Happy Thanksgiving

I am thankful, as always, for life, health, shelter, food, and all the things we can take for granted but many people can't.

I'm thankful for my wife's transition and that she's here with us today.

I am thankful for my two unique, creative, loving, special goofballs, one of whom crawled into bed with us this morning while the other made cocoa for them both. (Granted, the thumping this involved sounded like the drum intro to "In the Air Tonight," but it was a nice gesture.)

I'm thankful for my good friends and colleagues. I have been better about asking for support lately, and it has improved my life.

I am extra-thankful that my bestest friends are all on these really stable, happy, upward trajectories: jobs, homes, babies, partners, art...

And I am super-thankful that I've been making a concerted effort to spend some time with my friends, and they have spent the effort back, and I feel less isolated.

I am very thankful for my family, my parents, step-parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and warm, loving sisters and brothers in-law. This has been a trying couple years -- my grandmother passed, and then my uncle. I saw a photo yesterday with my great-grandma, paternal grandparents, and uncle on his wedding day to my aunt, and it jolted me -- all these people I loved are dead. But at the same time, I'm so grateful for the years I had with them, for the clear, strong, positive memories I have with them, and for all they contributed to my life.

Especially as my friends (and younger cousins!) are losing their parents, I'm deeply grateful to have good parents in good health who live nearby and are loving, involved grandparents. I realize that there are at least four variables in that last sentence that not everyone has.

Under "miscellaneous," I am thankful for having moved the living room furniture in such a way that we all hang out in the same room. I am thankful that my garden mostly works. I am thankful for my cat Mina and for the new kitty we are getting on Sunday! I am thankful for both kids' good schools and caring teachers. I am thankful for my own students, their senses of humor, and their willingness to learn with me. I am thankful for my neighbors and my neighborhood.

And although we are living in American in 2019, and there is not much to be grateful for in the political world, I'm intensely grateful for all the people who are working to do *good.* In my own circle of friends are people working to help the homeless, undocumented immigrants, underprivileged kids, and so many more with so many organizations. As I write this, multiple of my neighbors and friends are running past my house on a charity 5k to feed the hungry.

There is good in the world, there is good in the world, there is good in the world, and I am thankful.