Thirty Days of Thanks: Luck (Part II)

"Is it fate or random chance, how can I decide?
Are we victims of circumstance when destinies collide?"

I open tonight's discussion (and...I'd love for this to turn into a discussion, because I'm curious to hear how some of you would classify this) with a quote from "Somebody's Out There," by Triumph.

A buddy sent me an e-mail yesterday, calling me out on my recent blog post about luck, arguing that I'd wrongly classified my situation. Here (with his permission) is what he wrote:

"And I have an issue with your blog post from this morning/last night. Luck had nothing to do with you two getting together. That makes it seem like it was completely out of your control. Luck had nothing to do with you infrequently updating your blog. Luck had nothing to do with you and your dorky outings to poetry readings. Luck had nothing to do with you following up on a possibility... luck had nothing to do with anything."

He raises a good point. I ended that blog post by calling myself "one lucky fool," which refers more to whom I was so fortunate to find because of my trip to a poetry reading and my ownership of this blog. [note to all my poet friends who read this blog: the "dorky" term in his comment was aimed directly at me and me alone. I'm sure he thinks other poet/writer types are cool. except me. I'm used to it.]

But what would you call the rather odd series of events that led me to my relationship? Fate? Destiny? Luck? Or simply random day-to-day activities?

I've been called a lucky person in other areas of my life. I play the occasional hand of poker, and have been known to draw the right card at the right time. That's not necessarily luck, because the order of the cards was already pre-determined after the shuffle. But some people are seen as luckier than others. One professional poker player, John Juanda, has the official nickname (and Twitter account) of LuckBoxJuanda. Does that mean that he doesn't also have the skill to play the game? Um, no.

When I'm standing at the dart line and I let go of a dart, I may think that it's doomed from the moment it leaves my fingers, because the shot doesn't feel right. And yet...it drops into the triple or the bullseye. Is that luck? I don't know.

I used to play more basketball than I do now, and sometimes I'd throw up a shot that had no chance. And...swish! (or perhaps a bank. oops.)

If I was really lucky, I would have won the lottery by now, right? Because it takes so much luck to hit every number, and cash in those millions. Or...does it?

It's a valid question. I feel extremely lucky and fortunate to have found the incredible person I get to spend my life with, but was the process of finding her lucky? Probably not. It was just...me. Doing what I do. Going to a free local poetry reading. Writing a blog entry. And (I love his last line) following up on a possibility. Because it felt right.

Tongue in cheek, he adds an exclamation point to his e-mail by closing with:

"Now as for why I don't have anybody writing blog posts like that for me? I'm just unlucky."

I'm thankful for any luck and fate and destiny and random positivity in my life, whether created by me or thrust upon me.

"I find that the harder I work,

the more luck I seem to have."

—Thomas Jefferson

Thirty Days of Thanks: Drugs

Nooo...not those kinds of drugs.

Think Sudafed. Think Advil. Think...children's orange-flavored chewable aspirin.

I'm headed in the direction of a cold, I fear. My first one since last November, so I shouldn't complain so much that another one may or may not be coming.

I don't take a lot of cold medications or ibuprofen, but I know they help. Or at least...sometimes they make me believe they're helping. Which can be better than nothing. Last night I went to the store and came home with orange juice (not a drug, just a half gallon carton of deliciousness!), Comtrex (they were out of Sudafed) and lemon-lime Airborne (they were out of orange). If all of these things combined keep my cold at bay until after (did you hear that, illness gods?!?) Thanksgiving next week, then it can run me over like a bulldozer for a week, and I won't complain. Much.

I'm thankful for the sneezes and coughs and aches and fevers and chills that will kindly wait until my favorite day of the year has passed before they latch onto me and make me miserable. And I'm thankful for the drugs (except for the children's aspirin, which I haven't taken in decades) that are going to put up the good fight against these evil demons.

"Drugs are a bet

with your mind."

—Jim Morrison

Thirty Days of Thanks: Luck

Some might call tonight's post cheating.
I can live with that.
(although this one definitely has more substance than a week ago when I opened my blog, shouted out the word, "haircuts!" and closed it back up.)

Some might call this post schmoopy.
Don't care much about that, either.

In a month of finding things to be thankful for, this topic was bound to come up. And it might be addressed once again before November's end, should I choose to visit it from a slightly different point of view.

But here's a story...
No. Here's...my story.
In someone else's words.

Tonight, and every night for the past year and a half,
I'm so thankful for being one...lucky...fool.

"People often remark that I'm pretty lucky.

Luck is only important in so far as

getting the chance to sell yourself at the

right moment. After that you've got to

have talent and know how to use it."

—Frank Sinatra

Thirty Days of Thanks: Clack

Am I the only one who's more than slightly obsessed with the frenetic clackety-clack of keyboard keys? It rates very high on my list of favorite sounds.

Not a brief cluster of a couple dozen clacks, interrupted by a mouse click or two. That sounds more like a Facebook update, or a tweet.

But a continuous run of hundreds of clicks and clacks all mashed together in a row. The heavier, clunky clacks of an older keyboard, or the light, fragile clicks of a new clipboard-thin Mac keyboard, or the softened plastic clacks of a laptop keyboard. I love them all. Music to my ears.

I'm thankful for the melodious soundtrack of fingers dancing across a keyboard, evidence that something is being created. A Stephen King horror story, a Grisham thriller, a Jennifer Crusie romance, a Bryson laugh.

A column.
Or a short blog post.

Clack.

"We've heard that a million monkeys at a keyboard

could produce the complete works of Shakespeare;

now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true."

—Robert Wilensky

Thirty Days of Thanks: Juked

Tonight I'm thankful for Internet jukeboxes at bars, because they put like a bazillion songs right at your fingertips. You can find anything on those contraptions!

Except...well, except when you try to type in David & David, but can't find the ampersand key, so instead you opt to type in, "Welcome to the Boomtown," but it doesn't even recognize it as a song!

So you move in a different direction, and play a song by The Call that you haven't heard in years.



I'm thankful for access to so much music, in so many formats.
And I'm thankful for ampersands.

"Here's to the wisdom

from the mouths of babes."

—"Let The Day Begin," The Call

Thirty Days of Thanks: Books

I received a brochure from the Quality Paperback Book Club a couple of weeks ago, after they'd been absent from my mailbox for the last few years.

I've been a member many times...joining, fulfilling my obligation, and then canceling until they'd send me a note, begging me to rejoin. Lather, rinse, repeat with the Book-of-the-Month Club, as well. I can't resist books for a buck. Or a quarter.

Looking around at our overflowing library of books, I chuckle when I catch myself spending too much time paging through the current selections in the QPB brochure, or browsing online for even more titles. We do not...need...more books.

But that won't stop me from joining for yet another time, because if I can get the 2011 Writer's Market for one thin dollar...then everything else in our order will be gravy.

We have books in every room of our house, piled on shelves, stacked on our nightstands. And yes, we have books in the bathroom. (If you don't, you're missing out on some quality reading time!)

I would be most grateful for an extra day in each week to spend more time reading these books...but finding great bargains and obscure titles and interesting topics, is almost as much fun. Almost.

I'm thankful for books. So...many...books.

"The advice of the elders to young men

is very apt to be as unreal as a list of

the hundred best books."

—Oliver Wendell Holmes

Thirty Days of Thanks: Employed

While it's easy to be thankful for weekends when you're in the middle of one, or impatiently waiting for one to arrive, it wouldn't be so simple if there were no real distinction between weekdays and the weekend.

Sunday nights, and the impending Monday mornings, rate highly on my list of things I'd rather do away with. (along with all of the vampire hype.)

But dreading Monday mornings means I have a job. And although it's one that I may grumble about from time to time, it's also one in which I'm safe from being down-sized, and one in which I know in my own mind that I'm a valuable, productive member of a team.

I'm thankful to be employed through so much economic uncertainty.

"They are not only idle who do nothing,

but they are idle also who might 

be better employed."

—Socrates

Thirty Days of Thanks: Weekends

This probably goes without saying (kind of like the day I was thankful for cheese, because...seriously...who's not thankful for cheese?!?), but I love weekends.

Whether you love your job or hate your job or are indifferent toward your job, a break from your job is rarely a bad thing. Forty-eight hours to concentrate on something else. Or...nothing else.

Those who don't have a traditional Saturday/Sunday weekend get their break on Tuesday/Wednesday, or Wednesday/Thursday. But it's the same break. Others...freelancers, for instance...may not have a weekend that's as well-defined as some, but they're still able to carve out hours in their week unrelated to the work they're doing.

Several times throughout the year, by choice or by holiday, we get a three-day weekend, and wonder why a presidential candidate hasn't included that in his or her campaign platform: three day weekends every week!

They'd get my vote.

I'm thankful for weekends.

"If all the cars in the United States

were placed end to end,

it would probably be Labor Day weekend."

—Doug Larson

Thirty Days of Thanks: Sip

Earlier today I took an informal poll asking whether people prefer coffee or tea.

While I've learned to drink coffee in the past few years, I can't, and don't think I ever will, call myself a coffee drinker.

But I love tea. Iced tea, hot tea...many teas. In recent months I've discovered the deliciousness of loose leaf tea, and stores like Fava Tea Company that provide endless varieties to choose from.

Other beverages on my favorites list include too much Diet Pepsi, wines, juices, Gatorades, VitaminWaters, milks of the chocolate variety......get the idea? I'm slightly obsessed with liquids.

Topping that list, though, has to be water. The human body is already made up of so much of it, and I just keep pouring more in. Eight glasses of water a day? Please...how about more like eightteen? (perhaps.) Water is the perfect drink.

I'm thankful for having dozens (hundreds?) of beverage choices.

And being from Wisconsin, I bet you can guess which one I'm second-most thankful for! (of course I didn't leave it out of this post until now by accident.)

"I come from a family where

gravy is considered a beverage."

—Erma Bombeck

Thirty Days of Thanks: Crowds

I spend a lot of time in crowds.

Not like shopping mall crowds. No thank you.

But concert crowds. Author event crowds. The occasional sporting event crowd.

I'm more than willing to travel, sometimes long distances at very odd hours of the day and night, for the chance to see a favorite music group or writer or speaker or celebrity.

Last night we drove down to UW-Milwaukee to hear Michael Pollan talk about food. He is, without a doubt, more of a foodie than I ever plan to be, but he was smart, engaging, funny, entertaining...and I learned something. I also had a blast people watching and seeing others' reactions, and enjoyed hearing what they asked him in the Q&A session at the end.

I've attended quite a few concerts. Not as many as my buddy, Scott, who claims to have a shoe box filled with hundreds of ticket stubs from over the years. (not that I'm jealous. ok, I am.)

Twice I've had the good fortune to see the best golfers in the world play in one of the sport's four majors. It's kind of a rush to see Tiger and Phil and Ernie and so many others stroll past a few feet away from you.

And I've driven down to Chicago...and back...on a Monday night...to spend an hour with writing guru Natalie Golberg.

So tonight I'm thankful, not for the crowds themselves, but for the vibe I get being among 40,000 close friends at Alpine Valley, or even 300 at the Majestic in Madison, who are all singing or jamming or getting drunk to the same great live tunes I am. And for the awe I feel sitting 20 feet from Dave Barry, listening to him talk as funny as he writes.

And I'm thankful for the adrenaline rush that carries me home...and stays with me, sometimes for weeks.

"It's just trying every day to do the best you can

and to enjoy what you have with the mixture

of the venue and the sound and the crowd."

—Keren Ann

Thirty Days of Thanks: Snip

haircuts!

Thirty Days of Thanks: Aim

Tonight I have a little bit of time between getting home from work and going out to shoot darts.

I'm in a dart league.

I've been in one, on the same team, for about 16 or 17 years. And for the majority of those years, I've been a good shooter...better than many. It probably took me the first couple of years to find my groove and learn the mental part of the game, and my skills have declined in the past three or four years.

But for much of the time in the middle, I had a shooter's touch. We used to shoot in more leagues than we do now, and travel to tournaments on weekends. Darts was a big enough part of my life that it was the inspiration for the title of this blog.

I don't take it as seriously anymore, but I'm still pretty sharp. I even had a shot a couple of weeks ago at that elusive Ton-Fifty-ONE to complete a perfect game. I nailed my first five bullseyes, but sent my sixth dart a few holes wide of the triple-17, failing to shoot a perfect game. (maybe I'll get one tonight!)

I realize that in the grand scheme of things, a game of darts isn't much. But it feels good to be really good at something. If I were as good of a writer as I am a dart shooter, I'd be published by now. Well...technically, I am published. But I mean really really published. (should I add one more really for effect?)

Tonight, I'm thankful for the hand-eye coordination and the luck/skill I've built over the years at this game, even a stupid, meaningless bar game. It's given me a great group of friends to hang with, it's given me a diversion to break up the grind of the work week, it's given me at least one thing at which I am, or have been, rather close to exceptional. And it's given me a blog title!

I'll be even more thankful if I shoot well tonight, and live up to the title of my blog.

"This discourse, and the present frame of my mind,

lead me rather to speak to those, who by feeling

Satan's fiery darts, know assuredly that there is a devil."

—George Whitefield

Thirty Days of Thanks: Fooood!

I'm surprised that it took me eight days to be thankful for food. I could very easily use it as an every-other-day blog topic, and write for months!

I love food.

I used to love fast food. But after too many trips through too many drive-thrus, I slowly realized I had to find other foods to love.

Over the past couple of years, I've been introduced to the foodie lifestyle, and while I doubt I'll switch completely from Big Macs to bulgur wheat, I've learned that there's very little I don't like. I have as much fun exploring the menu at a corner greasy spoon as I do at the best Italian or Asian restaurants.

From farmers' market vegetables to beef sticks to sushi to burgers to pastas, I'm thankful for so many delicious food options to choose from, and an adventurous appetite to sample menu items I can't even pronounce.

"I just love Chinese food.

My favourite dish is number 27."

—Clement Atlee

Thirty Days of Thanks: Haiku

Poetical Thanks

an image, painted

in seventeen syllables

tiny life snapshot

"Every week it's another opportunity to really make that work

and figure out how to make it work better. And I love that it's

like theater, too, and the audience, and it's so short.

It's only 20 minutes. It's like a haiku or something."

—Joan Cusack

Thirty Days of Thanks: Time

Tonight we set our clocks back and gain an hour.

People talk about the time change, and remind others to set their clocks, and discuss how they plan to use the extra hour. It becomes a hot topic, one that I may turn into a column next week. It's even trending on Twitter as I write this.

In the spring, it's the same process, but the conversation is different: complaints about how losing the hour screwed up everyone's system, and how they don't adjust back to normal for like, I dunno, eight months, or something. (I never understood how losing one...simple...hour could put a person's world on tilt for three or four days.)

As we enter into holiday season, our time becomes more overloaded with things to do, and we may lose sight of what the holidays really mean to us.

Thanksgiving isn't about the turkey or the cranberries or the peas & carrots or the dressing. (OK, maybe it's a little bit about the dressing. And a little bit about the Lions game on TV.) And Christmas isn't about elbowing your way through crowded shopping malls or stringing more lights on your house than the neighbor has, or wrapping each gift using only three pieces of tape.

All of the holidays over the next couple of months...whichever ones you may celebrate...are more about the time you spend with those who are most important to you, making memories, laughing, throwing dinner rolls (and the occasional deviled egg) from one end of the table to the other, or trying to determine just how many different disgusting spices can be added to a malt beverage called, "Christmas Brew."

Tonight I am thankful for the extra hour I get to spend diving into Dan Brown's new book, "The Lost Symbol," and the time I will spend during this holiday stretch (that, quite frankly, makes me rather anti-festive before it's all over) with the people I love.

"Happiness is the only good.

The time to be happy is now.

The place to be happy is here.

The way to be happy is to make others so."

—Robert Green Ingersoll

Thirty Days of Thanks: Ha!

Steve Martin was on David Letterman tonight.

I know this not because I regularly check Dave's guest list, but because Steve Martin has a Twitter account.

When I first stumbled upon Steve's Twitter, I kinda dorked out, because...well, because Steve's hilarious. And I enjoy having as many hilarious people around me as will fit, in person or via any number of various media.

After following Steve's tweets for several days, I half-jokingly tweeted that all I wanted for Christmas, my birthday and all holidays in between was to have Steve Martin reply to one of my tweets.

And then...within a couple of hours of that tweet, I received a direct message. From Steve Martin. It said, "Can't. Too busy."

Simple. Brilliant. Perfect.

He's had a permanent seat on my top tier of favorites for years, along with Dave Barry, Bill Bryson, Ellen DeGeneres, Al Franken, Tina Fey, Mitch Hedberg, Garrison Keillor...and others I'm sure I'm omitting. Michael Perry is a newcomer to this ever-changing list.

I also have the good fortune to hang around with some ridiculously funny people...new friends, old friends, and those who are soon-to-be-new friends.

I am thankful for the funny.

"A day without sunshine is like, you know, night."

—Steve Martin

Thirty Days of Thanks: Word(s)

I love words.

For as long as I can remember...I've loved words. If the story is accurate, I've been reading since I was 4 years old. (I don't remember much from that long ago, so you'll have to ask those who were in charge back then, because I was just, you know...4.)

After high school, I started on the path toward being an accountant (following in someone else's footsteps), but soon realized that wasn't for me. So I set out on a different path, in the direction of journalism. Along the way, I encountered immovable boulders, downed tree limbs, and a mountain lion. It was not an easy path, for a number of reasons.

But even with those obstacles, I knew that eventually my path would contain words instead of numbers, cells or binary code.

Not that wordsmiths are better than accountants or biologists or computer geeks. In fact, I know people in all of these fields who are also better with words than 85 percent of the population, including me. And these people suck.

I kid the multi-talented.

I can't imagine a life without books to read, or notebooks to fill with thoughts, or a column to write, or a blog to ignore.

I'm thankful for my love of words.

"Actually, if a writer needs a dictionary, he should not write.

He should have read the dictionary at least three times from

beginning to end and then loaned it to someone who needs it. There are

only certain words which are valid and similes (bring me my dictionary)

are like defective ammunition (the lowest thing I can think of at this time).

—Ernest Hemingway

Thirty Days of Thanks: Moo

Tonight, I'm thankful for cheese.

Bigger picture, I'm thankful for cheese every day. Because in Wisconsin, we make cheese really gouda.
(if you didn't see that coming, then you don't know me very well. or cheese.)

I'm also thankful for blog posts that don't always have to be seven or eight or fourteen paragraphs long.

About 20 minutes away from where I live is a small, unassuming cheese shop out in the middle of nowhere called Pine River Dairy that makes some of the best...cheese...anywhere. And has a selection of more than 250 varieties.

Thanks for keeping me stocked with samples.

"My whole family is lactose intolerant and when

we take pictures we can't say cheese."

—Jay London 

Thirty Days of Thanks: Voice

It seems fitting that on Election Day, I should write something about politics.

But this is supposed to be a post about being thankful, and I haven't seen much in the last few hours to be thankful for.

What...a...mess.

Perhaps I can tackle it this way:

I spend quality time with people who are very important in my life, who generally see things the way I see them. Political, social, fiscal, recreational, spiritual...and many other -als that you can think of. We're more or less on the same page.

I also spend much quality time with people who are very important in my life, who couldn't have more opposing viewpoints to mine if you lined them up on a protractor and measured out exactly one hundred and eighty degrees. Not only are we not on the same page, but if one of us is in a Tolstoy novel, the other is in a Rachael Ray cookbook. [Note: I will not use this space to determine which is whom or whom is which. Or...whatever.]

I'm thankful that, in both instances above, we can have open, honest discussions about a wide range of topics in a variety of settings...around a campfire or kitchen table or on a bar stool...and after a sometimes heated debate, agree to disagree and still have a beer together, or play bocce ball. (Or, ideally...have a beer while playing bocce ball!)

My favorite Dr. Seuss quote applies here: "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind."

Those who matter accept you, warts and all. And they can entertain your ideas without necessarily agreeing with them, or even vehemently opposing them. And they'll still matter.

I'm thankful for those who matter, and allow me to say what I feel.

"Sometimes I lie awake at night and I ask,

'Where have I gone wrong?' Then a voice says to me,

'This is going to take more than one night.'"

—Charlie Brown

Thirty Days of Thanks: Audience

The first year I participated in NaBloPoMo—2007—several bloggers used their daily posts to list one thing they were thankful for. When the blogging challenge began, it ran concurrently with the novel-writing challenge NaNoWriMo, in November, so it was a fitting theme.

Since then, NaBloPoMo has expanded to every month of the year, but November still feels like home. After a successful month of daily blogging in September, I've basically ignored this space during October, so I thought another month of the dailies would give me a kick in the pants...again.

In November, complete with my favorite holiday only a few weeks away, I'll choose 30 things for which I'm thankful. Shouldn't be difficult, because there are probably about thirty thousand around me that I can give thanks for. And I'm not talking only about my CD collection.

A logical place to begin is with you, my readers.

I'm not much of a stats watcher, but I receive weekly e-mail updates on blog traffic, and it's evident that when I pay attention to my blog, you pay attention to my blog. (I'm stating the obvious, aren't I?)

I know I have a handful of regular readers—most of whom are directly related to me—but there must also be some of you out there who may have accidentally stumbled onto this page, and next time stumbled on purpose.

It still kind of blows me away that, whether from this blog or the weekly newspaper column I write, I actually have...readers! An audience. People who take the time out of their day to read some words I may have clumsily strung together.

And for that, I'm grateful, and thankful.
And a little confused.

"The writer does the most good who gives his reader

the most knowledge and takes from him the least time."

—Sydney Smith