The Day In Which We Give Thanks (And High-Five Diabetes)

Ahh, turkey day.

Day of excess. Day of family. Day of tryptophan. Day of carbs. Day of gratitude.

This year, the holidays are different for me. I don’t want to say I fell out of touch with the holidays, but the once bright and burnished edge had grown dull, its edge gone soft — there’s only so many times you can celebrate these holidays before it all starts to feel a little samey-samey, a little, “All right, I know how this is going to go, and it’s nice, and I’m not complaining, but maybe next year we could have some fireworks or hula dancers or some shit. Maybe? Anybody? No? Okay.”

This year, I have a son. And while he will not experience the full-bore joy-assault of these holidays given that he’s a wee six-months-old, I still get to vicariously place my eyeballs inside his eyeballs and witness the whole thing anew. The old dried skin of holidays past is flaking off like so much snow, like so much flaky pumpkin pie crust, and the skin beneath is bright and pink and soft and untouched by the calluses formed by so much reiterative experience.

Baby’s first Thanksgiving, then. That’s what I’m thankful for. Thankful for the whole baby experience, obviously. The boy’s a weird little wonder. He sings weird baby whale songs at night. He squeaks and laughs when you do unexpected things (a couple weeks ago, it was tearing celery, yesterday it was my mother-in-law tipping over a toy giraffe). He bounces. He tries to walk. He’s half-crawling now, dragging himself across the floor. He can sit up by himself for three seconds. Can stand up by himself if you give him something to hold onto. He grabs everything. He flings it to the floor or — in a true choose-your-own-adventure-mode — pops it in his mouth. He eats a bucketload of baby food now — he just keeps opening his mouth waiting for more to be delivered to his nom-nom unit. He’s cute. He’s weird. He’s our son. And I’m thankful for him and for my wife and the dog and my whole wonderful family unit.

Even through the crying jags and sleepless nights and diapers so laden and leaden you could use one to bludgeon a bear, even through all the madness and confusion and wibbly-wobbly schedules —

I’m thankful.

Of course, just as it’s important we give thanks, I think it’s also important we sometimes vent spleen. Because one cannot know light without first tasting darkness. Therefore, one cannot know gratitude unless he knows its opposite: face-melting incoherent rage.

No, seriously, I’m not all that spleen-venty this year, but here’s two things that are tickling my pink parts with a rusted wire brush: first, my goddamn glasses broke. Oh, no, not like, one of the important parts — not the lens, not the frame, not the part that hangs over my ear. No, one of the little nose guards. Not just the pad, though, but the whole little tiny micro-nubbin to which the pad connects. Snapped right off. And now my glasses sit lopsided. And constantly irritate that part of the bridge of my nose. First world problems, I recognize, but GNARRGGGHSSSRBLE it’s under my skin.

Number two: TV commercials. I avoid commercials whenever possible, but I’m amazed at how often commercials now focus on users-of-said-products who are just total dicks to one another. One assumes that I’m supposed to find that the people on the screen using the products advertised are meant to be proxies of me, the target of said advertising. And yet, so many of these potential proxies are awful humans. Mean to family, mean to friends, dicking each other over, basically execrable human beings. They steal each other’s candy bars and lie to one another and torment their children. So, there you go. I hate awful people in commercials who do not receive their comeuppance.

I also hate the new Old Navy commercial, which makes use of the term “Gobblepalooza.”

Which is really quite porny, if you ask me.

Well, whatever.

If you feel so inclined, do drop into the comments and tell us:

a) One thing for which you’re thankful

b) One thing which earns your ire and demands a right good spleen-venting!

DO IT DO IT NOW OR THE TURKEY GETS IT

Ohh. Ohh. Too late. Turkey got it.

Happy Thanksgiving, tmeeps.