#365Gratitude Day 54:Noteworthy

Not the actual drawing, but you get the idea

Yesterday I got started on something new at work, and was puzzling it out with several co-workers.  I have this little whiteboard at my desk, and was using it to illustrate how I thought the whole thing would be put together.

After some lively discussion, we reached some degree of consensus about it.  I realized that verbalizing what we were doing, my idea of it, and the related factors just hadn't been enough.

I don't usually draw stuff out like that, but it was so helpful.  And it got me thinking about keeping an open mind about trying new things, taking a different perspective, trying to learn differently.

I'm grateful I can keep an open mind.  It does me a lot of good.

#365Gratitude Day 53:Correction and missed steaks

Today was a good, if busy day.

First, at the day job, I started in on a new "story", which involved me stretching out in some new technical directions again.

Once I sat down and began to dig into it, I found some bad code another coworker had written, something I could fix handily, and did so.

A delightful glass of shiraz.

That sure felt good.

Then after work, I corrected a mistake of my own.  I went and bought new running shoes to replace the very beat up, slightly too small pair I had been using, and which have been making my back hurt like heck after a few miles.

After which, I went to a nice restaurant near the running store for wine and steak.

Mmmm... so good.

Really, the best part of the whole thing, sort of the unifying theme of the day, was that it's never too late to correct something you did before, improve on it, make it better.

I'm excited to get back to running more, now that I've got good shoes with which to do it.

I'm excited that I've learned enough about what I do that I could quickly, and easily, improve on the efforts of what my co-worker had done.

I'm grateful, and that's no missed steak.

Fantastic steak

#365Gratitude Day 52:You're reading it

So, this is pretty meta, but my gratitude today is this blog.  Not this actual post, that would be too meta.

But seriously, it's the blog.

I started it back in June, 2014.  I've written in it fairly faithfully since, while experimenting with different levels of commitment.

Back in January, I made the decision to stay caught up, to do my best to blog each day, or at the very least get caught up when I get behind by a few days.

I'm feeling damn good about it.  One of the things which has jumped out at me in particular today is how that practice, that discipline, is encouraging me to pay attention to mindfulness in general.  It's got me slowing down, listening to bird song (right now in fact), appreciating the moment.

I can be incredibly hard on myself.  I often withhold from me the same gentle kindness and compassion I show most everyone and everything else.  But then I'll remember to slow down and appreciate well, everything.

I love being alive.  I love the tiniest aspects about it.  

I love how when I tromped downstairs a bit ago, with the intention to catch up the blog this morning, my cats followed me downstairs to get fed.  I love how I sat, still in my pajamas and diaper, and wrote my gratitudes, as the sun came up.  I love that I can hear the not-quite-silence of the house, with the refrigerator humming quietly to itself in the kitchen, and hear my own breath amongst the sound of my typing.

It's beautiful, the whole damn thing.

And this blog, this practice of journaling, it helps me see it.  Daily.

#365Gratitude Day 51:Verfolgt

Verfolgt is german for "haunted", and it's the name of a film made back in 2006.

Yesterday, as I was working from home, I first read about it online, and then found where I could watch it.

I got on this little tear yesterday, interested in female domination in mainstream media.  The truth is, you don't see it a lot.  Kink being in the public eye is a cyclical thing.  Sure there's the Fifty Shades series, that's such a thing lately, with the books, and the two films now.  Before that there was the Exit to Eden film.

But you don't seem female domination a lot, and when you do, it's usually pretty problematic.

That's sad, really.

So, the film.  I found you could watch the whole damn thing, on YouTube!  Here, go ahead:

Yes, it's got some of that problematic stuff.  But, in this case, I think it's handled, well, artfully.  I don't want to say exactly how or why it's problematic, because I don't want to spoil the plot for you.

But I loved this film.  I was happy to find it watchable, and want to buy the film.  There are parts of it that are highly erotic.  But the thing that really makes this film shine is the performances.  These characters are very, very real.  You see the emotions they struggle with, see how they try to figure themselves out, and what they mean to one another.

It's amazing.

#365Gratitude Day 50:Bryn a very good day

On Sunday, my friend Bryn came to visit.

Bryn's a kink friend of mine, someone I know from going to Camp Crucible.  And in recent months, for whatever reason, we've gone from acquaintances to really good friends.

We both love awful puns, which we frequently share with one another online.  We're both kinky people, and we move in many of the same kink circles.

She's a nerdy techie, like myself, a pagan, a cat person, a sci-fi/fantasy novel reader, a philosophy nut, all that good stuff.

She recently got a new car (and woah, is that thing sexy), which I helped her to name, punnishly, "The Cargonzo Bean", and for which we both decided she needed a plushie chicken as a car co-pilot.  During our day together, we also realized the chicken would be named Carmilla.

Feel free to wince.

Anyhow, the whole morning was super nice.  We hung out at my house, chitchatted, went out for a lovely breakfast, then went plushie shopping.  As we did, we just talked about ourselves and one another, and our friendship, and it was super.

I remember when I was a little kid, like actually physically a little kid, and used to go on "play dates" to a friend's house.  It felt a whole lot like that.

One of the nicest parts of the day was when we were bopping around the mall.  I had talked to her at some length about how I'm dissociative, and my little, mako-kun, both is and is not quite me.  He's my brain-room-mate.  I love him, and protect him, as he's a big part of me.  

He doesn't come forward in public very often, because that's not a safe thing for him.  We, he and I, really don't want any negative attention from anyone about being this way we are.  It's one of the few big, easy weak spots we have.  We aren't crazy, and don't want to be labeled as such.  (To be honest, as open as I am in this blog, I had to take a minute to decide I was going to write about it here.)

So, we're in the Disney store, looking for a plushie chicken, like you do, when Bryn leans in and whispers to mako-kun, and asks him if he'd like one or two of these cute plushie little things called tsum-tsum.  They're a bit like Disney's answer to beanie-babies.

He popped right out, delighted, and said yes.

They walked around the store together, and he found two he very much wanted.  Heimlich, the caterpillar from A Bug's Life, and Eva, the robot from Wall-E.

When we got up to the cash register he very sagely swapped places with me, and let me hand the tsum-tsums to Bryn, who got them for us.

Afterwards, as we walked around the mall, she asked me if that was okay, her having called him to come out like that.  It was more than okay, it was delightful.  Mako-kun likes her a lot.  I like her a lot.

I'm so glad she's our friend.