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11/26/2005: "Thanksgiving for the Least-Assured and Whiskey-Filled"

As has become tradition, Tumble and I recovered at a coffeeshop from the food orgy (foodgy?) that was Thanksgiving at our landlord Phil’s. Chestnut normally would have joined us, but he was sleeping off the previous night when he’d realized four brownies and a ladyfinger too late that the desserts on the red tray were “leaded” and several hours later attempted to show us the interconnectivity of life through dance.

And so, on this fine morning, Tumble and I shared a laugh or two over coffee in the courtyard of the megamart-outlet-warehouse down the street and watched one woman wrestle another woman to the ground over a flat-screen TV. I silently gave thanks for the roommate in my presence, the one recovering at home, and the landlord who, when one of his tenants breaks into a grand plie, doesn’t scoff but rather plays “I’ll Be Your Mirror” on the record player and tells everyone to be quiet.

Somewhere in my mind, I can’t shake the knowledge that Thanksgiving is actually the commemoration of teepee-burning and smallpox blankets, mutated over the currency-soaked centuries into a rolling land of strip malls full of Kay Jewelers and Taco Bells. But I also can't shake the knowledge that one late November years ago in college, a guy I knew sang an entire Guided By Voices album into the drive-through speaker at one of those Taco Bells.

I want to know how that man is doing today, and give thanks for a world that produces such a thing.