A Passel of Trite Thank Yous

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

It’s trite, it’s all too facile, but here is a short and incomplete list of thankfulness.  Sometimes, particularly in the middle of a hard slog, it’s important to remember that some things went better than could be expected.

I’m thankful that 29 years ago, on the rebound, I blundered into possibly the only man I could love my whole life.  And I’m thankful that in the few times the road got bumpy we realized it and stuck to each other.

I’m thankful for the boys.  Yes, part of me will always mourn the other 12 children I didn’t have, but if I had to have only two, I’m glad it’s these two: Robert who is brilliant and driven and serious, and Marshall who is quiet and inventive and unexpectedly very, very funny.

I’m thankful for the cats.  Yes, yes, no woman should have to mop the front hall at seven in the morning, even if it’s polyurethaned, because the two ex-boy cats are having a precedence thing, but the cats remind me there’s something outside the human world and also give me something to care for that genuinely can’t care for itself.  Some days it gets me out of bed.  Also, this morning when I opened the back door, Greebo, the not-our-cat, came running and engaged in elaborate purring and rubbing before even checking out his food dish.  (He’s just a big softy.)

I’m thankful for this blog.  Sometimes it feels like lifting something very heavy to get up in the morning and write this.  But it makes my day more normal “Get up, interact with other people.”  It also makes it less lonely to know you guys have the same concerns and often the same thoughts.

I’m thankful for the tip jar.  I swear subscriber material will start going up more often, and I’ll figure out what’s wrong with the zazzle shop so I can have t-shirts made and all.  But with all that, a couple of times the tip jar helped me turn a very tight corner.  It’s also helping me do things on the indie side far more professionally than I could otherwise.

I’m thankful seventeen of you trudged out in a very cold night, to meet at my favorite diner.  We had a blast and next year must arrange some thing with more time, and maybe somewhere we can actually all talk better. Also, we need to arrange one of these next Summer, when I come to Dallas.

I’m thankful that I can make a living doing what I love.  I wish it were a bigger living, but we’re getting there, both traditional and indie, little by little.  I expect next year the living will be better and the year after much better.  And that’s not something to sneeze at.  Not these days.

I’m thankful for Indie.  Yes, having to learn all this new stuff under pressure is driving me nuts, and I could use twenty times as much time, but you know what?  I like learning things.  It’s fun.  As is the feel of a wide open field and a limitless future.

I’m thankful for my part time job with PJM.  When I was a teen I wanted to be a journalist, and it’s fun to be one, part time.

But most of all I’m thankful for the USA.  Yes, I know it is an hour of great peril, and it is fragile, and we must fight in ways we haven’t even invented yet.

But think about how much worse it would be if it had never come into being.  And it was in the balance then too, you know?  It was all too easy for it never to happen.

Government by the people for the people might be a difficult thing to keep going, to ensure it doesn’t perish from this Earth.  But how much harder if we had to invent it.

I’m grateful for my inventive, rollicking, puritan, shockingly sexual, innovative, stodgy, fresh as paint, ancient as humanity, brilliant, noisy homeland.

May it live on.  Humanity needs it.  The future comes from America.  And America belongs in the future.

54 thoughts on “A Passel of Trite Thank Yous”

  1. I’m grateful for the Huns and Odds everywhere. And books, and the writing of them.
    And in the spirit of Thanksgivukkah, A Wonderful Thing Happened Here. We remember, we celebrate, we keep it going. (As a Jewish friend once told me, all Jewish holidays boil down to “they tried to destroy us, they failed, let’s eat!”)

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  2. Amen! And as a side comment, the Puritans were a very lusty group, in the full (not limited) meaning of the word. I’m thankful they had vision to start the future we have the challenge to keep shaping.

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  3. Outstanding post, Sarah. I comment often, and for that I apologize (including for not making the effort to get to that diner the other night, but I’m in the wilds of the west coast of Florida and couldn’t get the gas money together in time). You hit all the relevant marks, including the bit about cats. I could add Arabians (the horses), Great Pyrenees dogs, and harps (I used to play, until times and money got tight and I had to sell mine to cover my rent) and my two brand new grandbabies to the list, but you got most of them in, so I’m not complaining. Please accept my very bests wishes that you and yours enjoy a happy and safe Thanksgiving.

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  4. One man’s “Trite” is another man’s “Important Stuff”. [Smile]

    But I know that it can be hard to find things/events/people to be thankful for. Life can be rough.

    Personally, I’m going through a rough period now but there are things to be thankful for.

    With Mom having to be in the nursing home, I was looking “forward” to having to find less expensive housing.

    Well, I now know that I’ve qualified for an apartment and now I have the “fun stuff” of moving to forward to. Still, I’m thankful for the new apartment and thankful for the local help that I’ve available to make the move easier.

    I am also thankful for Sarah’s place and the other on-line places that I can visit. [Smile]

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  6. I’m thankful for all the online communities I participate in. It’s about all the social interaction I have these days. I’ve also met and friended an amazing number of interesting people, including our host and the Huns. Thank you all for being a part of my life, giving me laughs, good information, and deep thoughts.

    Christopher — there’s NEVER a “wrong month” to be thankful! 8^)

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  8. Oh, and if anyone needs a recommendation for an off-the-beaten-path Christmas movie, try Remember The Night (1940, Fred McMurray and Barbara Stanwyck). Absolutely brilliant.

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  9. I’m thankful for the Huns and Odds. As strange as it sounds, y’all have been a bastion of normality over the past insane months (which culminated in the doc scaring the fire out of me a week ago Tuesday. Thanks indeed that what he found was a normal variant and not the quick trip to the cardiac unit it first appeared to be. And then a non-fic editor dropped an anvil on me on Tuesday. *growl* Thanks heaps, universe.)

    I’m also thankful that while the US and its friends are in trouble, we’ve not gone over the waterfall without a paddle yet.

    And the cat has just informed me that while the two-foots might not plan on eating for some hours yet, SHE feels that the turkey needs to be carved NOW so she can have HER share. Or else. Thanks for food, fellowship, and furballs. *looks at cat that is glaring back* Most of the time. ;)

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    1. How many of us should be thankful that we *didn’t* get what we deserve? [Nervous Smile]

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            1. IIRC C. S. Lewis commented that the “fairy tales” that children enjoy the most are ones where the villains are punished/killed while many adults writing “fairy tales” for children often show “mercy” toward the villains. He commented that those authors reflect the more “adult” view favoring mercy because adults fear “justice” toward themselves. [Smile]

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              1. Chesterton

                “For children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy.”
                ― G.K. Chesterton

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      2. You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn’t it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.
        — Marcus to Franklin, “A Late Delivery From Avalon”, Babylon 5

        As trite as it might sound, I’m thankful for the Internet, which brings me to people and Ideas that I would never find just wandering the streets. Everything good around me these days seems to come though that wire.

        (Which makes it a little scary to think about it being used against me by the Govt. And angry when the ISP decides to interfere with certain uses of it.)

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      3. I resemble that. Although, if you take a look at my history, SOMEONE has been looking after me quite closely. Otherwise, a dozen things would have killed me by now! (Thank you, Lord!)

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  11. I am thankful for many things, so many I don’t need to list them because it would overfill the wordpress buffer.
    That being said, i have to wonder about your bad door. Does it do evil things? Perhaps it is the opposite of The Door Into Summer? Or is it simply shabby and shopworn l8ike so many of us? Inquiring minds want to know

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  13. Thanks you guys foe being here. I am thankful for my husband and his job and our health and our online friends. Only 10 months until Fencon!

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  14. I’m thankful for this community, may it continue, grow and prosper.

    And thankful beyond expression for this nation, her people and our philosophical allies.

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  16. I’m thankful that my youngest daughter is healthy and congenitally happy, and that my oldest daughter is finding her way.

    I’m thankful I’ve got a skill that earns me enough of a living that my wife can stay home and raise our child. And has taken me to strange and interesting places.

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  18. A number of years ago, I read about an incident in ancient Near Eastern history that is known both from the Old Testament (which describes it as a victory for Israel) and from Assyrian records (which claims it as a victory for Assyria, even though they didn’t get inside the walls of Jerusalem). It sank in for me that when people in those days engaged in thanksgiving, it was often really serious: The people in Jerusalem, had the Assyrians really won, would have faced death or enslavement, accompanied by rape and robbery. The Pilgrims’ legendary celebration was comparably serious: They had been at real risk of starving to death.

    Now our Thanksgiving is seldom taken so seriously, because we Americans don’t think of ourselves as likely to be slaughtered by an invading army, or to starve to death, or to be enslaved. We’ve created a happy land where, however much horror individuals may face, the whole people are not in fear in that way. My own life is a bit stressed—I owe more money than I like, my income is a bit strained, and I couldn’t think of retiring if I wanted to—but I don’t worry about such horrors. And yet we as a society are not miraculously protected from them; we achieved that safety.

    It’s easy to forget that holidays are public occasions; so many of them have become times for rest and relaxation, at home or at science fiction conventions. But the original idea of Thanksgiving was a public holiday, and a deadly serious one; as it says in the seldom sung fourth verse of the national anthem, “Thus be it ever, when free men shall stand/Between their loved home and the war’s desolation./Safe in victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued-land/Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation.” As an atheist, I don’t believe in the literal existence of any such power; but like my fellow unbeliever Ayn Rand, I think Thanksgiving is a holiday worth celebrating and I find much to be thankful for.

    Thanks for helping to remind of us this, and Happy Thanksgiving!

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  19. I’m thankful for out little community here as well. I go days at a time where all I do is get ready for work, work, go home from work and sleep. Being able to slip you guys in while the boss isn’t looking is a real life saver. Thanks for being my home away from home.

    And now for something totally different.

    Sarah: I know the word “puritanical” gets thrown a lot, but real world Puritans were actually a pretty sexualized society. When you get a free minute, research the term “bundling” as used by Puritans. You might be surprised at what you find.

    Sorry, but I’m an odd. With a history degree. Who took grad school classes from someone who had studied colonial Massachusetts closely. I really had no choice.

    Oh, and I’m also thankful for a place where I can go that people get my weird sense of humor, at least sometimes.

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    1. I’ve read that a Puritan husband would be in trouble (socially) if he refused to “bed” his wife as much as she wanted him to do. [Evil Grin]

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      1. Actually, Marquis de Custine in his La Russe in 1839 traveled with some Americans for a time. He called them “Jansenists of the Protestant variety.”

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      2. Another instance of the sloppy use of language, like “decimate” and “fascist” or “inconceivable.”

        They keep using those words. I do not think they mean what they think they mean.

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  21. Thanks for being here, all y’all. To Sarah, for making this blog and sticking to it, and to the rest of y’all for making the community here.

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  23. This blog and all its denizens have been a great blessing to me, especially in the last year. I’ve found great entertainment. I’ve found kindred souls who don’t think all the same thoughts as I do, and thus have given me food for thought as well as companionship. I’ve gotten to meet some awesome people in meatspace and gotten to know them, that I otherwise would never have met. I’ve found inspirations for projects both written and built that I would not have had. I’ve found the courage to attempt things I would not have dared without you all for encouragement and example. I found several of my favorite customers from posting here (or they found me). I’ve learned all sorts of things in all sorts of subjects from the just-in-passing comments from you amazing people. It’s been reassuring to know that I am not the only one walking the thin line between foolish optimism and let-it-burn nihilism.

    Above all, y’all are just fun to be around! In a life that needs uplifting (as all do), it’s been a great comfort to be able to hang around here, even when I’ve only health and strength enough to sit in the corner, nursing a teetotal beverage, smiling and nodding at the Horde’s antics. For all the blessings y’all are, que Deus vos abonçoe. Thank you. May the Author grant you peace in the storm, may He write you with enough strength to bear the character developments you’re given, and may all His plot twists turn to your blessing.

    Note: this poster is punch-drunk and sleepy, and may be over-dramatic and maudlin. Sober Oyster denies all responsibility for what Sleepy Oyster may have written. Your mileage may vary, void where prohibited, there’s no accounting for taste.

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        1. You can strum it with your shell. Lack of fingers means you can only play the one chord, and nobody claimed you could play well.

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  24. I’m thankful that this turkey (my 20th) turned out well, and that gluten-free has advanced enough that every member of the family can enjoy the entire feast. I’m also thankful I was able to attend the meet-up, it’s great to put some faces to names.

    I’m less thankful that I seem to have stumbled into mashed potato duty in addition to turkey, gravy, cranberry sauces, and general kitchen coordination. Someone remind me next year to bring more beer.

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  25. I’m thankful for this blog and the people I have met on it, and thankful for living in a country where I can still mostly live how I wish. Howsoever much I may dislike and complain about the government, it is still better than any other country on earth. I am also thankful for four fat and sassy puppies whose eyes are starting to open… and who are currently reminding me it is time for them to eat, again.

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      1. Hounds, this is the fourth* and probably last litter I will raise out of this female. She throws very good pups, but is a terrible mother, so I end up doing most all the puppy raising myself. While I enjoy it, it basically ties up several weeks where I can’t get anything else accomplished.

        *Actually three, because I left her with a relative on the first litter while I was out of state, thus finding out what a terrible mother she was when she lost them all.

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        1. Eventually the Hoyt household will have to get a dog, but it will probably be something domestic and dumb like Golden Retrievers. Though not sure, as long as younger son visits. He’s deathly allergic to dogs. (And probably more than mildly allergic to cats.)

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  26. Pingback: IMAO » Blog Archive » Post-Thanksgiving Thanks: I Concur

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