T-shirt #252 - Poultry Days - ThanksgivingIs it wrong to be more interested in football than Thanksgiving dinner?
Okay, that's not totally true.
I love the time with family.
Family time is very special.
But damn, can the Detroit Lions get a win?
I had wanted to feature a shirt today from Cornwell's Turkeyville because of Thanksgiving and turkey and all that. But they were out of damn shirts when I was there two weeks ago to review the annual Christmas show.
Alas, I am stuck sharing another Ultimate shirt from my one appearance at the classic Poultry Days tournament. Fun tournament. Miserable night trying to camp. Never again.
But it's the only bird-themed shirt I have.
NEW SUBJECT! THE DINNER PARTY
I have a whole category devoted to my fantasy Dinner Party. Recently, I wrote about the Dinner Party in T-shirt #247 - Wonder Woman and T-shirt #231 - CBGB Lou Reed RIP.
The other night I had a dream that I was talking with Laurie Anderson at the Dinner Party. She is the most recent addition to the party. And Bjork was there, talking to us and sharing strange art in the dream. Not sure why or how this came to me in my dream. But it seems prophetic. I have to add Bjork to the Dinner Party.
Here's the most recent text about the Dinner Party from T-shirt #247 - Wonder Woman.
I have written many times on the subject of women and subjects related to women. In fact, most of the people at my fantasy Dinner Party are women: Suzanne Vega, Margaret Atwood, Erykah Badu, Laurie Anderson, and Marisha Pessl. I have recently written about my adoration of Veronica Mars (T-shirt #240), who would be at The Dinner Party if she were a real person and BUFFY, of course, in T-shirt #170. Also, it seems that I kind of forgot about my "Women" category, as it only has one shirt, featuring Katie Holmes, T-shirt #93. I could go on and on. Many shirts have featured women in some way or content about or created by women, such as one of my favorites in T-shirt #161 with TED talk videos by Susan Cain and Jill Bolte Taylor. And I have not even featured the two feminist shirts I own yet. So stay tuned.
GRATITUDE
Someone (Sarah Hale? She wrote "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and is supposedly responsible for making Thanksgiving a national holiday.) started a tradition of listing the things each of us is thankful for at Thanksgiving.
Obviously, I am thankful for my family, my jobs, my home, and, of course, my health. I am prostate-less and cancer free with an infinitesimal chance of recurrence. I have a wife whom I love (and who loves me, which is even more incredible), amazing step-kids, wonderful pets, great parents, an amazing sister, a kind brother-in-law, a courageous and loving cousin, and so on. I have a good home, good work, school, friends, Ultimate, comic books, and gaming. I am fortunate enough to live in a world of ideas. I am healthy and have the full use of all my senses and body parts (except the one that's missing).
But I am also thankful for you readers and this blog. When I began, I did not really imagine I could meet the goal of daily posting and certainly did not imagine that I would be writing this message on day 252 of 365 days. The blog has been a wonderful journey, and I am looking forward to where the remaining days take me, take us.
But even more important than the blog itself, I am blessed with readers. I am so honored and deeply touched that all of you take some of your valuable time to check out what I am doing. I promise to make it worth your while in the remaining 113 days. I will strive to keep the content as varied as possible, though true to my particular oeuvre (lots of comic books!!). Thank you for reading my blog.
It seems that every 70 or so days (I am a bit behind on this third one) I am compelled to share what I originally wrote in T-shirt #78 - Suzanne Vega (when I also started the ongoing story the Dinner Party) about gratitude. I presented it again in T-shirt #157 - Gull Lake. Here it is again. And then, after, between pictures, a reminder of what I wrote the other day in T-shirt #250 - Winnie the Pooh: Love, love is the answer.
I am very grateful for Suzanne Vega and all that she has given me in my life, all that I have shared with her through music, what seems like deeply personal music, without knowing her at all, though feeling like I do know her, know her music.
So, each morning, I run the list of things for which I am grateful. I am not always listing musical artists, like Suzanne Vega, because I focus mostly on my family and community. Though from time to time, musical artists will drift into my consciousness, and I will thank the universe for them, infuse the positive energy of my love into the fabric of the cosmos, because, after all, we are all connected.
LAST WORD ON THE GRATITUDE THING: I got the idea for the gratitude prayer (meditation, list, incantation, catalogue, rumination, reflection, or whatever you want to call it) from a movie calledThe Secret. I am not quite promoting the movie as a "true" exposure of an actual science. In fact, many of the stories in the film are a bit fatuous. However, I like watching it. I showed it to a class (my second viewing) about a month ago, and the idea of the daily gratitude thing struck me. In the movie, one of the interviewees (I forget which one and it's not important) explained how he had a rock in his pocket. At night, he would set it on his dresser with the other contents of his pockets. The next morning, he would retrieve it and remember to list the things for which he was grateful as a daily routine, like a prayer. He had a visitor from South Africa and told the man about his rock and gratitude practice. The man called it a "gratitude rock." After returning to South Africa, he wrote his American friend and asked for some gratitude rocks to be sent to him because one of his children was very sick, and he did not have the money to seek medical care for the child. The interviewee balked at sending "gratitude rocks" because, after all, "they are just rocks," he said. But he found three nice rocks and sent them to his South African friend. Months later, the South African wrote back. The rocks worked! His son was healed and recovered. They paid for his medical treatment by selling a hundred gratitude rocks. People believed in the power of the gratitude rocks.I found this story inspirational. I do not use a rock, but every day, I make my gratitude list. I send energy into the universe. I focus on the positive and try to limit or dismiss the negative.
I think it's working.
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Please check out T-shirt #166 - FAO Schwartz again if you have time and interest.
Love, love is the answer.
LOVE IS THE ANSWER VIDEO (again)
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