On Being Grateful And Not Dead Yet

Yesterday was Thanksgiving here in the USA. If you’re reading this at another time of the year, that’s okay as long as you accompany the essay with some leftover turkey. It can be deli turkey. I know getting an entire roast turkey in June is difficult.

I’m grateful for a lot of things, in both November and June. The rest of the year? I sway between (1) utter disdain for my circumstance and acquaintances and (2) disdain that is slightly less utter. But today, given the crisp fall or drippy summer air, I’m feeling especially reflective. That’s probably just the sweat and turkey grease giving me a healthy sheen.

But in addition to being glossy, I’m also thinking back on the year and all the things for which I’m grateful. I’ll share a few with you here.

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The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is Hunter Biden

The key to solving inflation, immigration, crime, fentanyl, gay marriage, abortion, sex trafficking, and transgender people using restrooms is simple:

We must investigate Hunter Biden.

I know what you’re thinking: what does Hunter Biden have to do with any of these real and imagined problems the ascendant Republican majority promised to address? Isn’t this just another case of the GOP leveraging the optics of a fight against a mythical dragon? And aren’t they more interested in fundraising from sheep who are scared shitless of dragons than in actually killing the non-existent beast?

WRONG. Hunter Biden is the pre-eminent threat to your family’s safety, security, and bathroom privacy. He’s coming for you, unless the Republicans can stop him. And they can’t stop him without your $27 recurring donation. Unless, of course, you want them to tell Donald Trump that you didn’t care enough to help.

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Provocatively Combining Words For Fun And Zero Profit

“If you wrote something a while back, but haven’t written anything lately, you’re not a writer. You’re someone who has written.”

I heard someone say this online recently. I thought it was odd that this unfamiliar dude would call me out personally in front of everyone like that. Typical anonymous internet sources, always being jerks.

He had a point, though. Writing is like playing a sport. I used to play football, many decades ago when I was young and my thick skull could take the trauma. But to call myself a football player today would be a massive stretch, and let’s face it: my 46-year-old groin isn’t that flexible. It’d be more accurate to say I have played football, in the present perfect tense. I know that’s the present perfect tense because, as one who has written, I have studied the intricacies of English grammar. And, accordingly, I have been fun at parties. Even with my inflexible, aging groin.

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Life Is What Happens While You’re Busy Watching Big Cats Get Busy

“I’m pretty sure no one here has a single clue as to what they’re doing.”

Somewhere between the third and eighth security check, my negativity went from frustration to sadness to anger. It made scheduled on-time stops at “what the fuck?” and “you’ve got to be kidding me!” I’m immensely familiar with both neighborhoods.

I had arrived in Kenya a few weeks earlier with the rehearsed acceptance of an intellectual, tolerant liberal. “Their way is not wrong or right, it’s just different!” I’d tell myself at the first, second, and four-hundredth illogical inconvenience. And I’d traveled enough to know that each one of those illogical inconveniences was lining up in anticipation of my arrival.

I came from the air-conditioned, 246-years-removed-from-colonization Land of the Free. I’m a white man from a country—and planet—where white men historically get their way, and my expectations of “how things ought to be” are often just thinly-veiled privilege.

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Look, How About You Save Your Daylight For Someone Who Actually Cares?

Happy End of Daylight Saving Time!

Thank goodness it has finally ended. The post-work sunshine was starting to interfere with my allotted hours of solitary introspection. Besides, what’s the point of the sun when my fields lie fallow and I shan’t plant again until the raven’s ca-caw at Spring’s first light! You know, those fields I tend from my apartment and such.

This time of year, I like to settle in with my sleeping cap firmly upon my head and drift off to peaceful slumber in the 4:30 pm darkness. Sure, it’s terrifying for my Uber passengers, but those control freaks need to take that up with their therapists. Or maybe choose an Uber that doesn’t have a sleeping-cap-wearing driver.

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A Billionaire And A Gay Prostitute Walk Into The Public Square…

Recently, a deranged Canadian immigrant attempted to upend the government of the United States by means of violence. I mean, a deranged Canadian immigrant other than Ted Cruz, though that would have been a solid guess.

No, I’m talking about a different cuckoo Canuck, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to write his name here and give him the publicity of my 17 followers.

Statue with face in hand, with quote "It's impressive, the lengths to which a sizable minority of our country will go to ignore logic and seize upon a completely unbelievable explanation."
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