semi-using it in the past. i'm thankful for this shade of pink, which i might make my desktop wallpaper.
i'm thankful that i didn't use a computer yesterday, in the hopes of reducing the amount of worry i felt. i'm thankful that though this wasn't entirely successful, it was still something. i'm thankful to distract myself that i folded and put away the three large loads of laundry that i did over the weekend. i'm thankful for the way that cleaning is something you can do on autopilot but that can make you feel accomplished and productive. i'm thankful to have cleaned out my closet (which is not actually a closet but a high shelf and then a large cabinet) and organized it to make it more efficient and useful and nice looking. i'm thankful to create space. i'm thankful for this artist who spent three years hand-painting the Quran in gold on black silk.
i'm thankful to have learned that president obama read the three body problem, one of my favorite books of recent years, and how he appreciated that “the scope of it was immense. So that was fun to read, partly because my day-to-day problems with Congress seem fairly petty — not something to worry about. Aliens are about to invade!” i'm thankful that he is able to find solace in that, even though thinking outside of the thing i'm personally worried about right now just makes me feel more worried and so is not a productive strategy. i'm thankful to have read a bit of life and fate by vasily grossman, which i had never been able to get into when i tried before but am appreciating now.
i'm thankful for the most recent issue of new york magazine, which has features on jared kushner, abortion, and a robot that makes crab bisque. i'm thankful for this perfect paragraph (describing a horrible thing, but with such crystalline clarity at the junction of an intersection) by rebecca traister: "That the right wing’s focus is not simply opposition to abortion but also reducing women’s access to contraception gives away the game: Theirs is an effort to keep women from making decisions about when, if, and under what circumstances to have children, and thereby to keep them from exerting agency over their families, their work, their partnerships, their sex lives, and their bodies. That the restrictions on access most profoundly affect those with the fewest resources means that abortion is not just about women’s equality; it is at the very heart of economic and racial inequality."
i'm thankful that d wanted to watch 50 shades of grey because she thought the trailer of the second one looked interesting and also really likes that song with tay tay and zayn. i'm thankful to have made a real effort at watching it with her, even though we both quickly realized that it is not just a bad move but a BAD MOVIE. i'm thankful in particular for the main character played by dakota johnson who is perhaps the dumbest human being i have ever seen. i'm thankful that d did not get annoyed when i picked up my phone a quarter of the way through and then opened my laptop and stopped watching altogether two thirds of the way through. i'm thankful for the olsen twins.
i'm thankful for the young pope, which i really enjoy even though i have no idea of whether it's actually a good show or not. i'm thankful for this emperor's new clothes feeling, which seems to enact how the characters in the show feel about the young pope. i'm thankful for a show that is tonally chaotic enough to confound my judgement of whether it is actually good or not, which is a judgement i can usually make very quickly and without equivocation. i'm thankful to know that to me that's probably a sign that it's good on balance, but i'm thankful to sit with its badness too. i'm thankful the young pope didn't go in the same direction with its soundtrack that westworld did.
i'm thankful to get to watch another episode tonight. i'm thankful for another thing from new york, which was a series of blind tastings of bottled water. i'm thankful for this cake d made for dessert, which is one of my favorite cakes. i'm thankful that one bag of frozen raspberries is enough frozen raspberries to make two cakes. i'm thankful that not only is there winter citrus, but that there continue to be cheap and delicious winter berries. i'm thankful for this metafilter thread about people who can't bear to eat certain foods, which is sad but fascinating. i'm thankful to feel lucky to not be one of those people as adult, even though i was a picky eater as a child. i'm thankful for rock egg.
i'm thankful to get to watch another episode tonight. i'm thankful for another thing from new york, which was a series of blind tastings of bottled water. i'm thankful for this cake d made for dessert, which is one of my favorite cakes. i'm thankful that one bag of frozen raspberries is enough frozen raspberries to make two cakes. i'm thankful that not only is there winter citrus, but that there continue to be cheap and delicious winter berries. i'm thankful for this metafilter thread about people who can't bear to eat certain foods, which is sad but fascinating. i'm thankful to feel lucky to not be one of those people as adult, even though i was a picky eater as a child. i'm thankful for rock egg.
4 years ago today, no photos but a thank you note
i'm thankful that in my annual performance review, my manager marked all my boxes as "exceeds expectations." i'm thankful that she was so genuine and generous in her verbal praise as she marked the boxes. i'm thankful that since it's on the one hand impossible for me to get a raise or promotion in my position and on the other hand, extraordinarily unlikely that i will be fired, which would cause huge problems in terms of workflow and coverage for the department, the performance review was perfunctory and for the sake of a piece of paper that will rest unexamined in a folder in a file cabinet and was therefore not a subject of anxiety. i'm thankful that my manager and i ended the review with a hug, the second hug i shared with someone at work that day (i'm thankful for the first, which was from a faculty member after i finished copyediting his 44 page tenure review dossier). i'm thankful that i felt particularly annoyed at my coworker for most of the day on friday for some reason; i'm thankful, even though it was unpleasant, because this annoyance is a chance to once again meditate on the fact that though there are things about her personality that get on my nerves, in a way that i sometimes find almost unbearable, she is a good and nice person who is friendly and works hard and is good at her job and i'm lucky to have her as my coworker. i'm thankful to remind myself that her success and satisfaction is a good thing, for her and for our department and for the world, even if the way that she manifests them gets on my nerves, and that life is not a zero sum game, that for things to go well for her has no bearing on how things are going for me and so should be a thing i should continually work hard to find a way to genuinely celebrate. i'm thankful to muse on the fact that perhaps part of what i experience as a dislike of her is actually a reflection of my sometimes dissatisfaction with my own job. i'm thankful, all this said, to be reminded of how useful it can be sometimes to wear headphones at my desk to block out the noise of the world around me and the voices of the people in it.
i'm thankful my feet and legs started hurting while i was running this week because that was a sign that i need to buy new running shoes. i'm thankful i have more money than i'm used to and am able to buy new running shoes more regularly, since i used to wear them for way too long and that wasn't good for me. i'm thankful that we took a walk across town to the mall so that i could buy my new running shoes. i'm thankful that i only had to try on one shoe and that i knew it was the right one without having to try on the other. i'm thankful for my new running shoes, which are comfortable and are a nice slight iteration on the shoe i was wearing before. i'm thankful that, while at the mall, we stopped in at h&m to look at the sales racks, where i found a nice blue blazer in my size on double discount for $16.05. i'm thankful that though i accidentally left my wallet at home, d had hers and covered me. i'm thankful that when we left the mall, the wind had picked up and it was suddenly much colder than it had been during the first half of the walk. i'm thankful that we stopped at mcdonalds for warmth and for lunch. i'm thankful for all day breakfast. i'm thankful for the generous salt on our fries and that i filled enough little paper cups of ketchup and for our joking about the bad copywriting on the tray liner (what does it mean for lettuce to be "100% fresh"? doesn't the fact that it has stopped growing and been picked necessitate the onset of decay, such that even the freshest lettuce most of us non-farmers eat is at most "95% fresh"?). i'm thankful for this lovely essay about fast food, life, and death. i'm thankful to remember how d and i had lunch at this particular mcdonalds on our first thanksgiving together.
i'm thankful how, later yesterday afternoon, i remembered another thanksgiving when we attempted to make and steam a variety of our favorite dim sum. i'm thankful that a desire not to repeat the stress and effort of that has resulted in more recent thanksgivings being charcuterie and cheese and wine binges that do not require any cooking. i'm thankful i was reminded of dim sum thanksgiving by lucky peach presents 101 easy asian recipes, which d got from the library on our walk home and which is a really excellent cookbook that i read cover to cover on the couch and will probably buy for both myself and my mom. i'm thankful for peter meehan's entry, in the pantry section, about using commercial dumpling skins, which begins: "sure, you could make your own dumpling skins. you could also use simple household tools to take care of your dental health needs. but life is not a big hey look what i can make competition, so celebrate the little shortcuts, like cheap and plentiful wonton wrappers," which our very stressful thanksgiving bore out completely (i'm thankful to remember the intensity of our frustration and trying to make har gow wrappers, and thankful for the appreciation that this day of toil gives me for even mediocre restaurant dim sum). i'm thankful that i bought a package of kit kats so that i can try to eat them the kourtney kardashian way.
i'm thankful for the martian, which we watched last night after dinner. i'm thankful, even though i don't think it deserves any awards, that it managed to adapt an incredibly boring and dorky book i somehow managed to skim my way through into a relatively entertaining (if overly long) movie. i'm thankful for the presence of jessica chastain, who, with matt damon, just reminded me of how much i loved interstellar and the fact that i generally like woo woo pseudo-spiritual science fiction much more than the hard stuff. i'm thankful for the way that certain of the "helicopter" tracking shots of the passage through the red desert seemed interchangeable with similar shots from mad max: fury road.
i'm thankful for this recording, which layers time-stretched versions of "every version" of "gymnopedie #1" on top of each other, resulting in beautiful waves and cascades. i'm thankful for this writer's argument that the "experiment reveals that amassed pillowy music doesn’t gather in density so much as exaggerate its inherent properties: a cloud becomes the sky." i'm thankful for an essay about "sad music" and what blue notes do and mean from jon pareles. i'm thankful that last night i watched, through a bent blind in our darkened bedroom, our neighbors' band hauling amps out of the basement and packing up their van for a gig. i'm thankful that i scoured the local internet trying to find a record of the gig, to know what their band is named and whether they have recordings out there i can listen to. i'm thankful i had no luck finding them, which just adds to their mystery—i'm thankful to only be able to access their music when they play in the basement next door, for the specialness of that scarcity.
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