My thanks to my toes, and you, and you, and you, and you

As I awakened on this Thanksgiving morning of 2010, I thought of my toes and other things I'm thankful for on this cold wintry day in Salt Lake City.

Toes - They're the farthest or is it furthest from my heart, yet they still live. Their nails grow much more slowly than my fingernails. I keep them in the dark almost year round, only letting them out a few days in the summer or a few minutes a day when I shower. They must love it when I swim when they're not only free from sox and shoes, but when the gravity and the weight of body they usually endure are all topsy turvey and wonderfully different. Thank you toes for supporting me. For helping me balance. For giving me perspective about those I care about even when you're far from my heart physically, I still love you. I rely on you. I'm grateful for you. Thank you, toes.

Pipes - I'm grateful for you, too. You pipes in my walls, and in my yard and under my street and your cousins the wires in the air and underground, copper and fiber, all of you. Without you, taking a drink or taking a dump would be so much more difficult. I couldn't write these words as easily and effortlessly save them in the cloud, the cloud wouldn't even exist, nor would the orange "publish post" button, if not for you, dear pipes of all sizes and functions. Like my toes, you are hidden, but like my toes I rely on you so much. Thank you. Thanks for water, heat, electricity, television, telephone, and all that is online. Thanks for quietly and almost flawlessly carrying away gray water and worse. And thanks to all the people behind all the pipes. I sometimes think of myself alone in my home with my loved ones, but we are not alone, we are connected to so many necessities and much more thanks to you, our dear pipes, and those who maintain you and make possible the contents you carry.

ABCs and QWERTY - In the beginning, we're told, was the word. If so, then in the pre-existence there was the alphabet. I'm grateful today for alphabets and words and the expression, and creation and communication they make possible. I learned the QWERTY keyboard in junior high. It has served me so well though the decades. I'm using it at the very moment I write this, and you could not so easily read my words without it. I did not have to form the letters with a pen or pencil. I did not have to find the bin and then find the letter made of lead in reverse and then place it in a tray and then find the next letter and the space and the ink and the paper, the press and the labor, the drying time and distribution. No, all I had to do was press a key and my fingers knew exactly where it would be thanks to QWERTY. For letters, words, keyboards and sentences, paragraphs, typewriters, computers and broadband, I am grateful this day. 

Fingers - Just because I wrote of toes first, did you really think I would fail to mention you, my ten good friends? Thank you for your beautiful functionality. Thank you for your length ratios which, like my counter clockwise hair sworl, are a physical indication of my great challenges and gifts as a bisexual man. Thanks for all you do. Ringman for working with that extra weight of gold more than three decades now. Thank you all for helping with so much everyday. Thank you for letting me touch and feel. For helping so much with buttons, zippers, keys, driving, holding and so much more. For being an integral part of so many handshakes and hugs, caresses and the holding of hands, pets and more. Thank you for working as a team. Please accept my apology for sometimes forgetting you. I try to clip your nails weekly, but as you know, I sometimes procrastinate. In this weather I should make sure that you get lotion and wear my gloves out in the cold. Thank you for all you've done, all you do, all you will do. Thanks, my fingers and thanks for the fingers of others who have touched and served me in countless ways.

FAM - Thanks to mom and dad, grandpas and grandmas, a dear wife, caring offspring, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, nephews and nieces. And those of you who read these words, you, in my book are also family. We are all brothers and sisters, are we not? Like the family members I have listed above, you have helped and loved me, each in your own way, and I appreciate and love you, too. How can that be possible when so many of us have not met face-to-face and we hardly know each other, if at all? Well I've never met two of my grandparents face-to-face either. They were dead long before my birth, but I still appreciate them. I appreciate you, too. Not in the same way, of course, but in an important way nonetheless. I can write without readers, but what a difference it makes to write knowing that someone will read and a few will comment. Thank you for that and much more my moho fam. 

Well it is time for me to rise and shout, even though I'm much more red than blue in my Salt Lake County/Utah County affiliations. No matter where you live, north south, east west, East coast, or Alaska, overseas, or Texas, rural Utah or Hawaii or New York City, I am thankful for you. Thanks for writing and reading, being my Moho bros and sisters. I hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving today, that you give thanks and find that the thanks you give are thanking you back. If you're here in frigid Utah may find joy in the warms that protects you. If you are warm Texas, Hawaii or San Diego, may you be especially grateful for the warmth of climate.

Again and again, thanks to my toes, and you, and you, and you, and you.