{"id":2064,"date":"2010-11-25T17:15:25","date_gmt":"2010-11-25T17:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/?p=2064"},"modified":"2010-11-25T17:15:25","modified_gmt":"2010-11-25T17:15:25","slug":"what_im_thankful_for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/2010\/11\/25\/what_im_thankful_for\/","title":{"rendered":"What I&#8217;m Thankful For"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Okay, that last entry was a major drag. I apologize for getting carried away like that. As I said, I have a difficult time with the holidays, and I do tend to get overwhelmed with anxiety and ennui as they approach. I really would like to just run away from them. I guess I&#8217;ve turned into my father after all.<\/p>\n<p>That said, however, I do <i>try<\/i> to enjoy them. inasmuch as my particular form of social retardation allows. So in that spirit, I&#8217;m now going to do what I&#8217;ve seen so many other bloggers and Facebookers doing today and list off a few of the things for which I&#8217;m thankful on Thanksgiving. Well, maybe not actually <i>on<\/i> Thanksgiving, which is of course just another stressful damn holiday, but in general. You know what I mean&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nIn no particular order, I&#8217;m thankful for:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Girlfriend and her shockingly extensive (but not actually inexhaustible) patience for all my BS.<\/li>\n<li>My parents, and the fact that they&#8217;re still relatively healthy and youthful compared to many of their friends.<\/li>\n<li>Motion pictures.<\/li>\n<li>Mountains and rivers and deserts and green, cool places.<\/li>\n<li>Coffee.<\/li>\n<li>Mexican Coke.<\/li>\n<li>Rock and roll, and the blues music that fathered it.<\/li>\n<li>Electric guitars.<\/li>\n<li>My friends, in all their shocking diversity. I have tried to imagine what it would be like to get them all together in the same place, and honestly, I just can&#8217;t. If nothing else, the explosion of so much matter and anti-matter coming together would be&#8230; colorful.<\/li>\n<li>All the pets I&#8217;ve shared my life with, and who have provided me with love and comfort and joy in the way that only uncomplicated non-humans can: dogs, horses, pocket parrots, ducks, and most recently, my three goofy but lovable kitty-boys and their grouchy mother.<\/li>\n<li>The classic television legacy of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Stephen_J._Cannell\">Stephen J. Cannell<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Donald_Bellisario\">Donald Bellisario<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>The original <i>Star Trek<\/i>.<\/li>\n<li>The original <i>Star Wars<\/i> trilogy.<\/li>\n<li>A job that I (mostly) like, that pays me a comfortable salary and gives me an opportunity to work with people that I (mostly) like.<\/li>\n<li>Slurpees.<\/li>\n<li>A motorhead dad who&#8217;s always been there to bail me out of automotive jams.<\/li>\n<li>A motorhead dad who has given me the opportunity to drive and love <i>real<\/i> automobiles from Detroit&#8217;s glory days.<\/li>\n<li>The opportunities I&#8217;ve had to travel and see the world beyond the limited horizons of Utah.<\/li>\n<li>My knack for understanding most things quickly and (relatively) easily.<\/li>\n<li>My memory, which I&#8217;ve long taken for granted but am now learning seems to be far clearer and more far-reaching than many people&#8217;s.<\/li>\n<li>Warm summer days when the sky is tall and brilliant.<\/li>\n<li>Days when I leave work while the sun is still shining.<\/li>\n<li>Pretty young things in flirty summer dresses.<\/li>\n<li>Pretty young things in jeans and knee-high boots.<\/li>\n<li>Classy grown-up ladies wearing the same outfits as the pretty young things.<\/li>\n<li>My luck in growing up in the 1970s and &#8217;80s, before the digital revolution, when life was perhaps not simpler, but certainly seemed a lot more authentic.<\/li>\n<li>My weird ability to easily imagine what life was like before I was born, and to feel some affinity for the 1940s and &#8217;50s.<\/li>\n<li>The fact that I grew up essentially rural, but with a city a mere 20 minutes away.<\/li>\n<li>My passport.<\/li>\n<li>Leather jackets.<\/li>\n<li>Roses.<\/li>\n<li>Summer thunderstorms.<\/li>\n<li>The artwork of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Frank_Frazetta\">Frank Frazetta<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Al_Williamson\">Al Williamson<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Long underwear when the overnight low temperature drops to 10 degrees or less (like tonight).<\/li>\n<li>Fresh peaches.<\/li>\n<li>Homemade ice cream.<\/li>\n<li>Blogs.<\/li>\n<li>Digital photography. I know, I&#8217;m Mr. Analog, but if nothing else, going digital has saved me a <i>lot<\/i> of money on film and processing.<\/li>\n<li>Cold water on a hot day.<\/li>\n<li>Tailored shirts.<\/li>\n<li>Used bookstores.<\/li>\n<li>Communities that give a crap about preserving interesting bits of the past (unlike Utah generally, and my hometown in particular).<\/li>\n<li>A mom who saved <i>everything<\/i> while I was growing up, so I can make the decision about whether or not to keep something myself.<\/li>\n<li>The fact that I still have so much from my childhood, while everyone else I know laments things long gone&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That seems like a rather anti-climatic place to leave off, but that&#8217;s all I can come up with right now. Hope it&#8217;s enough&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Okay, that last entry was a major drag. I apologize for getting carried away like that. As I said, I have a difficult time with the holidays, and I do tend to get overwhelmed with anxiety and ennui as they approach. I really would like to just run away from them. I guess I&#8217;ve turned [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-ramblings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2064\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasonbennion.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}