#365Gratitude Day 9:Best and Most Beautiful

Yesterday Valentalae told me about this utterly amazing documentary.

It's called "Best and Most Beautiful Things."

It's about a legally blind, autistic girl named Michelle Smith.  As it happens, she's an age player.  As it also happens, she listens to the podcast.

If you're listening carefully, you can hear her talk about and quote something Valentalae often says, about non-consensual ageplay.  And then later on, she quotes something I often say, too.  

You go watch the whole thing, and see if you can catch where.  I won't spoil it for you.

This documentary is utterly brilliant.  It shows the very real life of a very real person.  She's not some sort of plucky-yet-disabled low budget superhero (thanks Vee, for giving me that verbiage).  She loses her stuff.  And sometimes, she loses her shit.

She's blessedly, wonderfully, perfectly imperfect.  Just like everyone.

That's kind of the point of the whole documentary.  I'm glad it exists, and that she does.  She's an awesome person.

If you want to watch it, it's on Netflix, PBS has it to show for a while, and I know it's coming to iTunes, if it hasn't already.

#365Gratitude Day 8:Real Life Wife Swap

No, not me, nor Missy.

That's Viv, Roger's wife, in episode 2, trying on some nice lingerie she wants to get to wear to a swing club with him.

I was working from home today on my side project, and doing producer-type-things for the Big Little Podcast, and put on something really interesting on Netflix.  It's a series from England called Real Life Wife Swap, about swingers.

I'm two episodes in, and really digging it.  It's amazingly, refreshingly sex-positive and not overly sensationalist.  They show real people, engaged in real life.  Is there nudity? Yes.  Sexual content? You betcha.  There are also candid shots of people cooking in their kitchen and going fly-fishing, and just, you know, being actual people.

It's fantastic.

You can watch it here.

#365Gratitude Day 7:Hot Tub Teacher

(Not the actual hot tub in my gym, but use your imagination.)

Yesterday I decided to go to the gym, and I'm so glad I did.  Besides getting in an excellent 45 minute swim, I spent time afterward in the gym's hot tub as a reward-to-myself for getting out in the snow and cold to work out.

Here's my tattoo, a pic right from when I first got it.

When I got in the hot tub, it was already occupied with a very nice couple.  Let's call them Mr. and Mrs. Tango.  Mr. Tango had an interesting kanji tattoo on his arm, and I asked him about it, and then shared my own tattoo, the one I have on my leg.

I told him what it means:

The Tao that can be spoken is not the Tao, The name that can be named is not the name.

And that led into a very long conversation about all sorts of things. including Taoism, mindfulness, shenpa, meditation, and zen stories.

At one point, Mrs. Tango said I was very funny, and could do stand-up comedy.  And Mr. Tango said I was really good at explaining things, and asked if I was some sort of teacher.

"Well, sort of," I said.  Then, after taking a moment to think it through, I told them I was a podcaster, and an author.

"Oh, what sort of author?" they asked.  So I told them.  And we kept right on talking.  It was fun, and awesome, and felt good to share openly with open-minded folks.  I shared my belief (gleaned from one of my favorite books/movies, Way of the Peaceful Warrior) that there's no greater calling than service to others.

Mrs. Tango grabbed her cell phone and started jotting down a lot of the things I had been talking about, the authors, books, lectures, songs, and movies I made reference to, and said, "Wow, there's so much stuff.  You should maybe have a list."

What a damn good idea.

I told her I would indeed start one.

And look, Mrs. T.  I have!  

My shiny new resources page

I'll keep adding to it, of course.  What's there for now is just the beginnings of it.  But hey, that's what this blog is all about, right?

#365Gratitude Day 6:Rocket time

What an amazing workday.

I worked from home today, and had this laundry list of things to do.  I sat down, got coding, and just didn't stop until maybe 10 minutes ago.

I'm involved in this big CSS refactor for a project at work, moving the software I work with from the busted, jank-ass old CSS we were using to this super-slick framework based thing.  It's beautiful.  Along the way, I'm learning all sorts of things.

Like what?  Well, for example, how to use DataTables columnDefs functionality to stop a column from being sortable.  Or how to mitigate loading-order issues with CSS and JS files.

Anyhow, technobabble aside, the best part of the whole day was just feeling so on.  It made the day fly by.  I had to remind myself to eat.  I flew through coding.  It felt like playing.

I feel blessed to do the work I do.  That's a pretty awesome thing to be grateful for.

#365Gratitude Day 5:Pottycat

Sometimes gratitude entries are these big, deep, philosophical, meaningful things.

And sometimes, they're not.

This is my boycat Yang.  He and his sister have been my cats since they were 10 weeks old.  They will be 12 years old in February.  I was saying to Spacey and our friend Fee this morning how much I love them, and how they show me they love me too, in little ways, all the time.  

One such way is that they love being in the bathroom with me.  This morning Yang did as he always does.  He comes into the bathroom, and watches me, fascinated.  If I sit down near him, he cuddles up on me, giving me super warm fuzzy hugs.

This never gets old for him.  He's never not interested in doing it.

I love that.

My cat babies are a daily source of my gratitude.  They constantly make me smile, laugh, and feel loved.