#365Gratitude Day 356: Just recently, right here on earth...

So I've been a Star Wars fan since I first saw Episode IV, back when I was six years old, in 1977.  I remember sitting in the movie theater, and trembling a bit when Darth Vader force-choked Admiral Motti.  

Okay, let's be honest.  It scared me, so much so that I actually wet my pants.  But I didn't say anything because I was both a bit ashamed and like really into the movie.

Anyhow, so years go by.  I faithfully watch and absolutely love episodes V and VI.  It all feels so bittersweet when episode VI ends, because, well, that's all folks.

Then, the prequels came out.  I really wanted to like them.  Episode I is, in a word, terrible.  I wish I liked it.  I don't.  It crushed me a little, really.

I'm a fanboy.  It's not a title I wear with even the least bit of shame.  There's even a movie about some Star Wars fanboys on a mission to watch Episode I with their terminally ill friend.  It's a hysterical movie which Spacey and I have watched together, because he's a fanboy too.  (In fact, he is the one who introduced me to the film.)

Episodes II and III are okay.  I don't mind them.  But I don't watch them over and over the way I do the original movies.  They don't speak to me.

When I first heard Episode VII, The Force Awakens was coming out, I had very mixed feelings.  I didn't want to get hoodwinked.  I'd sort of put aside my feelings of being let-down by the prequels, and developed a veneer of careful apathy.

I watched the trailers, but with a careful distance.  

Then Missy, Marybeth and I got tickets to see it.  In IMAX, in 3-D at the Air & Space Museum Extension over by Dulles Airport.  I couldn't maintain my jaded, and let's admit it, artificial ennui anymore.  I was hyped.

So we went.

And it was, in a word, glorious.

I felt like I was six again.  I laughed, cheered, cried, made the appropriate ooh's and ahh's at all the right points.  (No, I didn't wet my pants.  Although if I'd prepared for it ahead of time, I could have done so comfortably.  Maybe I need to get some tickets to see it again.)

I won't spoil any little bit of it for you.  You should go see it.

People were nervous. Heck I was nervous.  J. J. Abrams? Lens flare guy?  I don't know...

But he did a great job.  The movie bridges the franchise, so that a new generation of actors and stories can continue it.  

I never really gave up on Star Wars.  I was here waiting for it to be great again.  And it is.

My friend Shokolada (who has mad google-fu), found this comic for me, which expresses my heartfelt yearning for, and reconnection to Star Wars so well.

It's like a ray of hope.  (Shush.)

#365Gratitude Day 355: NRE NRG

I've been on cloud nine lately, because of a phenomenon poly people all know about, called NRE.  That stands for New Relationship Energy.

That's because I'm officially dating someone new.  Some of you may know her, her scene name is Squee.

"New Relationship" is kind of a lie, though.  Squee and I have known each other for several years now.  We started as friends, and over the years realized we really understood each other.  We felt this close kinship, and easy ability to talk to each other about anything and everything.

In the past few months. we've leaned on one another a lot, about all sort of things.  Eventually, we realized we were more than friends, that we loved one another.

Well, we had loved one another for a long time.  But this was a new way.  

You know how it makes me feel? It makes me want to squee.

#365Gratitude Day 354: It's good when people you love get you

Squee sent me this Pooh and Piglet pic early Sunday morning.

"What day is it?" asked Pooh.  "It's today." squeaked Piglet.  "My favorite day," said Pooh.

I love this.  I love that she knows I'm the sort who most likely will be up at 5am, and will love to see it.  I love her, too.

#365Gratitude Day 353: Catifsh Ladybug

Sometimes my gratitude isn't one big thing, just a good chain of nice little things.

That was today.

First, I got to have a much needed FaceTime call with my little girl, Katiebug.  I miss her, and she misses me.  We spent a good half hour or so just being schmoopy and loving to one another, and talking about all sorts of good ways to connect and spend time with each other.  It really felt good.

Second, as Missy and I are getting ready to go out to our friend Peanut's daughter's very first birthday party ever, the cats decided to gift me with the elusive double-lap cuddle.

So nice!

Lastly, at the birthday party, amongst the food they put out was a heaping big platter of smoked salmon.  That's a huge treat for me, especially now that I'm pescetarian, and can't have most of the party food that you'd expect.

Score!

What a nice bunch of good things.

#365Gratitude Day 352: Oh, you demonic math!

So on Friday, Squee and I were chatting.  (This is something we do on days ending in -y, lately.)  We're both fond of that sort of overthinky, deeply analytical sort of thinking I call noodling.  

She's been my co-noodler for a while now.  The particular thing we were noodling about that day was about my growing interest in mindful communication.  When you're aware of not just what you think, but also how you think it (and share it), some interesting transformative things occur.

In discussing it, we stumbled across a sort of math proof about it, that I call The Squee Variance.  It's named after her, because she's the one who thought of it.

(I can just imagine your rising sense of panic here, dear reader.  Wait, overthinking and math?! Um, I've got to go organize my sock drawer!  Put the socks, down, I promise this won't be awful.)

What Squee noticed was that stupid things are generally worse (lesser) than awesome ones.  That's written like this:

stoooopid < AWESOME

Here's a real world example.  Being stuck in traffic is not anywhere near as fun as say, talking to someone you love on the phone.  (On a related note, I often talk to people I love on the phone while I am driving because DC traffic is as reliable as breathing oxygen.  It's not "Will I get stuck in traffic?" so much as "how bad is it going to be today?")

That formula however, that's not the variance.  She also noticed that any such inequality can be transversely parsed in a positive way.  That is, if something is less than something else, that something else is also greater than the other.  That's written this way:

AWESOME > stoooopid

Let's get back to that real world example.  Sometimes as I'm on one of these talk-and-drive little misadventures, traffic snarls up even worse.  That in turn means I get to talk to the person I love longer.  More time to connect with someone is definitely greater than the hassle of being stuck in traffic.

BLAM!  Gratitude math.  When you do the transform, you are transformed.  

So, we're bathing in our mutual noodly goodness over this, when my phone pings, and I get the Word of the Day.

The word was "eudemonic".  Eudemonic means:

1. pertaining or conducive to happiness.
2. pertaining to eudemonics or eudemonism.

I immediately share this with her, and we get all twirled up in brain spaghetti over it.  It's such a funny, wonderful word, because it sounds like censure, but means just the opposite.  

Eudemonic conversation (which we were just having) sounds an awful lot like bitching about an argument, but actually means talk that makes you happy.

Like the one we had.

Mind blown.