THANKSGIVING :: Thanksgiving.  Who can say where it all started?  Something to do with pilgrims and turkeys (or is that American)?  Anyway, we all know the drill.  A bit of time off work, family obligations and eating until we feel sick.  Literally sick.  Why is it okay to eat so much during the holidays?  Seriously, I will have a heaping plate of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, veggies, mashed potatoes, yams and god knows what else, polish it off, and go back for more.  Why is that acceptable during the holidays and not at any other time of the year?  Is it fear that this could in fact be our last meal?  Are we fattening ourselves up for a long hard winter?  In truth, I don’t have the answer, and more to the point, I have gotten completely off track from what I wanted to discuss in the first place – what I’m thankful for.

I’m thankful for my adoring husband, Shaun Proulx.
I’m thankful for my furry children, Jack, Ella and Annie.
I’m thankful for how perfect my wedding day was.
I’m thankful for how well my family got along on my wedding day.
I’m thankful for Dan & Nicolle for pulling out all the stops for my wedding day.
I’m thankful for my good health.
I’m thankful for our thriving businesses.
I’m thankful for my ever expanding knowledge of business.
I’m thankful for my friends.
I’m thankful for the ‘Real Housewives’ franchise.
I’m thankful for knowing more and more who I am and what I want.
I’m thankful that I don’t hold anyone accountable for how I feel.
I’m thankful that at any minute I can change the course of my life.
I’m thankful that I always remember to wash my hands after the gym (weights are dirty).
And finally, I’m thankful for knowing that it’s out of the ‘bad stuff’ that the ‘best stuff’ happens!

All your favourite online voices give thanks this week!

THANKSGIVING :: Things I’m thankful for: G-Force Training: without their guidance and support, I’d be dead. It’s as simple as that. Although pie does taste good, you can’t taste it (or Extra’s Dessert Delights gum) from the grave. I’m grateful for my friends. They’re my rock. They keep real when I’m knee deep in the Cray Cray and they’re Cray Cray when I get too real. I’m grateful for my talents, both real and imagined. It’s nice to be able to generate an income just being me, no matter how bad this economy gets. I’m very grateful for the possibilities that our world and time provide me on a daily basis. Just knowing that it can all change in a blink of an eye makes me less worried about the bad times and more appreciate of the times that are good. And finally, I’m very grateful to all who read my blogs and attend my shows. I’m as entertained by my your interest as you are by my sense of humour.

Happy holidays to you all!

Miss Raquel gives thanks for her uncle and grandmother’s concurrent heart attacks. (Yep.)

THANKSGIVING :: I’m thankful for my Nanny and uncle Harry both having heart attacks on the same day – only hours apart – back in May.

Sure this sounds evil at first, but you see, what really happened was these terrible incidents brought me closer to them. Before my Nanny’s heart attack, I hadn’t seen her in over ten years. She put me down all the time, saying I was too fat and not smart. For those like me who’ve suffered from eating disorders (and sadly still do), her comments were too difficult to deal with, so I opted out. I didn’t speak to her.

Shaun Proulx :: Unbearable Body Fascism

Now that my Nanny is living in a fancy retirement home in Sudbury she’s calmed her ways, and has become a cute little old lady I’ve learned to love and appreciate more than words can describe.

My uncle Harry basically replaced the person I once called Dad when I was in my early twenties. My biological father’s brother, his heart attack was the result of too much stress on the job and dealing with my Nanny who can be quite demanding and requires stringent daily regimes.

I used to only see my uncle his wife and my cousins once annually – at Christmas – and that was it. Since their heart attacks, we speak all the time and plan holidays together.

Like a family.

Although this Thanksgiving I’ll be in Montreal to cover Black & Blue for GGT, I will show up late on Thanksgiving at my uncle’s with my Nanny, cousins and my long lost uncle Don from Banff who I haven’t seen since I was about 5.

I may be feeling black and blue by then, wrecked, tired, and not looking my best, but I’m thankful to actually have a family who will keep a plate warm for me upon my return and won’t mind that business took me a way for the majority of our dinner. All they care about is that I’ll be there. And for this I’m thankful for.

This Thanksgiving I want to be with my family.  Never before have had I had the feeling of want and acceptance from them.

Yesterday was an odd day for me.  I didn’t go home to go to London for Thanksgiving because my parents are going to be here for a medical appointment tomorrow.  The plan was to celebrate the holiday a day late and in a hospital cafeteria.  Classy, eh?  The plan changed on Wednesday afternoon, when I got word that my friend, Gary, had died in Waterloo.  His funeral is tomorrow, in his hometown.  I won’t see my biological family for the holiday, but I will reunite with my “Waterloo family” during dinner tonight and when some of us make the drive to the funeral.

Gary was one of my attendants in Waterloo; someone who helped me get dressed, eat, do the laundry, etc. I have a close relationship with all of my attendants.  You can’t help but get close; they come to know everything from how you like your steak, to what kind of underwear you wear.  Gary was different though; he was gay too, and like me, someone who was going to become a university professor.  So, despite an almost twenty year age difference, we became very close.  He was the only older, queer man I knew during my first few years as an openly gay man.  He told me stories about the early queer scene in Kitchener and sat with me when I was heartbroken.

Yesterday was also International Coming Out Day and I was reflecting on how Gary impacted my queer identity.  So, there I was last night with my single lamb chop; a bit lonely, yet with a great feeling of being surrounded by people who I love, sad that we lost a friend far too soon, yet rejoicing in all that he was.  I guess I was reminded of life’s paradoxes last night and was thankful for it.