Thanks!

With Thanksgiving happening here tomorrow, I just wanted to pause and consider everything I'm grateful for.

I'm thankful that I don't have to drink out of someone's used water bottle...

...or out of someone's filthy turquoise-dotted kitchen cup:

...which has a stain inside:


But most of all, I'm thankful that I never have to see another college exam "blue book..."


...except, of course, when one is inexplicably placed upon the Big Blue NeighborGoodies table.

These books terrified me in college--and now they've grown even bigger! The ones we used in school were about half the size of the one above. (Although I assure you, in the worst of my anxiety dreams, they were much bigger than even that one.) At least when they were small, you could close your eyes push, hard through your fingers and maybe have a chance at coming close to filling the small pages. But with them being twice the size now, there's no covering up when you don't know what you're talking about.

I didn't even realize how thankful I am for not having to deal with Blue Books until it came into view yesterday. I almost had a heart attack when I saw it. I thought maybe I was hallucinating, or that somehow I had fallen asleep during an art history exam eleven years ago and I was just now waking up, having dreamed the last decade or so of my life and career. (Nightmares, all of it!)

But alas, it seems as though I've been awake this whole time. Or maybe I've been in a coma since 1997; in which case, I'd be thankful for another couple rounds on the snooze button, 'cuz I am still exhausted.

Happy Turkey Day!