Happy Thanksgiving, although it is now over. I thought and thought about what I could be thankful for in this cold, dead world, and here is what I came up with.

• My family are all healthy.
• My cat is healthy.
• I am reasonably healthy.
• My car is healthy.
• My car is not actually healthy.
• I was lying just now for no good reason.
• Plans are in the works for an interchange at the intersection of U.S. 35 and N. Fairfield Rd. here in Beavercreek, Ohio.
• My mom did some of my laundry for me.
• My younger brother is standing behind me offering up witty things for me to be thankful for.
• I am pretending to listen to his suggestions, but instead of typing them, I am typing this.
• I have not, to my knowledge, thrown up this year.
• I retain my youthful appearance even as my peers grow old and decrepit.
• I’m so close to Broadway stardom I can taste it.
• I have a wonderful collection of many assorted hats and other head coverings. It is worth a fortune.
• My apartment is very nice when it is clean which is not all that often but still.
• I likes pumkin pie!
• My irony is healthy.

That is all.

Everyone, settle down for a moment. The hat has been claimed. Those of you remaining who wished to claim the hat are invited to bugger off.

I just had a party. You missed it. Why didn’t you come? Your absence was hurtful. Maybe I didn’t give you proper directions. Perhaps you had other plans. Your loss, I suppose.

Children,

I appear to have taken the weekend off. That’s the way it goes. No going back now. Will I take next weekend off? Only time will tell. Does anyone care? No. And rightly so.

I have opted not to take the “online diary” approach with this page, and yet I do not want to make it into a daily test run of my stand-up comedy routine. I have a feeling that the majority of my posts will be like this one: self-referential and without worthwhile content. Much like the majority of my life, now that I think about it. Excuse me while I rest my head against a nearby wall and weep solemnly.

[Ten minutes pass]

So, how ’bout my cat, eh? He’s a real tiger. Well, not a REAL tiger. He is your typical American shorthair, if such a thing is at all typical to you. Among actual tigers, my cat would seem decidedly atypical, as he is not actually a tiger, although this is based on the assumption that we are defining our set of possible typical things to one select group of animals which includes tigers and my cat, and not examining whether each individual animal is typical among its individual species. Tigers find each other typical, after all. It’s possible that, in such a group, my cat could also find a tiger to be a typical representative of the entire set of animals. It is also possible that he would be eaten. I am unlikely to put this theory into practice anytime soon, not only because of the possible damage to my cat and the expense of acquiring several tigers, but also because it is a stupid idea.

Anyway, I’m sure he’d be flattered to know I’m writing of him, but I do not plan to tell him, because he is a cat, and will not understand a word I’m saying, and will think I am going to feed him; and when I do not he will bite me. Possibly. It is unfair to make assumptions. It makes an ass out of you and me – or in this case, just me. You had nothing to do with it. As far as I know.