Thanks.
Thanksgiving is upon us. This afternoon, I will gather with some of my dearest Californian friends (in which "Californian" is intended to mean "met in California" and not "born in California", as none of them is) to share what will no doubt be a delicious dinner (all I say is there will be a bird, and green beans, and mashed potatoes, and yams, and cornbread, and two cranberry sauces, and sangria, and mulled wine, and sparkling wine, and pumpkin pie, and apple pie, and cranberry cheesecake, and probably some other things as well) and many, many laughters. According to our tradition, we will all have a cup of champaign before desert and toast to all what we are thankful for.
However corny that might sound, it is an ideal time, what with the grumpiness the cold season brings upon us, to reflect on all our blessings. I tend to complain a lot — mostly because it makes for more interesting stories —, but now is the time to think about all what I am grateful for.
I had planned to write a long and detailed text about being thankful for my lab and the sweet, sweet research I am doing in there; for my family which, despite being quite a poorly little dysfunctional thing, is made of people I love and who make me proud of them more often than not; for my body, which has been quite worse than it is right now, and still allows me to walk to places and dance the night away.
But I realized that, foremost and above all, it is for my friends that I am the most thankful. For someone who used to be the ugly duckling during her childhood, I am amazed at how well I can get along with people now. Only a few chosen ones, of course, are the intimate friends I share my darker secrets and deeper frustrations with. Many others, however, brighten my mood whenever I have the chance to chat with them.
I am thankful for the lasting friendships with the faraway friends I have known for years and who, in spite of the distance, are always around somewhere in the background, wanting to know when they will see me next and ready to exchange a few words by IM if we so happen to be online at the same time.
I am thankful as well for the strong bonds I have formed with some of my fellow grads (or ex-grads), the people with whom I am sharing so much of my daily life and habits, from the lunches to the talks we attend together and the parties we would never have without inviting one another. Later today, I will share a meal with some of them, and I will make sure to have a very special thought for the people who have entered my life the most recently and already impacted it in unsuspected way.
Here's to my new roommate and her ever so uplifting new-yorker, theater person craziness.
Here's to my witty French-speaking, feminist, anti-marriage, European, leftist, tango-dancing girlfriend.
Here's to my swing partner, with whom I've shared not only inside turns, outside turns, hammerlocks, cuddles, free spins, fishhooks, Lindy circles, swing-outs, swivels, reverse, shadows, what's-this-move-called-agains, and does-this-even-have-a-names, but also laughs and research stories and a rhino-pharyngitis.
And, last but not least, here's to the commentators of this little corner of the InterWebs, whether we've ever met face to face or not, whether we've already spent hours on end chatting on IM or not, for not only reading my babble but reacting to it. You make it so much more meaningful.
