i am grateful for:

1) delicious days on my own schedule

2) the glory that is fantastic mr. fox (despite the incredibly sexist message and approach–and um, what the hell was up with the black power salute?). despite its social problems it’s a gorgeous, funny, emotive, awesome movie. and foxes meditate!

3) a collaborative t-day mini feast, veggie-style. so yum.

4) pumpkin tarts from joyce bakery

5) an inexplicable sudden distaste for coffee

6) the gold stars i just made and hung from my ceiling. magic!

7) e. for helping with gold stars

8) touching dreadlocks for possibly the first time. so cool, those creatures. i want to name them and give them eyes and clothes and dialogue.

9) free writing for the first time in ages. such good juicy stuff. thinking about starting a monthly free-writing circle. any interested folks?

10) buying and hauling home a christmas tree that is making me really happy every time i look at it.

11) no alarm clocks, no subways for four days

12) brooklyn

13) keeping the holidays simpler

14) sea salt brownies from trader joes

15) kirtan! watching j. dip herself up to her ankle bells in performing. so fun to bounce and sing and bathe in the shakti.

16) being able to feel my inner pulse a little bit in the quiet

17) gen with jenn. great dumplings, better talking.

18) how happy poeple seem even in the midst of holiday stress–to be eating, gathering, collecting

19) my friends

20) parsley plus cleanser–and that my ordinary supermarket carries it now

21) white wine and super-salad

22) clean clothes

23) running into neighbors

24) sleeeeep

i am grateful for:

1) the leaves kindly falling and allowing the light in my apartment

2) the word “magnanimous”

3) peace cranes

4) finding a buddha in a corner of an abandoned office that’s just like the buddha on my desk

5) this, that came in my “bug bite” chocolate square the other day: “golden emperor moth: the male moth is recognized by bushy, feathered antennae and angular forewings. adult moths have primitive mouthparts and do not feed. the caterpillars are a striking dark brown color with yellow triangles along each side and metallic blue protrusions along the dorsal surface. they feed on vines until they are ready to spin their wild silk cocoons.” wow, right? not a wasted word and every sentence is gorgeous and i want nothing more than to watch insects now.

6) the idea of being ready to spin a wild silk cocoon

7) friendliness. the word, the concept, the reminder.

8) whomever invented houseplants

9) cranberries

10) three-day work weeks

i am grateful for:

1) cypress oil

2) the park in the sunshine. dragging my feet through piles of leaves. crunch, drag, crunch drag.

3) trying out some byron katie work. and having a cool experience the rest of the night–feeling more myself.

4) hot pink cowgirl boots (which might be more potent than byron katie).

5) lt’s veggie chili

6) restoring and nurturing this weekend. adrenal function seems to be back up-ish.

7) a tub full of epsom salts. really, that stuff is magic if you use enough.

8) getting the preciousness

9) people who love me–remembering they exist, and have

10) a weekend of rest and only one one-way subway ride

11) prospect heights

12) when music lights my heart so that my arms feel like dancing

13) breath, the invisible pump. and the notion that we don’t have to do any backflips to earn that privilege. not everything has to be pushed, earned, worked. some things we can just hold in our hands, fluttering, as they are.

14) “you do not have to be good. you do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” i know i quote that here a lot. but in my current state of deep exhaustion and failed trying and peace within that it makes so much sense. nothing is ever enough. and yet everything is perfect. you are perfect in your imperfection and some day we will know the whys of it all. but for now, maybe we can just rest on the perfection of the in-breath, the out-breath, that there is no cost of admission to be here.

15) hugs that feel present

16) not losing anything

17) flannel

18) the kitty at the bodega who sleeps on the newspapers in the window

19) my blue pedi in “mesmerize.” i love that someone out there understands why one would want indigo toenails enough to call the color mesmerize.

20) jeanne claude, rip.

21) seeing the two st. bernards who live on my block. twins.

22) bhangra

i am grateful for

1) earned sleepiness

2) the silence when a loud noise stops

3) miso soup

4) miss a. and friend in from chi-town. mwuh!

5) amazing gifts of art and amma oil and music love

6) kd, still playing in my cells

7) a three-day week coming up

8) gisela at the nail salon near work. 20-minute chair massage magic.

9) luff

10) saturday (cue happy snoopy dance music)

so…let’s recap: bag stolen, first live tv appearance an insane semi-debacle, live radio interview, fun yoga party, jaunt to connecticut, yoga workshop, going-away day for company’s founder, six-month oncology test, krishna das, and more! my remaining brain cells are grateful for:

1) another six months of relief and health

2) the incredibly purifying experience of a massive krishna das concert

3) dancing, chanting, dancing, chanting

4) dr. z.

5) all sorts of crazy coincidental cross-meetings and things

6) kirtan wallah gossip over nice talk and great dumplings

7) e. for being my waiting room buddy and bringing magazines. and a cookie. j. for the gluten-free cookie and support.

8) candle cafe’s paradise casserole

9) frrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiddddddddddaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyy

10) my unbelievably awesomely supportive peoples

11) the view of the river from the q train

12) the nice man at aveda for helping me with lipstick. yes, i would like to try the nude lip, thank you. so nice to be tended. and complimented on my lips. and made up.

13) kd’s thing about visiting a family that could yell at each other without the fear of being “thrown out of each other’s hearts.” the idea that you can have conflict full of love-presence.

thank you, mr. brezsny.

“ARIES (March 21-April 19): “A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. My wish for you, Aries, is that you will have many such days in the coming weeks. In fact, I hope that you will be blessed over and over again with the hair-raising thrill of having your imagination pricked, causing it to half-blossom, half-explode. To get the most out of the fantastic possibilities, set aside any tendency you might have to be a know-it-all, and instead open up your heart’s mind and your mind’s heart as wide and deep as they will go.”

ack, ack, ack.

that said. i am grateful for:

1) the tests being over on friday

2) a. coming to town! yay.

3) seeing someone reading “the hope” on the subway tonight

4) steve waldman for creating beliefnet and employing me. tonight’s farewell party for him reminded me why it’s a force for good and i’m lucky to be a part of it.

5) talking with f. about etheric access in nyc. so long since i’ve talked about anything mystical with anyone.

6) the tech team for saving me. i was the only person left at the office while everyone else was at the party (aside from j.–thanks for waiting while i cursed), publishing the stupid, non-publishing homepage. it’s amazing how that nightly act (and its technological quirks) brings up so much stuff in one burst–not feeling heard or supported or acknowledged, mostly by the little elves who live inside the machines. and then how all of that can be erased in one fell supportive swoop by a tech team that can pull out a laptop while eating middle eastern food and take care of everything. the words, “we’re on it,” were actually truly healing. a flood of that feeling of being supported, hauled up, relieved of burden. and tonight’s awesome irony, i was publishing a lead on gratitude lists. all a great big metaphor, these stories we live.

7) h. coming to town, yay! so nice to see you in real-time, m’dear.

8) really good baklava from turkish kitchen

9) apples

10) shakti. increasing amounts of shakti i’m not sure how to channel. what to do with extra electric energy? i need a mr. miyagi.

11) home. when home feels like home.

i am grateful for:

1) doing 5 loads of laundry–and putting them all away

2) organizing, bill-paying, dealing. still lots more, but a dent has been made. also, look ma, no dirty dishes!

3) making it to yoga with j–so much better with a buddy

4) our new work leaving ritual: “sleep well.” it started as an accident of mine, like mistakenly signing a business letter “love.” but it’s nice. i’d like work to be cozier. i’d like life to be cozier. all the coziness i can muster. cozy, cozy, cozy.

5) dinner with l.s.n.t. tonight. glad for a 20-year friendship.

6) purple

7) toes

8) bunnies, again

9) baby panda pictures

10) the full week ahead which will hopefully keep me from overly ruminating on upcoming test. test. test. this is a test of the emergency check-up system. if it was more than a test, you’d know. but it is just a test, so please stand by. your call is important to us.

11) espresso chocolate malt balls from kalustyans, five at a time

12) puns that work both ways

13) getting to work on cool stuff and feeling like more of an editor

14) the very end of yoga class, where i do the seal and say shanti, shanti, shanti. i just read that the first shanti is for yourself, the second for everyone you know, the third for the world

15) memories of making out

16) stars

17) maybe just being solo on t-day, not family-crashing, not tagging along or squeezing in, which i often love, but just being quiet. i miss just being quiet. that and gutting the hell out of my bedroom closet and redoing my entire filing system. paaaaartay!

18) obama’s face

19) this amazing venn diagram of bittersweetness via boing boing (click to enlarge)

20) the phrase “click to enlarge”

i am grateful for:

1) jennifer and her beautiful, inspiring art and her talented, cool friends, and that connecticut is not that far.

2) my first experience with live tv being so insanely, aburdly harrowing and yet oddly fun and thrilling.

3) for the yogalocal partay last night–see friend ben’s nifty new iphone app that tells you which yoga classes are where when.

4) hula hoops

5) six point apollo beer. and yeah, usually not such a beer freak, but this stuff is light and citrussy and delish.

6) that i survived a week from hell

7) being at home, quiet, on a saturday night full of amorina pizza, arugula, and gilmore girls

8) my team telling me i did a good job on tv. ok, they clapped and that was really nice, especially after it was so freaky-hard. so, thanks, people.

9) getting to see the urban zen place upstairs. i think i need to live there.

10) the notion that i’m here for myself and i don’t need to bash myself repeatedly for whatever it is i think i’ve done badly in a particular moment. because it doesn’t really help anyone and just leaves me banged up and less able to function as a whole, effective being, friend, earth-person. yeah, this is one i need to kee on getting.

11) the cheesy wonderful thought i had about what i could ask myself in the morning: “how can i give today?” and then i’m looking for openings. i like that better than “how can i get through today?” which is not as bad as “who can i kick out of my way today?” but it’s a defensive, victimy posture that feels ick. so, trying: “how can i give today?” wheee. that makes me feel happy.

12) pink orchids

13) the support i’ve got for next week. just blood tests, as usual. but as usual they freak me out. even tho it means i get to see dr. z.

14) going to sleep now

15) oh, after a day yesterday of talking on tv and radio about 2012–the movie and the phenom–going to a party and running into a guy who wrote a 2012 book who i had just been watching in a documentary the night before.

ok, gratitude list, let’s see what you can do with this day.

i am grateful for….

1) the thief who stole my bag from under my nose at a cafe for not robbing me or assaulting me or in any way even appearing in sight.

2) how nice the restaurant manager was–watching the tape, offering to help, etc.

3) the windfall farm crew for looking in the van and generally hanging out and giving a shit.

4) running into the delovely miss d, despite getting jacked, it was so nice to chat and catch up and see her sweet smiling face. we were roommates in high school.

5) supportive friends

6) no one charging a trip to guam before i could shut everything down

7) having a safety net and support

8) the nice little feeling i had this morning when i was buzzing along talking to well-known authors, editing actual content, answering emergency situations, handling shit. until i kinda melted down over one tiny email that triggered a whole avalanche of no one appreciates me self-pity, which triggered anger, then shame, then a sort of stoned, sulky feeling that made me pretty much unable to get much done after. but i am grateful that i got to track it, because usually i just get slammed with waves of feelings and unexpressed reactions and don’t know what hit me. so, progress.

9) our yoga teacher also being a photo producer for nerve.com

10) seeing a guy on the train last night grooming his arm hairs by petting them all so the nap was going in the same direction.

11) espresso chocolate malt balls from kalustyans on lex

12) the buzz

13) pema