things about which to be thankful: the 2005 edition

November 23rd, 2005

1. A new job. For the last several months, anytime I was asked, “So, what do you do?” I changed the subject. When my avoidance was mistaken for modesty (like I’ve ever been legitimately accused of that), I resorted to being blunt. “I really hate my job, so let’s talk about something else.” Tres graceful, right? Now I can’t shut up about it, and I haven’t even started. I wonder if my mouth will get tired of forming the words, “I’m so excited!” I hope not.

2. A dysfunctional family. They may be a huge mess, but they are my huge mess and I wouldn’t replace a single one of them.

3. An absence of drama. Dysfunctional family aside, this year has been calm – maybe eerily so. Last November marked the height of bad relationship mêlée (I can still hear the sound that six bottles of Heineken make shattering on the cement) and I thought things would never go back to normal. Well, in a way I was right. They didn’t. For that I’m thankful.

4. Sir Halitosis Maximus, the Duke of Bad Breath. On pain of sounding like the Crazy Cat Lady, that little shit is four-footed, fur-covered joy. I love that he plays fetch at four a.m., that I have to wake him up and drag him out of the sink before I can do dishes, and that he stalks me when I’m in the shower. I love that when I come home from work, I’m required to hug him for a good five minutes before he’s over being abandoned for the day and can get back to playing with hair elastics. I even love that the idea that something bad could happen to him makes me horribly sad.

5. My friends. My friends are better than your friends. They just are. I don’t know that I’ve done anything to deserve such generous, intelligent and otherwise amazing people in my life, but there they are. I do this thing, you see, where I’ll accept invitations to parties and then, out of anxiety, not show up. I don’t mean to, and it’s something I’m working on. But for all my shenanigans, there are people who keep on inviting me because they genuinely care whether or not I am there. There are people who do small and incredible things like, buy my movie tickets because she “read about the broccoli!” or hold my hair back while I puked my guts out for two days on the floor of a hotel in a foreign country.

6. Everything else. Pink flannel pajamas, strangers on buses, waffles with strawberries, Stevie Wonder on my iPod. Unplanned vacations, fugging, arguments that end well, new people, old movies and finding money in pockets of last year’s winter coat. Among other things.

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