My gratitude journal

Oprah got this trend started. Keep a gratitude journal; write down the things you’re grateful for. It’s supposed to make you a more grateful, and eventually more contented person. But if you do it right, you can get it all down and keep the cynicism that makes you uniquely you. Here’s a few things for which I am grateful: Michael Wiener doesn’t text me. From what I’ve read he doesn’t have much to say, although it can be said he lives up to his name. I’m glad Wiener’s wife is standing by her man. It isn’t every day I can feel sorry for someone who has her own career and doesn’t need a husband’s income to survive. I’m glad I’m hovering around the M&M years (between menopause and Medicare). It doesn’t look like the younger generation has much to look forward to. I can appreciate that I grew up in a time when young men didn’t wear their pants below their bottoms. Guys in my youth showed their ass in less literal ways. It’s so refreshing to know that I realize my place in life. I am not so important that I have to be on the phone while driving, walking around the mall, sitting in the ladies room stall, or even seated at dinner with other people in speaking proximity. I feel so sorry for young people these days who don’t understand the feeling of peace that comes with being away from a phone, or the pleasure that comes from avoiding one. When I was a youth, we all worried about the bomb. But threat of war back then was an “us and them” sort of thing. The enemy wasn’t so close in proximity nor was he as easily camouflaged and uniquely armed. When I think about the political future of the world, and the craziness that drives those who want to control us, I’m glad I can remember when the government pretty much left us alone. It’s a relief to know that I’m not so cynical that I think Bradley Manning hatched a plot sure to get him in trouble just so the government would pay for his sex-change operation. He gets sentenced to 35 years in prison, and that day announces he wants to live out his life as a woman? Where will they put him? It’s amazing how much there is to be grateful for; it just takes a little effort.