I suppose the holidays are officially upon us.  I won’t be traveling anywhere for Thanksgiving, since my family lives on the opposite side of the country and I am not so rich that I can afford to fly there for just a weekend.  (A little side note about  airplane prices:  I am cursed with the small-town ticket price times two:  I live in a smallish town and my parents live in another small town, which makes the whole thing doubly inconvenient. It means I always have to take three flights to get there: Zembla to a hub airport like Las Vegas, Las Vegas to another hub airport like Charlotte or Atlanta, and then to my hometown.  The entire process, from doorstep to doorstep, takes about twelve hours and costs approximately forty-seven million dollars. If I ever in my life have a direct flight anywhere I think I will be too happy to control myself.)  What this means is that the last time I have had Thanksgiving with anyone who is actually related to me was in 1998.  Wow.  That was, like, totally a long time ago.

In the intervening years I have eaten Thanksgiving dinner with boyfriends and their families (which is like auditioning to be a new family member, all “See I am nice and funny and polite and helpful and I don’t drink too much wine, see? Good childbearing hips!”); I have gone home with friends and visited their families (almost just as awkward–I just don’t like other people’s families, I guess); I have pretended to be an adult by fixing dinner with friends; and I’ve gone out to restaurants, where I specifically did not order turkey.  I’ve also had a couple of Thanksgivings that I largely ignored, which is what I’ll be doing this year, too.  I do have the day off from the temp job, but I have to go in and work on Friday, so it won’t really be any different from any other week.

What will I do with that day off, you may be wondering?  Actually you’re probably not wondering at all.  You probably wish I would stop blathering about my life, don’t you?  Or puppy pictures?  Don’t worry, neither option is in short supply, and I’m sure we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled sessions of bitching about work and talking about how adorable my dog is, even when he is chewing on my favorite brown boots.  But back to me and my plans!  I intend to spend most of the day engaged in my all-time number-one favorite activity:  grading papers.  Just like the pilgrims did,  when they weren’t busy holding up the breeches of patriarchy, that is.  Perhaps, to heighten the holiday mood, I will decorate my office with artfully placed gourds and a cornucopia stuffed with red ballpoint pens.  Oh, horn of plenty, will you ever contain enough pens to correct all my students’ errors?

I’ll bet you are jealous!  But wait, because that’s not all:  I think I am going to cook a nice dinner when all the grading is done.  Sarcasm aside, I  am quite excited about this, since lately I have been either too tired, busy, or just plain lazy to do any cooking.  It’s been a lot of chips and salsa around here.  The other day I ate six mini-quiches for dinner.  Blech.  Anyway, I bought some actual food that actually has to be prepared, not merely thawed and/or heated–I feel like a veritable gourmande!    What are your plans, people of the internet?