live blogging thanksgiving pt 1

10 am
I have a long-standing tradition of getting a turkey pot-pie and a bottle of whisky and spending thanksgiving by myself. It’s not that I am a curmudgeon (well, maybe I am a little bit of one); it’s just that I really enjoy the quiet solitude that a holiday spent alone can bring. Roommates vacate, the city streets go quiet, and for one afternoon you can imagine what it might feel like to be the only person on the planet. (Maybe that is why I like the movie The Omega Man so much?)
It’s been a few years since I was able to spend Thanksgiving alone, and I must say that this year I am stepping it up a bit. Yesterday I was surprised to find that New Seasons Market doesn’t carry the Hungry Man line of TV dinners, so I had to settle for something that is probably much better and healthier. The days of the cheapest possible whiskey are over too. I just turned 34, I gots to grow up sometime…
I remember one great thanksgiving, in 1997 I think, where I had a whole house to myself for an entire weekend. I was in a band back then and we had a basement full of instruments, and I locked myself down there for days with my four-track and recorded hours of crazy music. (in fact, a bit of UrHo trivia, I think I was rocking out on either Adam Forkner’s or AC Dickson’s drum set). And then a couple years later I made my short film Sincerely, Joe P. Bear over thanksgiving weekend (oh the joys of depression during the holiday season). So who knows, maybe this year things will be equally productive and engaging. And if worse comes to worse I can just stumble down the film center to watch the Bella Tarr movies.

the view from here, right now.
But first things first; being that today is a holiday and that most people have family gatherings to go to and mounds of food to digest, most the volunteers at the Humane Society are taking the day off. It’s one thing to quietly ignore your friends turkey dinner invitations, but the idea of sitting around all day drinking whisky while a bunch of dogs sit in their kennels holding their bladders in hopes that somebody will show up to take them outside is totally unacceptable, so I signed up for double duty of dog walking today. I figure that I can bitch and moan all day about my life, but that I really have a lot to be thankful for, not to mention that it is much more fun to bitch and moan after you have done your good deed for the day.