Eclectic Views

    
This Thursday is Thanksgiving in the US. 

What are you thankful for?
  

    
I'm thankful for <jrc> and his annual Thanksgiving column. He varies
it a little each year, and it's always fun to check out the changes
from one year to the next. 

Here's last year's:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/11/27/DDG1N3A05D1.DTL

Plus this year I'm especially thankful I have a job. I was unemployed
for over five years, and it took a huge toll on me in more ways than I
can count. But I've found I've been able to get back in the swing of
things just fine. I feel useful now, and that's a wonderful feeling to
have.
  

    

I'm thankful for my dear partner, who's put up with me for 21 years. I'm
thankful for the staff at Avalon for the kindness and care they show my poor
ol' Alzheimer-afflicted mother. I'm thankful to The WELL for providing me
friendships galore for the past 11 years, and to The WELL and Salon for 
providing me employment for the past 6. 

I'm also thankful for my two sweet-patootie kittie cats and for sweet
potato pie, just because. 
  

    
I'm grateful and thankful for so much. Especially of late for where I
live. San Francisco, despite its many faults, is still an oasis of
wonder. A beachhead of American tolerance that's felt more in its
absence when you're elsewhere than when you're here taking it for
granted. A gathering spot for the different, the funny, the gifted, the
introspective, the yearners and the adventurers, the artists, the
seeking spirits. I love the town and its history. I love in an odd way
the sleepy suburb I commute from. I love the whole region, including
the vast areas I've yet to explore.  My goal this year: to see the
nesting grounds of the puffins!

And I love the Well. Happy Thanksgiving, all!
  

    
"And a moment for old friends now estranged, victims of the flux of
alliances and changing perceptions. There was something there once, and
that something is worth honoring as well." Eleanor quoting <jrc>

What a nice thought. 
  

    
What Angie said. Living in the Bay Area makes me feel like I'm living in an
insane asylum, but at least on the observer side of the one-way mirror.
  

    
Hey, as a recent ex-pat, you may wish to experience Key West. "big
Town Sensibilities in a Small Town." Pretty neat. San Francisco housing
prices, though. Up over 30% in each of the past three years.

-sigh-
  

    
Yeah, housing is crazy here, to be sure.

Still, I relate to Angie's musings.  In recent years I've had to live
temporarily in other parts of the US for work, and each time I've done
so, it has enhanced my appreciation of the SF Bay Area.  I mean, crazy
as this place is, I'm so glad to be able to return to it.
  

    
I'm thankful for finally having moved back to CA - Santa Clara, in
particular - in an intermittent, increasing 9yr process with 2
truncated tries. I hope to stay here for a long while. It's a nice
place to be & describe in detail, so I'm writing about this (& other
stuff) for The San Francisco CALL (www.sfcall.com) & my own blog
(www.billcostley.blog-city.com) I owe it all to The Well, where in the
process of reading & answering other Wellites, so many ideas come to my
mind that I then develop them at greater length off-Well; after all,
The Well says to its members: "You own your own words." Ownership
implies development, too, right? Good enuf to post is fair enuf to
re-publish, with some subsequent re-polishing. Or so it seems to me,
after a few years here.   
  

    
I'm thankful that I'm living amidst 21st Century technology.  That
includes medical technology that I'll probably be relying on more and more
as my body grows older and older.  It also includes things like the
Internet and the Web (and the WELL) that help me, as a statistically
unusual person, find other statistically unusual people as friends and
companions, physical and virtual.

I'm thankful for old friends and new, in the Bay Area as well as Southern
California and elsewhere.

I'm thankful for the WELL as well as science fiction fandom and the
Radical Faeries and other groups, as well as a number of more or less
random individuals.

I'm thankful that the fates have at least sort of smiled on me
financially, at least for the short to medium term.  I still have some
long-term worries, but I also have hope that they can be dealt with in due
time.

I'm thankful that I have some things going on that I can't really talk
about (some high-tech NDA stuff) that give me hope for the future, both
financially and in terms of the kinds of problems I enjoy solving to keep
my mind active.

I'm thankful that my body is in as good a shape as it is, even if it is 
starting to show its age.  

And I'm thankful for a number of things that are too personal to list 
here. 

I'm also thankful for the hope that no matter how good things are, they 
can always get better, even if that isn't very likely.  
  

    
I am thankful for the certain knowledge of eventual cataclysm, which,
when it comes, will render all of our petty troubles moot, some 4-5 
billion years hence.
  

    
I'm most assuredly _not_ grateful that it's conference policy that the
hosts don't use pseuds, and thus I have to forego the superb "more or
less random individual" from <bubbles> post. But I'm hoping someone
else will snap it up. 

Happy Thanksgiving, 
  

    
I'm thankful for the WeLL and for my friends and family. I'm very
thankful for my son, Victor.
  

    
I'm thankful for a lot of things this year.  I have a place in a graduate
program that I love, a family that is supportive of me when I follow my
dreams, a job situation that is more or less ideal, a whole lot of good
friends, and an absolutely wonderful <mpk>.

And I'm thankful for the Internet, including the Well, because without it
I would have almost none of these things.
  

    
A rich guy hired me as a carpenter's laborer working on his house when
I was finishing up college. He did it mostly as a favor to me, I
think, and that last bit of education has helped me a lot. He was a
real smart guy, an engineer and a lawyer, and thought I was wrong about
everything, but he was always pleasant and kindly to me. We argued
political philosophy some, and I still think a lot about some of the
things he said. I never thanked him to my satisfaction. He died this
last year.

Thank you, Tony.
  

    
I'm thankful for pretty much every breath I take and am able to
exhale. 
I'm grateful most for my girl Beverly and the love and patience she
has shown me since we fell for each other over ten years ago.
I'm grateful for my children and the way they have grown and survived
over the years to bring me grand and great- grandchildren.

I am grateful for my life as it has changed and changed me. 

I am grateful for those no longer with me that kept burning my ass
with a three foot high fire to keep me from staying to long in the
warmth. 
I am grateful for those no longer with me that brought me in from the
cold to warm me with love.
I am grateful for the continuing hope that I will awake again in the
morning.