Getting to be that time of year again, isn’t it? They just come faster and faster. In “Future Shock” by Alvin Toffler, the author suggests that time – relative, subjective time – goes faster as we age because each passing unit of time represents a smaller portion of our total life span to that moment. So if I’m ten years old, a year is a long time – a tenth of my life. But if I’m fifty years old, a year is only one fifth of one tenth of my life – the subjective equivalent of about two and a half months to a ten year old.
It’ll be the rest of my life before I’ve fully grokked the events in my life of the last year. I feel good about the way I’ve handled a lot of things this year, not so good about others.
I’ve been in a pretty melancholy mood lately, as is fairly typical of the holidays for me. I’m not much of a holiday person – and if I’m honest that’s mostly because I’m usually broke and feel crappy that I can’t buy gifts and host parties and all that jazz. Oddly enough for someone as irascible and critical of society as I generally am, at heart I’m a people-pleaser; like anyone, I want to be loved, accepted, respected, and admired. Showing up at Christmas after Christmas bearing nothing but self-conscious good wishes wears on me, and probably wears on everyone else around me as well, so I just don’t.
it’s been a long, strange year. A lot of things have been very crazy and very difficult and frightening, but I’ve had so much to appreciate in the world as well.
Always first and foremost, my daughter Amber, without whom my life would likely not just be very different, but would likely have been over many many years ago. She makes me proud over and over again, and no father ever had a better daughter, period. I love you.
I’m grateful for the experience I had this year driving from Raleigh NC to northern California, meeting some really cool people, and then driving back to where I’ve been trying to go for years: my home town of Kalamazoo, MI. I wish the best for my new friends on the west coast this year and forever unto the umpteenth generation, amen.
I’m grateful for finally having had a chance to see the vast, amazing beauty of this country in places and ways I’d never seen it before. I deeply regret not having taken more time with the drive in both directions, but circumstances regrettably did not permit. Still, the sights I did see were fascinating, and regardless of the circumstances of my accommodation and departure in California, I’ll always be grateful to the friends who brought me there and gave me the opportunity to have this experience. It’s not a huge group of people who can say they’ve driven coast to coast and nearly back in a span of a month and a half!
I’m grateful for whatever label you choose for the Prime Cause and the beautiful human beings They have created and placed in my path. There are so many warm hearts in the world, so many kind souls. It’s been a privilege to have so many of the best of them cross my path both this year and every year I’ve been alive.
I’m grateful for finally having had a chance to meet a guy who’s been among my very best friends for about 13 years now, Chad Bryant, as well as his girlfriend Cherri and their friends in Utah. Scizoop, Shanni, Tyson, everyone else, it was a great pleasure and I hope to have the chance to do it again soon.
I’m grateful for the friends new and old, and family, who helped me out when I was on the streets and got me home safe.
I’m grateful for the opportunity to learn how truly awesome people can be. It still boggles me, the sheer number of people who were kind enough to throw me five bucks or even a phone call in the middle of the night while I was on the road. There is not ONE of you without whom I would not have been completely screwed out there, spending the rest of my life in Elko, Nevada or Woodland, California or Des Moines, Iowa pushing a shopping cart around and going out into the median strip of the highway and yelling at all the cars to get outta my driveway. Beyond that, you all gave me a serious affirmation of the basic goodness and kindness of human nature. Occasionally I talk about being bi—polar or whatever it’s called this week (usually I talk about it when I’m depressed lol); every phone call, every five or ten or whatever bucks to put in my gas tank, every spare thought or prayer or what have you, elevated the bottom of that dirge-y thread that’s always running in the back of my mind. My world’s a less melancholy place because of you, and it always will be, and I thank you for it; I”m not sure you could get more for any amount of money or time than that.
I’m spectacularly grateful to my sister Dottie and her husband Ron for opening their house to me and putting a roof over my head. Sorry it’s taking so long to get one of my own, but I’m working on it 
I’m grateful beyond words to be HOME. Those of you who’ve known me for a while but less than say 15, 20 years know how much I love my home town. The music scene here that I was a part of – even though my biggest part as a performer was before the scene really popped – and the people who were a part of it were so beautiful. It hurts to see Kalamazoo in the condition it’s in. I’ve surely not seen the half of the current music scene here, but what I have seen is what’s putting asses in seats, and by and large it’s a pale shadow of what it used to be. Not having a set of my own right now is the most frustrating f’n thing in the world; there are tons of people I want to work with and can’t because of it. Oh well. It doesn’t all suck…and it’s Kalamazoo. There’s something different here; you have to be just a little nuts to live here, but once you have it always calls to you. There’s an outrageous concentration of intellectual and artistic talent in this area. I’ve had the pleasure of working with some incredibly talented individuals in many parts of the country of the years, from the oh-so-droppable names to the kids I worked with in the theatre, but nowhere have I see the sheer concentration of talent that you can find here.
Kalamazoo is a wonderful, beautiful place that’s hurting badly. There’s an outside chance that maybe I can help do something to change that, and I’m grateful for that chance.
I’m grateful to all the cool folks I’ve met driving cab. Many of the people I’ve met and driven with are very cool and good-hearted human beings, and I’m glad my life has expanded (and in some cases re-expanded) to include them.
While my finances continue to be nearly non-existent, I’m grateful that they’re not worse 
I’m glad to be back in touch with so many old friends…I feel like a total dick that I haven’t had a chance to meet more face to face. Especially Jen, holy crap my buddy Jen, she of little dutch boys in compromising positions and small people with holes in their faces and the strident condemnation of willful ignorance and one of the best friends I ever had in the world, and I’ve been back in town for four months now and haven’t seen her once :( And she’s first among many, many people I haven’t been back in touch with yet, and want to be. That said, I’m deeply grateful for and to everyone with whom I have been back in touch, especially Lynette and her whole family who were so welcoming and accommodating during my first weeks back when I had absolutely nothing.
I’m grateful for the chance to touch lives and make people laugh or think and help people out. I’m grateful for cute young girls feigning shock that borders on outrage at the suggestion that I - *I* – could possibly be old enough to be a grandfather and pretending to flirt with me like I’m all sexy and, in the words of Stephen King, both of us knowing that they’re really joking and I’m really not 
. Thanks for playing along with my clumsy attempts to be suave.
I’m grateful for the presidency of Barack Obama. I think that generally there’s still a vast disconnect between reality and public opinion, and that the man and his administration have, by and large, performed admirably under unimaginable pressure at every turn. Not everything has been perfect, and there are some things that really concern me, but overall it’s a vast improvement over the previous administration. Action is being taken; changes are being made; things are slowly getting back in gear again, hopefully in a way that they really haven’t since 9-11. I would urge patience, thoughtfulness, and understanding before writing off or condemning this presidency, and at this point I remain confident that the overall direction of things is positive and will continue to be so.
It’s a fascinating time in human history, and I’m grateful to be a part of it.
I found out this year that people actually care about me, and I’ll be grateful every day for the rest of my life.
I’ve had a few friends who are no longer with us on my mind lately; it kills me that they’re no longer here, but every time I think of them I’m grateful I had the chance to know them while they were here.
It’s been a great year of change and reflection for me, and really it’s been a sort of transitional year from the life I’d been living to wherever the hell I’m going to end up. Obviously, I’m still in transition.
But I’m alive. I have friends and family who love and care about me. I feel emotionally, if not financially, prepared and inclined to date again, something I’ve really not done at all since Amber moved back to NC; I’m thankful for that.
There’s so much to be thankful for. Sunsets over Lake Michigan and sunrises over the Wasatch mountains. That scene in “Almost Famous when they all end up singing ‘Tiny Dancer’ on the bus and the Cameron Crowe characters says something about “I gotta get home” and that painfully gorgeous little blonde he’s with says “you are home.” Holy crap does that resonate with me, reminds me of so many beautiful days gone by, and hopefully yet to come, with so many brightly burning candles. All the songs, Jesus all the songs of my life, you can’t imagine the songs. Every minute there’s a song in my head. I’ve irritated women I was living or sleeping with because sometimes I’ll play drums in my sleep. So many great songs and great artists and great and beautiful minds and hearts behind it all, and then there’s the writers and the actors and the comedians and the philosophers and the teachers and leaders and heroes who have made my life.
My life is tough, I guess. I just live it. It’s not easy being so damn broke all the time, but things are looking up. It could sure as hell be tougher, and I’m grateful that it’s not. I think sometimes it sounds harder than it feels.
But no matter how tough life gets, I’m grateful for every day I’ve been alive, every breath I’ve taken, every girl I’ve kissed, every sunrise or sunset I’ve seen in whatever state of coherence. I’m grateful for the world, and I’m grateful to be a part of it, and I’m grateful for those of you who have chosen to share your ride with me, for a few blocks or a few thousand miles.
I’m over-tired and rambling. Sorry. I hate that I’m not good at staying in touch with people, and I hope that everyone I love knows that I love them.
Happy turkey day.
Thank you.
Much love,
-jh