In the spirit of the season…
I’m thankful for having a forum on which to express my badthoughts, for however long those are still tolerated.
I’m thankful that someone actually reads those badthoughts, even if it’s only about fifteen someones. In fact, I’m grateful that it is only about fifteen someones. Our Thing trends toward megalomania — with the noble exception of the Z Man, everyone who writes on Our kind of topics seems to go the Col. Kurtz route the minute he gets more than a few dozen readers.
I’m grateful to the co-bloggers. When we started this thing a few years ago, I thought Morgan, Philmon, and CylarZ were the best e-migos a guy could have…. my opinion of them has only gotten better with time.
At the risk of sounding like the Pharisee, whose thanks God that he is not like other men, I’m grateful that I have some limited ability to sit still and shut up. Yes, extremely limited — I’m writing this, after all, and I spent a lot of years in one of those professions where “loving the sound of your own voice” is a job requirement — but still, it’s there. If History has taught us anything, it’s that the inability to sit quietly is responsible for 75% of all the disasters that have ever befallen humanity (and the rest were bad luck). I may be the only guy not actually in religious orders who reads the Desert Fathers as a how-to manual. Even they struggled with sitting quietly, and they’d withdrawn from the world specifically to do just that.
Finally, I’m grateful for the commenters. We’re a saturnine bunch; lots of us are playing the back nine of our lives; I’m pretty sure most if not all of us drink a bit too much for our own good… but we’re doing what we can to keep Western Civ’s rickety ship afloat a few more years. I’m not sure any of us would be the life of the party out in the world, but I am sure we’re going to have some high old times together in the reeducation camp.*
Happy Thanksgiving, y’all.
I and, I’m sure, the other fourteen give thanks that you take the time and trouble to express your Badthoughts.
I thank you for this blog. Also, I am thankful for what I have because it is definitely far more than I deserve.
Thanks to you! And many good Thanksgivings to follow.
Thankful for this blog and the work you do, Severian. It’s a bright spot out here in the badlands.
Thankful for this blog and its commenters. Please do keep it up!
I appreciate you hosting this little InnerWebZ gathering spot for those few. We happy few. Oh yet cantankerous. Yet opinionated. Happy Thanksgiving one and all. Commenter & Lurker alike!
Thanks mate. It’s a very high quality blog. Dunno if you’ll be flattered by the comparison but it’s in the highest tier of my blog roll, up there with spandrell, z, porter, anatomically correct banana.
I also appreciate the high consistent volume of output.
I may well take you up on the contact thing some night I throw back one too many.
Having fellow travellers helps a lot so thank you for publishing.
Thank you for your work on this thoughtful and thought provoking blog.
I’m thankful that the only reason I complain about things is for practice.
I like your blog and appreciate the work you put into this. Thank you!