(no subject)

Zo. Em. Gee.

For those who haven't seen it yet, this is Cartoon Network's float from the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade. It is so full of Win that it hurts. (via theferrett)

Internet, have I told you that I love you lately?


P.S. Here if you don't get the joke.

Thanksgiving

(posted late for want of net access at the time of writing)

I rarely do the meme thing nowadays, but I kinda dig this 'thanksgiving' one that's been going around, so I'll bite.

I am thankful for my friends and family. I mean, duh, of course that's the kind of thing one says in this meme, but really, I mean it.

I have met many shiny people in Boston and thereabouts in the last few years. I've had lots of fun, great conversations, and have been welcomed into many wonderful communities. I've been given the opportunity to show off my strengths and improve my weaknesses and I've been encouraged and appreciated for doing both. I feel like I have a home and a reputation out here and those things mean so much to me. I've changed a lot in the last few years, whether it's been obvious or not, and your collective support and coolness has been invaluable. Thank you.

This week I've also been reminded of my roots. I got to spend a lot of hugely valuable time with old friends in CA. I saw people from the old BBS scene, high school punk buddies, members of the Tribe that's formed and expanded over the years since then and I'll go on to see another old friend from college after the wedding. I basically gave all of you whom I saw this week the same spiel about what's going on in my life and you all gave me something special and encouraging in response. I miss you all, including/especiallty those I didn't get to see this time around. It means so much to me to be welcomed back each time I cross into your orbits. Thank you.

I'm thankful for my non-chosen family, which is sooooo much less screwed up than a lot of families I've heard about. Today we got our family and future in-laws together for a giant 21-person feast before my brother's wedding on Saturday. My brother and dad both gave lovely toasts/speeches. I hope I do half as well when it's my turn to give a toast at the wedding. The whole thing made me feel so lucky to be part of the family that I am, and keenly aware of how many great things in my life, from my socialization to my introduction to technology, I owe at least in part to them and the environment they provided me growing up. The feast also kind of overwhelmed me with Social and I ended the evening kind of drained and a bit schmoopy and emo, hence this post.

I'm thankful for rigel my SO, who has been a huge and longsuffering support and a bringer of happiness at the times when I needed her most, and who put up with way more angst than any new SO should have to. Thank you.

I'm thankful for rigel my friend, who always seems able to articulate different points-of-view in ways that make sense to me, who directly or indirectly facilitated my initial connection to many other wonderful people, and who introduced me to larp, a hobby I've gotten more personal fulfillment from than I would have ever guessed. Thank you.

I'm thankful for Sequoia my Ex, who helped me become a more complete person, taught me my first lessons (good and bad) about taking chances, and was the first to have the courage to say so when our relationship's time had come. Thank you.

I'm thankful for the internet. I am so damned lucky to be alive at this time. The fact that I'm able to follow events in the lives of those close to me wherever we are relative to one another never ceases to astound me. These are, to quote Paul Simon, the days of miracle and wonder, and I try every day to not forget that (or the fact that Simon wrote those words over a decade ago and use a long distance phone call as his example/metaphor). And when I consider all that's left to be seen on this exponential curve of ingeniuity we're experiencing, I am left humbled and astounded by the wonder that is people. Tanx y00z.

I'm thankful for larp (or as I like to think of it, make-believe for grown-ups), which sounds silly to me despite knowing that a lot of you feel the same way. But the creative outlet it gives me is like no other I could have hoped of finding, especially with the work schedule I had when I first started. The chance to play make-believe with smart and creative people from all over the country, and to find something I'm good at but that still challenges me all the time, is such a value.

I'm thankful for my health, a fragile resource I've seen taken suddenly and unfairly from far too many people.

I'm thankful for my job, where I am valued and appreciated for work that still challenges me and that I still enjoy.

I'm thankful for existing in the universe, this improbable maelstrom of possibility. It is wonderful (in the literal sense of the word), just trying to grasp these things in my mind, zooming so far down that ultimately every thing is just a different arrangement of fundamental pieces (or, if not that, then perhaps pieces of pieces of pieces, descending into infinite microcosms), or so far out that the size of our universe, and our relative (in)significance within it beggars the imagination. And then I reflect that I am a part of this: I am a mass of specks that for whatever reason have collected themselves into something self-aware, which is its self a speck on an infinite ocean of planets, stars and void, looking out across infinity and crying at its beauty.

No, I'm not stoned, just severely sleep dep'd.

And now, I am thankful for bed.