i am grateful…

1) that markets return to stasis eventually
2) that i get to dress up fancy three times this week
3) having lunch with my dad at big daddy’s diner
4) the thought of going to echo & the bunnymen tomorrow night if it’s not sold out. anyone?
5) eggs
6) people who give up their seat on the subway–for old, pregnant, tired, young people
7) the 10 pm prosecco
8) getting a juicy new assignment
9) that even tho i am capable of my pain-body being way triggered, and getting paranoid, and sad, and hurt, and angry, i’m also capable of seeing all of those things and not living in them. that i can let them pass. because they’re just emotions. such a relief. to have roots in the midst of the sea.
10) that i’m officially beginning my facebook fast at midnight

feeling kinda mopey and sad. in balmy-ish brooklyn. listening to the new spearhead. wondering if nyc will become a shanty town some day. trying not to plunge with the dow. (not really cuz of the dow. just cuz.)

i’m grateful for:
1) my hot pink pedicure
2) the hot, hot pink corduroy pants that accidentally match
3) um
4) breath
5) hands
6) skin
7) my face
8) um
9) my shiny new fridge
10) that l. is my friend
11) the cashmere mushroom house (thanks, j.)

keeps thinking in facebook status updates

went to quaker meeting this morning with k. the cars were loud and the person sitting behind her smelled powdery and uriney.

suddenly wants four things that cost at least $200 (boots, hard-drive, coat, and mattress pad)

paid some bills

finally axed cable tv

was depressed by the debate

cleaned, did laundry, and prepped for the new fridge

is grateful to have a home and a job

feels more peaceful and thinks it has something to do with tomorrow’s new moon

is still kinda under the weather

went to a sad funeral

saw her first corpse

bought a neruda book

has been writing. but not what she should

is trying to stay away from facebook

is caffeinated

loves the gentle rain

feels soft

is glad she did a reality check about something she was beating the shit out of herself for–no, she did not hurt a single one of her neighbors’ plants

has been feeling like a bad friend

wishes the love flowed a little more freely from her sometimes

wants to kiss

bounced on her trampoline today

forced herself to watch all of the sarah palin videos today–full gibson, most of couric, and the entire speech. anything she missed?

thinks a cat would be the perfect thing right now. anyone want to loan her one?

is psyched for clean sheets

is re-watching annie hall in bits

is wondering if her new back-up hard-drive should be a time capsule or a lacie

really wants to stop letting things fall through the cracks. want to be her intern?

loves her hair. thanks, john masters organics

is glad her dad is in town

is looking forward to c’s wedding on saturday

loved what the woman in quaker meeting said about imagining a peaceful world 99 years from now–no prisons, only healing centers

loved what the guy said in quaker meeting today: at its best, hip hop is about giving voice to the dispossessed and taking risks. and early quakers were about that too. so early quakers and hip-hoppers have something common and he wants to express more of that outrageous, risk-taking, values-living essence. cool.

wants to learn to listen to people without saying the following words and phrases: wow, cool, awesome, that’s so interesting, that’s so funny. tips?

just back from the funeral of my best friend’s dad. she’s getting married one week from today. and thinking of paul newman too. r.i.p.

i’m grateful for:

1) the gorgeously vivid, heartfelt, honest eulogies
2) white wine spritzers
3) hot, homemade crabcakes
4) that i’m feeling mostly mostly better
5) that my new fridge is finally coming monday. happy dance.
6) meeting d’s dad. nothing like talking to an intellectual giant about brownies and kucinich.
7) writing
8) the idea of moving to canada. or just nyc seceding.
9) trying to wean off facebook
10) um. today is hard. i’m feeling more wanting than grateful, honestly. which could be the point of this. to find ways to overflow when you seem empty. so. i am grateful for the foxiness and philanthropic inspiration of paul newman.

a gray fall day in the bk. i’m grateful….

1) that i’m feeling human again
2) that i managed to take care of myself while i was sick. with soup and green juice and wellness formula
3) writing
4) fall
5) neruda’s poetry, which actually hurts sometimes. i’m reading this at a wedding soon and it slays me. especially because i wonder–can that be true? how often can people mean things like “Thanks to your love, a certain solid fragrance,/risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.”? i just keep hearing about divorces lately and they’re like deaths. the us dies. and two people emerge. which maybe isn’t bad–are we meant to be one bubble anyway? or a forever bubble? or at least a full-time bubble? my late maui acupuncturist agatha nagy used to tell me a lot, “relationship is the art of coming together and pulling apart, and coming together and pulling apart.” which is a pretty beautiful way to look at it. how do we stay supple in that–stay ourselves, stay present, stay open, stay loving?
6) sleep
7) npr podcasts
8) the savage love podcast
9) this hilarious, offensive sarah silverman video
10) jon and steven

They really are back–with the same, er, gumming wit (thanks, j.):

i am still flu-y and achey and tired. but today i am grateful for:

1) running water
2) chickens
3) a. and p. for giving me their csa veggies (and to j. for taking some of them off my hands)
4) potatoes
5) my dear dear friends
6) the revelation that i need to tend more to the things i care deeply about to root my emotional life in something other than people. i mean in addition to people. is it the book? teaching? managing? dunno. but it feels urgent that i get on it whatever it is.
7) that don draper is finally getting his karmic comeuppance.
8) the people i work with who all worked their asses off for me in my absence on my work this week.
9) trying to actually receive that support deeply instead of rejecting it out of guilt and self-loathing.
10) that i hopefully got my flu out of the way early this year.

ps: i’m looking for a mattress topper for my full-size bed. they’re all so pricey that i want to make sure i get the right kind–i’m looking for soft, non-vanishing support that you can really feel, preferably organic. not foam. probably wool. the kind that holds warmly, richly, deeply and would kiss you if it could but instead just cradles you to sleep at night in its lush embrace. anyone have something they love to recommend? other than Johnny Depp as Edward Featherhands. which might be hard to find.

thanks.

my temp is 100.4 and i’ve got the aches and snot to go with it. yuck. but there’s always something so validating about a fever. i’m feeling grateful that i’m not in the position i was the last time my temp was this high (when i was sick-sick). i’m grateful that my home feels safe and cozy. that i have friends who love me. and a job (assuming they don’t can me for getting sick at about the worst possible time).

ok, i’m going back to bed now.

love.

today i’m grateful for:

rob breszny for dropping these two gems, among others, in my inbox:

1) “The five most beautiful words in the English language are luminous, crucible, melody, undulates, and gratitude.”

2) ARIES (March 21-April 19): Every day for 44 years, the German writer Karl Wilhelm von Humboldt composed a poem for his wife, the lively and brilliant Karoline von Dachroden. In accordance with your astrological potentials, Aries, I will ask you to briefly imitate his prodigious outpouring of creative love. Every day for the next two weeks, please find it in your wild heart to make a sublime, or at least gorgeous, offering to someone or something you adore.

just one item today because i’m tired and it’s that good.

i am grateful:

1) that a friend wrote this to me in response to a moment of my over-analytical fretting and self-doubt:

“you know what? I think you’re perfect just as you are, and I think that you are a wonderful human being. we spend so much time trying to understand what we’re doing and why and how to be ‘better’ that I just want you to know that you are perfectly perfect as you are.”

amen, sister. and thank you. and to you, reader, i offer the same reminder.