Happy Thanksgiving

This is kind of a weird time.

For two weeks of the year — the week between Pride Day and my birthday, and the week between Little Baby Jesus’ birthday and New Year’s — I turn into what can only be described as A Sentimental Fool. I want nothing more than to be with the people I love and/or care about very much. But, due to weather, work, family and other circumstances out of their my control, I rarely am able to actually spend that time with any of them.

So if you’re alone this evening, I know from that. (I won’t be alone, later, but that’s my point, actually.)

Like birthdays and… whatever, New Year’s is one of those artificial social constructs that’s supposed to invigorate us, to shuck off the past year and welcome with bright enthusiasm and hope the new. It’s just another day and yet… the zeitgeist demands a reaction less blasé than that.

Everything you didn’t accomplish in 2008 — for whatever reason — you now have a chance to dive into, again. You get the opportunity to make good on the wrongs you may or may not have committed in the past year. And, fercryinoutloud, it was one seriously fucked-up year, 2008.

And even if it’s phony, even if it’s an artificial social construct… it’s a useful artificial social construct in that it affords you the opportunity for a fresh start. And if you’re feeling lonely, and if you’re feeling like a big, fucking loser for not accomplishing even one of the things you’d set out to do in 2008… here’s your chance. Here’s your opportunity to look in the mirror and tell yourself that this year you will know yourself better, this year you will fight against the almost-insurmountable tide of STOOPID in the world, this year you will do something, something concrete that you can point to and say…

I DID THAT

And in doing so you will make your mark on a world that more often than not ignores the things you do. And the only reward, the only gratification you’ll need is to know that… you did it.

So do it.

You can!

Anyway, here’s what y’all did in 2008. And that for which I thank you. Thank you for reading this stuff, thank you for your wit and criticism and your tips and links and comments and encouragement and gropes and… everything. Thanks to blog-buddies who turn me on in every way, and to commenters who make this here blog thing more worthwhile than you can imagine, and to readers who got a chuckle or even thought “what a dickweed!” It all matters.

So to you all I say thank you. Happy Thanksgiving!

There’ll be changes here in the New Year. There’ll be ambitious plans and a stronger voice. But what matters, most of all, is the connectedness of everything, of us all. You matter, more than you may be able to comprehend right now. You matter. And you’ll do great things, awesome things, in 2009.

Can’t. Fucking. Wait.