Giving Thanks? What Is This Absurdity That You Speak Of?

"I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land."                       ~John Stewart, the Daily Show

Well, Thanksgiving has come around once again, and it's really no different a day. It's such a superficial holiday made up by white supremacists and the turkey industry, and yet, people still celebrate it. I think that I will never understand them, but hey. Who am I to judge? But I'm sure the pilgrims were sitting around dinner tables just like almost everyone else in America is tonight stating, "Lord, I thank thee for all that we have stolen from the Indians, completely undermining their hospitality (which is very much an understatement) you have given us, and may we continue to take that which is not rightfully ours and prosper from such greed and corruption live with your blessings. Amen." Yes, this holiday is founded on complete happiness and true equality and thankfulness.

But I guess everyone has things for which they are thankful on this fine day, and I am not prepared to be the odd one out just this yet. So I figured that now is a good a time as any to state the things for which I am grateful (what? Maggie is capable of being grateful? Lord have mercy!). So listen (or, I guess, read) well, for you will rarely hear me say or see me do anything remotely like this in my life.

I am thankful for:

• My friends, who have stuck with me through quite a bit already, and hopefully will put up with my crazy antics for much, much longer (though I can't fathom why they do anyways)
• A few select friends who have really come through this year and have been with me through times that I wouldn't have come through whole without them (you know who you are, and if I haven't thanked you profusely enough, thank you, thank you, thank you!)
• Certain... wonderful acquaintances... who have... ah... kindly given my friends the opportunity to be great friends
• All the books that I've been able to read this year (for all the good that it's done to my ever growing workload)
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and anyone else who has kept Sherlock Holmes a popular perennial persona (for in case you couldn't tell, I do like the world's only consulting detective quite a bit)
• The new people I've met this year who have been daring enough to (perhaps tragically) befriend me. I apologize ahead of time for our future friendship which will be very trying for you, in which I will call upon you to do many things for me, and yet I shall very rarely do much for you in return
• My guidance counselor, Ms. Jodi Mace, who has never once stopped me, even when I would come running into her office in an effort to overhaul my whole schedule and flip over all of my classes just to make a class schedule that would strike down most mortals (though she probably should have, since I am mortal (surprise, right? I know), and being struck down is quite a slow and painful process, as I've come to learn)
• My mother, who has shown me great love despite there being so much distance between us. Her constant calls always lets me know that she worries and cares. Perhaps I'll see her sometime soon once again. I'm sure we would have a lot to talk about.
• Lastly, my father, who, despite what he may think (whether due to my actions and his misguided conclusions therefore, or his irrational parental worry), has never failed as a parent. Sure, there have been moments, but he really is, honestly, the best of parents that I believe any child could ever have

For these things I am thankful. And I mean really thankful. If I wasn't wholeheartedly grateful for any of this, I wouldn't have mentioned it in the first place. So thank you so much to all of you whom I have mentioned. My life would be a dark, cynical, dreary hole without you. But now it's just a dark, cynical, and dreary path instead. So you all truly and honestly have my deepest thanks.