Bathroom Monologue: Thankful 2007

We should all take the time to remember what we’re thankful for in a year, even if we do so on the can. I’m thankful for a lot of things. Like any year that I’m thankful for a lot of things, it’s the small things that are important.
-I’m thankful for finally throwing “Norman Rockwell” into google and browsing the Images results. I’d never really taken a tour of his work, and even on a screen less than an eighth the size of his average paintings, they were stunningly beautiful and so full of character. There were two paintings in particular that I am thankful for seeing. The first was of a man and a woman arguing; from afar it looked like they were kissing, and when I took a closer look and saw they were fighting I assumed that it was a spat and they’d make up soon. It’s the only painting to ever immediately generate an entire story in my head. The other was of a man (probably Rockwell himself) in a museum, looking at a Pollock painting. I’ve retitled this painting, “I Could Do That.”
-I’m thankful to have discovered Nat King Cole this year. The first time in my life I’ve listened to his voice, it shakes my soul. I’m particularly thankful for his version of “Glory, Glory be to the New Born King.” It made me a Christian… for three minutes, anyway.
-I’m thankful for picking up Michael Chabon The Yiddish Policeman’s Union. It’s one of the few contemporary books I picked up this year, and the language was so rich that I lost myself in the first few chapters for days. I’m so woefully ignorant of Jewish culture that his speculative vision of Alaska was a completely original fantasy world to me, and was lovely, as cold as he made it.
-I’m thankful for Ring of Honor and Pro Wrestling Guerilla, two small companies practicing an underappreciated art. I couldn’t have a more satisfying hobby from intellectual studies than cheering on men in underwear as they slap each other.
-I’m thankful for blackle.com, an alternative to google.com that, with its primarily black layout, conserves hundreds of thousands of watt-hours. If you don’t know what a watt-hour is, blackle it.
-I’m thankful to everyone who has ever held the door for anyone else. I’ve done it hundreds of times this year, but the two times other people did it for me were wonderfully pleasant surprises.
-I’m thankful I wasn’t killed when that tornado struck in the middle of my morning walk. Since I did most of the running, I guess I’m mostly thankful to myself for that one.
-Of course, I’m thankful to everyone who did me a kindness this year. I won’t embarrass them by listing them, but they know who they are. You can’t really thank somebody for putting a roof over your head one night or providing Thanksgiving dinner, after you’ve thanked people for holding doors. There is still quite a bit of good in this world. Thank goodness.-Fuck it, yes you can. Thanks Mom, Rene, grandpa and grandma (these two are, ironically, not related), Shelly, Jemma, Nick, Nat, Paddywack, Give the Dog a Bone (I had to), GregH, Cassie, Deirdre, Alec, Lunchbox, Teri, Lorenzo, Serin, Kathleen, Red, the funny looking lady at the plaza, Jack/Neal, Max, and that literary agent who provided absolutely no useful advice other than to use blogspot. And thanks to everyone else who’s slipped my mind as I try to post something before I run out the door so the realtor can show the house.