I'm thankful for... (2013 edition)

I did this last year and figure I'll do it again. Tis the season for giving thanks, after all.

I'm thankful to have my own apartment. Less thankful for the clogged pipes and moldy bedroom wall.

I'm even more thankful that I get to share this apartment with my fabulous girlfriend. It hasn't even been two months since we moved in together, but it's already hard to imagine living in a place without her. I love you, sweetie!

I'm thankful for our perpetually stressed-out maintenance guy who is kept busy by our old apartment building.

I'm thankful I no longer live in a house full of flea-infested pets. I was itching everywhere!

I'm thankful for hot apple cider and warm blankets. We've had a major cold spell lately, so that's how I've been spending most evenings in our new place.

I'm thankful for supportive family members who still find time to worry about me despite their own problems.

Speaking of family, I'm thankful and excited to see those bunch of misfits called the Hoff Family next month! It'll be the first Christmas celebration since my Papa passed, which still takes getting used to, but it will also be a Christmas of other firsts. The first Christmas for the newest little member of the extended family and the first time GF gets to meet everyone. She's studying the Hoff family tree in preparation for all the relatives she'll meet.

I'm thankful I'm getting the opportunity to share in the splendor of the holidays with GF. I'm thankful for our upcoming trip to California, where she'll meet the people and visit the places I grew up with.

I'm thankful to have already reunited with my good friend Puma during this holiday season, and look forward to seeing more friends in the weeks ahead.

A photo of the ASU-WSU football game from The Seattle Times
that Puma's family had saved just to show me.

Like last year, I'm still thankful to have graduated college. Although in this case it has more to do with the fact that I can put some distance between myself and this photo up above. But more so from this controversy.

Holy Toledo! (as my dad would say). My thoughts about Cougar fans from two weeks ago proved prophetic. This is embarrassing for my alma mater, which is why I'm glad to be somewhat removed now.  Her (sorta funny) trash talk piece didn't warrant this kind of vicious response. Period. It's all so ridiculous and absurd; I can't help but laugh and shake my head in dismay at the same time. Puma and his family will never let me live this down.

But hooray for the Apple Cup and a potential bowl game, I guess.

I'm thankful for the surge of job interviews I've had lately. By comparison to the past 16 months, the last two weeks have been a bonanza (even if none of them has borne fruit yet)!

I'm thankful for the resurgence of the Golden State Warriors. All my life they've been among the worst teams in the NBA; it's good to see them win. I'm especially thankful for this moment...

I'm thankful the Seahawks' secondary keeps receiving suspensions. I'll be incredibly thankful if someone can defeat the Seahawks in the playoffs for me. It will be insufferable living in the Seattle area if they win the Super Bowl.

I'm thankful I have one of the worst teams in my fantasy football league instead of the worst. I owe the Seahawks D/ST for that.

I'm thankful for the return of Hunter Pence and Javier Lopez, plus the addition of Tim Hudson. As for Tim Lincecum - meh.

I'm thankful a new Bruce Springsteen album coming out just two days shy of my birthday! BRUUUUUUUUUUUCE!!!!

Fingers crossed that some way, some how, I get to attend another concert or two in the year ahead. Now THAT is something I'd be thankful for. Given my bank account and Bruce's growing preference for European and other international audiences these days, chances are slim, but I've got "High Hopes."

I'm thankful for the return of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Turkey Day marathon. A proud Thanksgiving tradition returns! Huzzah!

(*SPOILER ALERT* for Boardwalk Empire ahead!)

I'm thankful Chalky White survived...but DAMN!!! Why'd they have to go and kill off his daughter like that? And more importantly, WHY RICHARD?!?!?! HE WAS THE BEST DAMN CHARACTER ON THAT SHOW!!!

(Spoilers are over.)

I'm thankful that the genre of science fiction allows you to just write your way out of any conundrum or logical fallacy, because otherwise I don't think I'd enjoy Doctor Who as much as I do. The 50th anniversary was certainly fun, but admit it - it made no logical sense! Even by the show's own established (if ridiculous) rules!

I'm thankful for you! No, not you; the other one. Yeah, I'm talking to you! Thank you. You're such a loyal reader. Much better than any of my other followers (don't tell them, but I like you best).

I'm thankful this blog continues to bring a smile to the faces of people who read it. However few that number may be. Thank you for reading my silly little blog.

Happy Thanksgiving!

P.S. I found the answer to last year's burning question: Freddie Mitchell is in jail for tax fraud.

Some more of Dylan's deep thoughts

• We're technically always under the weather. So does that mean all of humanity is sick?
• The best period in someone's life to fool or trick them is the day after they are born. Because then they were just born yesterday.
• Skunks must all have drinking problems considering we often compare a drunk human to them.
• Are people who put on both pant legs at the same time natural overachievers?
• Why would anyone sell seashells by the seashore? People can just pick up seashells right there off the beach - it doesn't cost anything. You definitely want your seashell business to be further inland.
• I imagine chess being designed by a woman angry at her lazy husband. The queen gets to move wherever she wants, while the king is fairly useless and defenseless without the other pieces.
• Checkers was the lazy husband's response to his wife's game. Not as sophisticated or complicated, naturally.
• Using Catching Fire to sell sandwiches seems really inappropriate given the storyline of those novels.
• Thanksgiving is practice for Christmas. It's Christmas Beta.
• Romulus and Remus are two children who have the excuse of have been raised by wolves (well...a wolf).
• Never test the theory of cats having nine lives. Trust me, the results ain't pretty.
• If foxes could actually talk, I'm pretty sure what they would say is, "What the fuck is wrong with you people? We don't sound like that at all!"

Loose on the Palouse

It was in 2008 that I made the important move from high school to college. I applied to a lot of small private universities with the hope my good, if not stellar, grades from a well-respected school would allow me to go just about anywhere.

I applied to the highly regarded Reed College and Whitman University here in the Pacific Northwest.

I also fooled around with the idea of becoming a screenwriter and applied to Chapman University and Loyola Marymount University in SoCal, which have good film schools.

I considered an application for Stanford, too, but decided not to in the end (sorry, Mom). But I did apply to a few schools with the UC system.

And then, just because they had an application due date later than any other school I'd looked at, I applied to Washington State University as well. I'd heard about their respected journalism program, which was another field that piqued my interest. But WSU was little more than an emergency backup option. My biggest hope at the time was to return to the promised land of California - I was done with Washington ... or so I thought.

(It was during all this that the infamous name debacle took place.)

Unfortunately, my (or really my mother's) expectations were mostly dashed. Out of eight schools I applied to, only two accepted me: Loyola and WSU.

It was either study film or study journalism. Enjoy the California sun or the winters of the Palouse. Live in glitzy Los Angeles or someplace called Pullman.

Spend $42,000 on tuition per year or $24,000.

I went with the latter choice.

Tuition was the most important factor; my family's finances weren't getting any better. However, the realization that attending Loyola would mean having to live, work, and study in LA on a daily basis was another contributing factor. The San Franciscan in me just couldn't allow that to happen.

So Pullman it was.

Pullman. Farm country. The smallest town I've ever lived in. Where people wear cowboy hats and boots un-ironically. Nestled right up against the border of Idaho of all places! Idaho! Yeah, the state of meth-heads, neo-Nazis, and potato farmers. This is where I spent four formative years of my life.

First impressions weren't the greatest. I visited it months ahead of time to get a feel for the place and, despite being a perfectly sunny day in April, it was snowing. Snowing without clouds! In April! Then, when the big day came and I arrived to officially move-in, a dust storm hit. An honest to God dust storm, like out of the pages of The Grapes of Wrath! (Coincidentally, check out my list of my favorite novels if you haven't yet. *Cheap plug*)

Home sickness naturally took over after a few weeks. One of the first things I found myself missing was not my family, not my friends, not even my pets. It was saltwater. Pullman is the furthest I've lived from a large body of saltwater. I started to miss the feeling of a cool sea breeze on my face and the smell and taste of the sea that accompanies it.

This home sickness led me to do crazy things like make new friends, open a Facebook account, and root for the Cougar football team (if you're a young football fan looking for a university to attend, stay away from WSU. The team stinks, but the fans are worse. God, I hate Cougar fans!).

But it wasn't all bad (or why else would I have stayed?). English 101 led me to sit directly in-between two people who would become arguably my best friends at college. I got to have my own room for most of second semester after my roommate (a red-headed giant of a man who played rugby - we weren't exactly compatible roommates, but generally got along. Though one night he brought a lady friend home with him for some "alone time" without telling me) moved out and I never got a replacement.

And then there were the adventures of the Stephenson North 9th Floor crew. As soon as I can figure out a way to accurately portray how crazy my floormates were without risking possible criminal charges being filed, I'll have a blog post about them. Not at all people I'd usually associate with, but for my first year at college they helped me forget my home sickness and made things fun.

The rest of my time at WSU can more or less be summed up the same way: it wasn't all bad. It certainly wasn't all good either.

For every friend I made, there were friends lost as well. For every two or three classes I truly enjoyed and learned things in, there were duds where I've already forgotten what I learned. There was the thrill of my new major and all its accompanying knowledge and skills to be learned, followed by the slow realization I may have picked the wrong thing for me. For every triumph at college, there was tragedy back at home. For every bit of praise I garnered, there was someone talking behind my back.

But college is like life that way. It's a bumpy road full of highs and lows. That's what college is ultimately supposed to be about, they say - to prepare you for "the real world;" for being a grown-up. While I sometimes doubt whether I'm ready or not for this "real world," I still feel confident I made the right choice in attending WSU.

WSU certainly gave me some interesting stories to tell - ones I hope to share with all of you going forward. It allowed me to learn new things about myself. And it certainly introduced me to a variety of new people, some of whom I'm proud to call good friends.

And I got a pretty neat girlfriend out of the whole ordeal, too!

Go Cougs!