More corny stuff to be thankful for

Couldn't have come at a better time, really, since my nerves are a little shot today and for what turned out to be extremely stupid reasons. Anyway, I like to focus on Thanksgiving then.

I am grateful for having the makeshift family that we urbanites create for ourselves out of lovers, friends, and pets. My boyfriend is both adorable and adoring and the longer I get to know him the more I see that my first impressions of him as a real mensch were absolutely correct. He bitches about it, but he works hard, he's humble about it, but he's talented. I am grateful for my friends--I have more friends than I would have ever hoped to have as a small town teenager and they are varied and always interesting. They may not all know each other, and they may not all like each other, but dammit when I throw a party and they all come it's the best time ever. And I'm grateful for those that I'm so close to that we're stuck with each other now, like family. And of course I'm grateful for Max and Katy and am even stuck wondering at times how we managed to pull two long straws to get such sweet cats.

I am grateful for all the standard stuff--my health, my job, my fabulous sense of style.

I love living in Austin and am grateful to my teenage self who began to plot to move here the second she knew how much it ruled. Human beings have a weird sense of place, as if some places have energy that makes them special, a feeling that has its unfortunate side when you look at all the fighting in the Holy Land. But it is also a positive quirk of human nature, because by believing it we also make it so. So many people throughout the history of this state have fallen in love with the beauty of the Hill Country and some feeling of goodness to Austin that they moved here and made it so. (The goodness of Austin, not the beauty of the Hill Country which made itself.) The longer I live here the more I appreciate not only that Austin is groovy and kind, but also that there is a streak of tenacity to us that makes us dig in our heels and fight, something the country got to see over the debacle of the fleeing Democrats and will get to see as Tom DeLay and Ronnie Earle's battle gets more press coverage. It would be wise of outsiders to respect the stubbornness of Texans, because while it was what got us into our national mess it's going to be a necessary part of getting us out.

Before this gets too maudlin, I guess I better throw up a goofy picture or something.