Thank you

I have a list of things to do. Among them are to write about 8 thank-you cards and send them. And my father's day card is essentially a thank-you card. So to get away from staring at the mound of thank-you cards like a mound of obligations, or the roof of my black laptop like a black hole sucking in my mind like a vacuum with a mind like an ogre, I'm about to make a list of thank-yous. Just like when you go to church and then you say thank-you, except you don't even think about meaning it.

· Thank you to my friends, who have stuck with me and been there for the past 4 years, or the past 7, or the past 17 - wow.
· Thank you to my family, who do a lot more for me than I will ever acknowledge or understand.
· Thanks to my teachers, who have done the best they can to educate me and to prepare me for deeper questions to be posed in the future.
· Thank you to nature, nature ever uncertain, for comforting me with sunny, lazy days and buffeting me with snowstorms to make sure I'm awake.
· Thanks to the people who've applauded me for work I've done or music I've performed. It truly means a lot to me.
· Thank you to those who have given advice, even if it went unheeded or it wasn't sufficient.
· Thank you to those who understand my skepticism, and even more thanks to those who understand my happiness.
· Thank you to people who aren't afraid to open their mouths and be called stupid, unless you do it on autopilot all the time.
· Thanks to those who have taught me to be myself, to learn things myself and how to do those two things.
· Thank you to Iowa City for being so welcoming and encouraging when Boston is not.
· Thank you to Japan for opening up your world to me. No thanks to Paris, sorry, except my host family and buddies from there.
· Thank you to math, for providing me a path to continue exploring and keeping my mind open and challenged.
· Thank you to Tufts, for being an institution where I was allowed the room and time to explore myself and what it means to be somebody in this time period and in this body.
· Thanks to the spirit out there that comes into me and leaves me from time to time, for allowing me to see a world beyond the restraints of logic.
· Thank you to music.

Thank you.