Thanksgiving

My Thanksgiving 2011 began with fireworks. Not festival fireworks, not interpersonal fireworks, but pirate fireworks. More specifically, I was turning pirates into fireworks for profit and amusement. Not much profit, perhaps, but the amusement side of things made it worth it.

Like this, but with more lasers

While engaged in the above activity, I was rolling this post around in my mind. Thanksgiving posts should be about being thankful, but how to do it without sounding trite or insincere? Even more alarming to me was my lack of content ideas. What am I thankful for? Why am I having difficulty coming up with things? I’m a recent resident of Dreams Come True land. I have a decent job, a place to live, a functioning car (for the time being), amazing friends and family, and the best damn girlfriend I could ever have hoped for. All those things could fill a (rather dull) book. What am I so worried about?

A few pirate ships later, the answer came to me: I was afraid that the above sounded too ordinary. I wanted my Thanksgiving post to stand out among the millions just like it. What was something unique that I could be thankful for? Green pens, maybe, or horizontal blinds. Something wacky and quirky and wow-look-how-original-I-am-y.

It was then that the cranky asshole hardwired into my marrow–another thing for which I’m thankful–asserted itself. “Bullshit,” it said. “Utter bullshit.” Those three words (one of them’s twice) kicked my ego in the teeth, and I realized that it’s perfectly fine to be thankful for the blessings in your life even if they don’t stand out. Thanksgiving should be an eating contest, not a pissing contest. Who gives a shit if this post sounds like everybody else’s? That just means that there are other people who have the same great things I do, and that’s fantastic.

So, to all my friends and family old and new, near and far: thank you for enriching and shaping the course of my life. To my newly-acquired editors: thank you for believing in me and giving me the chance of a lifetime. To my beautiful Tori: thank you for the past 6 years of friendship, love, faith, dedication, and laughter.

To everyone reading this post: thank you for stopping by, and I wish you a safe and happy holiday.

Happy hey!