A Might Chilly

My heat went out on Saturday, and I realize in retrospect I shoulda just kept my mouth shut about it -- though the instant electronic response was more than heartwarming. The thing is, I keep my thermostat set on 56 all the time, so I barely notice if the damn thing isn't working. (I'm not just being cheap -- although that's true too -- I keep it on 56 in the summer as well, which is when I take considerable trash-talking on facebook for blowing the tops off mountains with my environmental irresponsibility. The exchange between me and the Crazy Lady when I turned my AC on back in April is now legendary.)

So I really had no intention of calling the repair guys on a New Year's weekend (I have a bed-warmer and a bedroom space-heater)... but the Hot Sorority Visigoths weren't nearly so reticent,and most everything was back on the road to recovery Saturday night.

This was not before the Cavalry, in the form of my BFF, my cousins, my college roommate, and assorted other neighbors had offered everything from airlift to evac to pink sofa surfing and supply drops -- up to and including "fire, cocktails, and Cable" at Casa de K-Cuz. These are the same folks who've driven me to the occasional biopsy(they know I can't ride with other people, and the accommodations you can watch them make for that are both Herculean and hilarious); they pick up pedialyte if I get sick and have been known to go to two separate stores to make sure it is Schweppes ginger-ale... NOT that white-trash Canada Dry); they babysit my parents throughout their thousands of hospital stays when I need a break; and too many other instances to count.

While they truly needn't have worried about the heat (I was fine; I promise)I am nonethless, touched that they did. While I don't have New Year's Resolutions, one thing I think I could do better is reminding the people in my life just how grateful I am for them. Nobody likes to be taken for granted, and I think maybe sometimes I forget how lucky I am. More accurately, I forget to express it.

It would not be an understatment to say it takes a mighty fucking village to keep as many balls in the air as I do, and maybe especially because I don't have -- and will never have -- a traditional nuclear family, I notice just how hard my particular tribe works.

So what I will say to them more in 2010 is what's exactly true (but I don't say often enough): "I love you madly. I'd be lost without you." And I would be.