an ode to thanksgiving

you'll have to forgive my lack of capitalization in this entry. you see, spilled water into my keyboard yesterday and suddenly the i have no use of my caps lock, left shift or left control key. i do realize that i could use the right shift key, but my hands are not trained just yet. so let's pause here and give thanks for the dual shift keys, for without them we'd have zero shift keys. yep. hang on, just let me check something here...ok, yeah. i remembered to take my medication today. phew.

thanksgiving...a truly american holiday, if ever there was one. sure, you'll argue that independence day is the one truly american holiday, simply based on the spirit and enthusiasm of the day coupled with the meaning. but we're talking 1776. i'm talking about 1620, or thereabouts. plymouth rock, the mayflower, pilgrims, native americans, corn...perhaps turkey, ok. that shit is american. it's north american. it's...well, it's basically a cartoon, in my opinion. i don't know about you, but i have this image of a cartoon turkey running in circles around a bunch of pilgrims in golden belt buckles and those top hat things; they're all trying to corral our friend tom, but even the turkey himself is kind of smiling. the cartoon eventually leads to a slaughtering, defeathering and beheading and finally, a roasting in some pilgrimesque oven or some shit. everyone eats, pilgrims and indians alike clink versions of cups, they reminisce about how a close indian relative was scalped by thomas j pilgrim but everyone stops laughing when chief gone-too-far makes a comment about said scalped indian relative's sexual carnival with thomas j's virgin wife-to-be. it's your standard t-day table talk.

this will be my first californian thanksgiving. i will be amongst another version of family and the person who i love the most and i hope to enjoy some white meat and several starchy options. i will miss my immediates and the table they sit at, which is all i really know to this point. it's got me thinking...something i've been doing a lot of, but not of subject matter that happens to be blog appropriate. well, i reckon it's time to pen down. i give thanks everyday, but today i will do it cyber-publicly.

i give thanks to the hardly variable pacific coast weather. granted the last few days have brought something called rain and sub 70-degree weather, but it sure as shit beats the ball-shriveling cold of the northeast. i don't miss red ears and runny noses, nor do i miss getting to work with hathead. that's a bit funny, though. i now 'show up' to work with bedhead, wearing nothing but mesh shorts and some eye crusties, but i'm warm. i win.

i give thanks to my new family out here who have treated me with love and kindness from the start. in this same light, i give thanks to my closest friend these days who happens to be a mutt named roxie. she's my only company on most days and while she can't speak or really fend for herself, she's one of the great eaters of our time and i respect that. i also can't discount the consistency of her wagging tail, which greets me every morning with a metronome-like pounding on the floor.

i give thanks to the simple foods that are newly established staples in my diet. v8, hummus and cottage cheese. for the most part, this is my lunch daily. i may only weigh a scant 157 pounds these days but these tasty morsels are packed with the necessaries of any sustainable diet and for that, i am thankful. although, v8 has way too much fucking sodium. this most likely accounts for my constant dry mouth.

i give thanks to the fashion of los angeles because without it, i may not have much left to laugh about. last night i was having a tall budweiser with my new buddy colin and he was preparing to go out for a night on the town. he asked if i would be interested in coming and i remarked that my flip-flops would probably hinder my ability to get in anywhere. he then sauntered out of his room wearing a pinkish-orange knit scarf and peacoat, noting that showing up with that exact garb would undoubtedly attract various women to his side. i held in my uproarious laughter in favor of keeping my beer in my mouth, but it made me very thankful for my own fashion sense. more power to these people out here, man. i left my scarves in boston for a good reason.

i probably have much more to give thanks for but my back hurts from this back-less chair i'm sitting on. so i wish you all a very happy thanksgiving and may you all have tons to be thankful for.