thankstaking

i wonder what they're doing today. five years since i've given thanks holt-style. i wonder if they even bother to cook anymore or if they succumb to chaos and ignore conventional tradition as they do with other special occasions..and pretty much everything else.
she's rammy. holiday does for her what crack cocaine does for others. she can't stop jittering.
i wish he'd come down to feast with us. i can't shake the image of him alone in his cramped room, surrounded by dense briefs, eating cold turkey from a rumpled brown sack. i'm not one for overdoing holidays, but i wish it were like last year, minus the barfing. i wish he were here laughing with me, bullshitting with me, mocking the world with me. i could use a dose of his brand of refreshment. i don't know when i'll see him next. maybe he'll let us visit him and offend his pretentious classmates in the spring. when i'm good and massive and he can rub my big belly and be baffled.
it's two, i think. i suspect his karmic notion's correct. they refused to do the ultrasound yesterday and i shot daggers at the nurse that she mumbled in my ear would have had her curled bleeding on the floor if they'd been real. i momentarily pined for the mutant power of shooting shards of sharpened steel from my eyeballs. our population might experience a sudden, rapid thinning. and she suggested i get annoyed easily.
this holiday is for them, reeling in my tummy, begging for more food. they will love today's indulgence. today's purpose is purportedly to give thanks, but i intend to take and take and take and cram every ounce of my taking into my drooling, edacious orifice.
she told me yesterday about their play at school, what her teacher tried to convince her was the true story of thanksgiving, the multilated history she digested: pilgrims and indians were good friends, mama. such bastardization. perhaps i should write the teacher and offer my services for a quick lesson in reality: killin injuns 101.
i wanted to watch him yesterday as he boarded his plane and got worked up, wanted to watch him grinning at the idea of opening his downloaded files and playing loud moaning to his appalled but remarkably aroused fellow passengers. i wanted to watch him greeting his parents, interacting, dealing with himself alone in the dark of their quiet house. i wanted him here today because, damn, the puzzle was hard and i ached for him alongside me, replacing my hand with himself. i like to feel him coming inside me now: a definite perk. like him surging hotly into me, dripping coolly from me, like my body liquifying similarly beneath his.
thanks that i have are for making it through my days, paying my bills, if barely. i have a job, though i loathe it, where so many people don't. thanks that i have are for my bubbly, brilliant baby. she is such a shining ray in my life, years later still my major motivation. thanks that i have are for the strength i've acquired through the muddling puddle of my world. he calls my life a soap opera, says he loves to hear from me because i've forever got interesting bits to report, and i appreciate the incessantly emerging intrigue of my realm. thanks that i have are for their presence in my life, the surrogate backbone they so frequently provide. when i need support, they're mostly ready to offer it, unprejudiced, which is massive. thanks that i have are for his presence in my world, all the firsts he's brought me over the last almost 8 months, all the nexts that are to come, all the distilled pleasure, all the swimming confusion, all the repeated reassurance, all the bedhead, bodyheat mornings. falling in love with him has allowed me things i thought i'd never have, because i thought i wasn't capable; i couldn't be gladder that he's proven me wrong. thanks that i have are for the sun shining against the cold blue sky today, the grittiness of the pear skin stuck in my teeth, the purring of the sleek one and the froofy one cuddled near my seat, the reliable blue bullet parked behind my apartment, the unabashed outpouring she'll have for us later today, the jokes he'll crack, the way he'll relentlessly tease me and make me laugh myself to tears, the size and quirkiness of a family that i love madly despite the distance, the newfound speed of my internet connection, the warm laundry spilling from my dryer, the intense bonds i feel to him and him and him and her and him and her, anna quindlen's article this week and the way it made me think, this blog and the people who dutifully read it, the options for 2005.
so much unrecognized gratitude, so much good in my oft bemoaned universe. i'm thankful for today and its inspiration to dive down and dredge it up, for the opportunity to take it out and place it. this is something i should explore beyond november, beyond vague notions of gratitude for abundance and opportunity. the subtleties have such power.