So let's hear your Thanksgiving horror stories. Mine was bleaker than life itself, but I'm sure some of you can top anything I faced yesterday. Cheer me up--let me hear your worst Thanksgiving nightmares in the comments section.

The thought of writing that to you guys brought a great big smile to me on the plane back. I was already looking up though, after I spoke to my friend on the ride to the airport. I asked how his holiday was, and he said, "Isn't it still going? I was under the impression it wasn't over yet."

Yes! That's the upside to Thanksgiving. It lasts four days. I tend to enjoy the hell out of days 2-4, it's just that first one that gives me trouble. (And I met my best boyfriend ever on Thanksgiving eve seven years ago, so it will always have that going for it.) But the day itself. Yuck. When it's good, it can be really nice. But it hardly ever seems to for me. This I posted last night--to the comments thread, since I couldn't get to the main blog site:

i hate thanksgiving. usually the worst holiday of the year. i'm single and far from my family, so it's often awkward finding a family to take me in. usually i find one, though the past few years have been more ridiculous as i had a boyfriend, but an unreliable one, who was either breaking up with me or back in the closet with his mom and unable to spend it with me. it's just grown to be a day of horrible memories and bad associations of lonelieness.

this year was going to be different, since i was in chicago to have it with the family for the first time in 20 years, but it was, probably, the second-worst ever. ugh. i don't even want to relive it again. (nor that other one.) i just want this day to be over and never come back. i think these end-of-year holidays were just invented to torture single people. to get us married off.

someday hopefully i will be happily married and can look back on all these without shuddering.

and tomorrow i'll be back in denver, with two great friends coming up to see me, and lots and lots of good friends out at the danceclubs the next two nights. dancing is kinda doubtful since i threw my back out tuesday--which contributed greatly to today's mess--but it will be so comforting to be back with people who care about me. just remind me not to come back again here next year.

shew! that feels good to get off my chest. i feel fine now, by the way. no condolences necessary, just needed to wrap it up with one final vent, and then on to better times.

got inspired to get going on some writing tonight, feeling good about that.

Got on a plane this morning, feeling so much better this afternoon. And I might be starting to appreciate Colorado more with the string of absences. The mountains reared up as I road in from the airport, and it finally felt like home again. A home I was happy to return to. And nothing but warm feelings when I entered my apartment again this time.

And lots of great friends to see tonight and tomorrow. Two great guys just arrived from Albequerque, always look forward to playing with them. (Not biblically playing, they're monogamous, which is all the sweeter to behold.) But we always have fun. They just called, I'm heading over to their hotel room to hang out until party time. Was about to soak my aching back, but they've got a jacusi over there.

Have fun tonight, I will.

(And I still want to hear your holiday horror stories. Any event from childhood on will do.)

Update:

(I ended up moving the update to a separate post, kinda messed up right now.)

Very interesting AP story posted.

Howard Dean has apparently taken my advice to shift gears and throw the heavy weight into Iowa, where he has been neck and neck with Dick Gephardt, and below him in the last Des Moines Register poll.

He's got an incredible lead in New Hampshire--which will probably narrow, but will most likely hold. Iowa is the bigger gamble at the moment. The one-two punch of those two could be decisive--or at least close to decisive--so he had to do something bold in Iowa.

Finally, he has.

Excerpts:

Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean is doubling his ad spending in Iowa -- to at least $400,000 over 10 days -- in an attempt to pull away from rival Dick Gephardt in the key early voting state.

Gephardt's campaign accused Dean of trying to "buy the Iowa caucuses" with the new 60-second biographical ad slated to start airing Monday throughout the state.

Dean's power play puts pressure on Gephardt because it is unclear whether the Missouri congressman can match or exceed the former Vermont governor's buy. Gephardt is slated to spend less than half of that -- about $160,000 -- during the same period.

Dean can spend as much as he wants in the Jan. 19 caucus state because he is not accepting public financing. Gephardt is taking the government money, so he must abide by state spending caps. . . .

Dean usually buys airtime in $200,000 spurts, but is pouring $400,000 to $500,000 into Iowa TV stations to air the new 60-second spot along with a 30-second ad already on the air there. It's the largest ad buy in the state to date, according to two senior officials in Dean's campaign who spoke on the condition of anonymity. . . .

The buy also includes a 30-second ad, titled "Momentum," that is running in Iowa this week. Using the slogan "There's something happening out there," the ad includes footage from Dean's "Sleepless Summer" tour, a four-day August campaign swing that drew thousands and raised $1 million on the Internet.

So much to share. A few of the upcoming topics I hope to hit this weekend:

• Thanksgiving from hell
• The trouble with orgies
• The end of life as I know it?
• Liking it too much--the danger I had not foreseen

Update:

Joe, from the comments:

* Thanksgiving from hell * The trouble with orgies * The end of life as I know it? * Liking it too much--the danger I had not foreseen This better not all be about ONE family event, Dave.

Heeheehee. No, no relations at all. Except maybe the last two.

Now I gotta run. Friends demanding my presence at their hotel. Long, fun weekend ahead.

Lots of movement on the Dean front since I've been gone.

I'll post a few highlights here this afternoon.

THE most annoying corporate tactic at the moment, is to force you through those horrible "automated" (automated for them, manualized for you) phone trees any time you call the company to resolve one of their screwups, and then top it off by making the most outrageous claim, that the whole horrible process has been implemented "In order to better serve you . . ."

Right. What can be more infuriating than somebody screwing you over in some way, and then having the audacity to pat themselves on the back for it in front of you and tell you the bold face lie that they did it to help you instead of themselves. And to top it off, listening to the stupid bs just delays you a little longer still--along with the more infuraiting because it's longer "our menu choices have changed, so please listen carefully to all of the selections before making you choice." (What in the HELL does that serve? Everyone knows this by now--it just delays you more and more. They could at least streamline the prompts.)

And of course the fact that you often begin the process frustrated, because you're calling because they already screwed up--or made something completely unclear--makes it all the worse.

Yes, we all know this, but Earthlink has just taken the "better serve you" to a new level of ludicrousness. I have been getting these vague emails about needing to update my account info from "them"--but they look suspiciously like spam/virues, asking me to click on something.

I wasn't about to reply to that--or respond to it--so I waited until I got a different msg from the customer service center and forwarded it to that address, asking if it was legit, and if so, what the problem was and what they wanted me to do.

It bounced back with a response beginning:

"in order to better serve you EarthLink only accepts replies to outbound email messages or new messages created by completing our online email form."

What? That's BETTER service? That's the equivalent of a phone tree saying, "in order to better serve you, we're about to hang up on you, and start over by doing this."

What's worse is, I was ALREADY using the email method of contacting them, which is much cheaper for them than calling. Still not good enough: they want to put the burden back on me to go through their site narrowing my issue down into categories and subcategories--which of course it doesn't fit--and then pan off the extra work (I am on a dialup and had already logged off and gone onto other things; I now had to log back on and revisit the problem, write a new message, blah blah blah). And then they have the nerve to congratualate themselves for doing me a favor.

THEY ARE PIECES OF SHITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!

Well, I was lost in a blog freezeout while it happened, but here's what I posted in the makeshift comment-thread-as-blog:

Gay marriage is legal! Gay marriage is legal!

I can't believe it, one of the most momentous days of my life. Hard for it even sink in.

It's a huge open question WHERE it is legal--who has to recognize it--but it's legal. For the first time ever in my country, it's legal.

Amazing.

But on a personal note, I'm horrified that it finally happened and I'm frozen out of my blog to write about it.

I'll have a lot more to say about it this weekend.

And I'll get that special gay-marriage site for the Massachesetts decision up-to-date.

In the meantime, more sources:

• Margaret Cho on Morning Edition, link courtesy of Ben.
• Great story in the American Prospect that really lays everything out:

What comes after the Massachusetts court's decision on gay marriage?

• And a surprisingly insightful piece from AP on the chances in the Massachesetts legislature. It was nearly a week ago, but just as relevant today. Excerpts:

BOSTON -- Massachusetts, land of the Kennedys, underscored its reputation this week as one of America's most liberal states when its high court legalized gay marriage. But the truth is, the Legislature is not all that liberal.

Massachusetts has a large Roman Catholic population with an archdiocese that has historically been a strong influence at the Statehouse. And lawmakers who represent blue-collar, Catholic, urban neighborhoods have tended to reflect the social conservatism of their constituents.

The issue is important because the next step in the debate over gay marriage in Massachusetts rests with the Legislature, which has been given 180 days by the Supreme Judicial Court to change the state's marriage laws for the benefit of gay couples.

Lawmakers have talked about adopting a constitutional amendment to thwart gay marriage, or passing a law that would give same-sex couples something short of marriage, such as the "civil unions" available in Vermont.

...While the state's high court has granted gay rights advocates a series of major victories over the past decade -- from adoption to visitation rights -- the Legislature has a history of resisting rights for homosexuals.

The leading representative of Democratic conservatism in Massachusetts is House Speaker Tom Finneran, a Boston Catholic considered the most powerful politician in the state. He is adamantly opposed to gay marriage and abortion rights.

Known for his iron-fisted control of the Legislature, Finneran has surrounded himself with ideological soulmates who support a constitutional ban on gay marriage and helped thwart domestic-partnership legislation.

{I don't normally paste in pieces this big, but this story is so informative--unbelievable for AP--that i'm going to keep going}:

...Massachusetts' liberal reputation is built on the legacy of the Kennedys, its party-machine Democratic politics, its status as the only state to vote for George McGovern for president in 1972, and the most overwhelmingly Democratic array of elected officials in the country.

Both U.S. senators are Democrats, as are all 11 Massachusetts members of the U.S. House. The state House and Senate are 85 percent Democratic -- the most Democratic legislature in the land.

Massachusetts is also home to Northampton and Provincetown, two towns with large gay populations that attract gay visitors from around the country.

Until recently, at least, the Catholic Church had a powerful presence on Beacon Hill, championing a law restricting abortion rights in the 1970s and lobbying vociferously against gay marriage.

While the past four governors have been Republican, those who preceded Republican Mitt Romney were more socially moderate than the House leadership, most prominently Gov. William Weld, who created the first governor's commission on gay youth in the country.

Romney, a Mormon who ran on a socially moderate platform, has consistently said he is against gay marriage and civil unions, but supports domestic partnership benefits for gay couples.

If you didn't check inside the two comment threads I set up before I left, there was a lively discussion of Survivor the past two weeks here, including all the usual posts from me, plus lots of commentary from the other most regular commentors. (I know I could have used "commentators.")

And so many posts from me on so many other topics in here.

More in a minute or two.

Some of the plants are so dry . . .