Thanks.

I love acknowledging and expressing expressing gratitude. And I hate. HATE. the idea of going around the circle on Thanksgiving and everyone saying what they are thankful for. Because holidays, especially holidays that hang heavy with the legacy that this one does.

Tonight I am full of gratitude, and rage. It's really a strange combo. Rage at a country, a culture that devalues black lives, trans lives, poor lives, women's lives (the list goes on). Every day. Every damn day. And gratitude for my community, people close and far, family of origin and chosen, who work to end all forms of violence, who work with and take leadership from those most affected by that violence. I see you.

Then there are the ways you see and hold me personally that literally keep me going, that make the difference between me going out the door every day and ending up under a blanket in the corner of a room for a week. Which! Is fine! When it needs to happen! I'm just saying.

I'm thankful for my housemates who leave me notes in Spanish, or wishing me a good Thursday. My dad who reads my Queerest Post Ever and sends me a super relevant article. A Certain Someone who comes up with completely unnecessary excuses to see me (move the chicken coop, yeah right). Friends who scheme with me on projects and jam with me on songs. Siblings who miss me over the miles. People I've just met who quote gender theory and radical MLK at me and then drive around a cemetery with me after dark. And so much more.

Oh. And so thankful that no one I know in real life or Facebook or anywhere else has said anything about how people in Ferguson shouldn't riot or how Michael Brown was a criminal or how news reports of the grand jury's decision not to indict his killer interrupted their viewing of "Dancing with the Stars" because I don't know what I would have done, so help me.

17 of Something

Shit. Don't blow 
My cover, but I just 
Did that thing where 
I was thankful.

This is how good people are to me. Do I deserve this? Probably not.