Thank You

One of the reasons I've never been very good at asking for help is because I always feel I'm quite terrible at conveying how appreciative I am for it. So, bearing in mind my awkward incompetence, please accept my fervent gratitude to everyone who so graciously offered their support, whether financial or a kind word or both, to Mr. Shakes and me after his accident on Tuesday. It really means so much to both of us to have such an amazing support network.

Sometimes I get ribbed a bit around here (which, as I'm sure you've notice, I don't mind in the least) for seeming weirdly optimistic at perhaps the most bemusing times. It's true that being a progressive blogger these past few years has certainly strained even the most resolute believers in the goodness of people, but it also means membership in an amazingly generous and supportive community of people. I have been the beneficiary of this generosity and support, and I have been as generous and supportive as I've been able as we have pulled together on behalf of bloggers who lost their computers or their jobs or simply couldn't make rent one month.

In every case, there has arrived a conservative or two or ten to exploit a vulnerability and grouse about the person being helped taking "unearned" money from strangers. Conservatives say they believe the pulling together of community, the generosity of others to help those in need, is precisely on what those in need should rely, rather than the government, but in the end, it seems, what many of them really believe is that people with a bit of bad luck deserve no help, nor sympathy, nothing but misery and mockery as they slowly fall off the edge. In the end, it turns out, the best conservatives seem to be progressives.

And I am, and shall always be, profoundly thankful and proud to blog among you.