Thanksgiving — a holiday devoted to the uniquely American pastime of gratuitous overindulgence. But much though I love the gut-busting element of this celebration, I feel as though I should give some thanks for various blessings and advantages of mine. Thus, the Norman-Rockwell-meets-Sandra-Bernhard catalog below.

1. My parents. Although I sometimes feel like grabbing my mother by the shoulders and shaking her until she realizes that I did not decorate myself with tattoos or get arrested or stay out twenty minutes later than I said I would for the specific purpose of torturing her, I must say that I got pretty lucky in the mother department. She curses like a sailor, she makes a mean meatloaf, and she can finish the Times Sunday puzzle in half an hour. She frequently drives me bonkers, but she rules. So does my father. I know that he looks at me sometimes and wonders how he, an intelligent man and hard worker who has never paid a bill late in his life, got lumped with a daughter who wears her useless English degree and crushing credit card debts with pride. But he seems to enjoy my company, and I respect his judgment.

2. My brother. I loathed him for years. I fought with him over everything — the front seat, the remote control, the honor of passing out the Christmas presents, you name it. If I add together the times I told him to shut up with the times I told him to go away, they outnumber the grains of sand on the world’s beaches. My best friend and I used to lean against the door of my room so that he couldn’t come in, and slide small change under the door to get him to go away, promising to play with him later, which we never did. I lobbied my parents to give him away to a family with no kids. Miraculously, he doesn’t hold any of this against me.

3. My boyfriend. Handsome, smart, laughs at my jokes.

4. My friends.

5. Beer.

6. My health. I have had some health problems lately, but I can walk, see, and hear. I can even breathe quite well, considering how much I smoke.

7. Bathroom humor.

8. The large, loud orange cat that lets me live with him.

9. My new full-coverage health plan.

10. Coffee.

11. The Beatles.

12. Owning a VCR that I can program easily.

13. Cheese. Cheese makes the world a better place — Brie, Havarti, cheddar, mozzarella, Muenster, provolone, Wispride, the spreadable kind with the chives and spinach, cream cheese, goat cheese, head cheese, even good old American pasteurized process cheese food, they all rock my house. But I don’t just mean edible cheese — the intangible kinds of cheese also deserve my thanks. The Carpenters, Beverly Hills 90210, and Macarena Night at Yankee Stadium — to name just a few — have all brightened my life.

14. My job. It shows up pretty late on the list, but I like my job and I like the people I work with. After a few jobs that used to make me cry in the bathroom, I feel lucky to have this one. I get mad benefits, too, and I don’t have to say, “Would you like fries with that?”

15. A whole bunch of other stuff.

Some readers might find this change in tone worrisome. I didn’t really make fun of anything; I didn’t say that anything sucked; I didn’t even express the desire to slap annoying people hard. But for this one weekend a year, I try to remember that certain things — like not having sight or hearing, or not having a home with lots of comforts, or not having a family to spend time with at the holidays, or having a family but not getting along with them, or not having a job, or having a job but getting an ulcer from doing it — really do suck. I try to remember that I have lots of things that I don’t necessarily appreciate properly during the rest of the year. For example, my mom has used the “I expected the troopers to come to the door AND TELL ME YOU HAD DIED” line on me five dozen times, but at least I have a mom, and she cares when I come home late, and I feel very very thankful for that, and for other good things too.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled spate of bitterly judgmental sarcasm.

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