The Dharma Bum

By Jaysen Buterin

"I'm on my way, just set me free, Home Sweet Home..."

- Motley Crue

You know it's going to be a rock-em sock-em good time whenever you find a column that starts off with a quote from those marauding minstrels of the rock and roll revolution, "The Crue," and even though yours truly does possess his own Tommy Lee-aspirations, let us for a moment try and rise above the lyrical sagacity and prolific brilliance that came forth from the Stygian depths of the creators of such songs as "Girls, Girls, Girls" and the ever-ebullient Bible camp anthem "Shout at the Devil" and get right down to business resolving that quagmire that is running amok in all of your minds, and if it's not, well it bloody well should be, and that is - just how many times can I see Harry Potter before I try and apply to Hogwarts and swipe my roommates broom to bone up on my Quidditch skills; and just when exactly can I buy my advance tickets for the Lord of the Rings movie which will be the coolest movie EVER made...at least until Spider Man comes out!

Relax boys and girls, these questions and many more will be addressed in due time, for right now just keep an eye out for suspicious looking Muggles and for goodness sake, quit downloading screensavers of Liv Tyler as Arwen, unless you send them to me in which case, download away you little Internet sex cadets. What has been on my mind as of late, and until just days ago, in my belly as of later, was yet another holiday whose almost mythopoeic and historically jaded origins have been bedazzled into a mass-marketing media blitz warranting it's very own day of gluttony, quaffing, American football and the simple joys (or pains) of being near kith and/or kin. I wax circumlocutional about Thanksgiving of course, a day whose titular etymology may have been forgotten by some, abrogated by others, and instilled in any self-respecting Gen X-er who watched WKRP with a mindless avidity and can easily remember the Thanksgiving episode where Mr. Carlson dropped turkeys out of helicopters because he sincerely thought they could fly - an episodic epic of metaphorical importance we could all learn from.

While I shall avoid an acerbic challenge as to the cognitive capacity for free will and independent thinking of any person who actually believes that the Pilgrims were dining harmoniously with the native inhabitants they found already living here when they "discovered" this country, I can't help but sit back, take stock of my life up until this point, and be inherently grateful for all the livestock I've been graced with and give thanks to whatever ontological, metaphysical, ethereal or imaginary person is floating up there in the sky above us, and at this point I shall do just that because what fun is a column if you can't exploit it for your own derailed trains of thought?

Shaking off the monotonous inundations that a day-to-day existence on this floating rock can hang around your neck like an albatross, it can actually be quite endearing and give you all sorts of warm fuzzies when you think about the good in your life - not just paying bills, careening along in the rat race, or just going thru the motions of it all. While some may esteem their exorbitant DVD collection, or their shiny new car, or their obscenely priced sartorial menagerie as the customary status symbols that a fast-food, fast-lane in a fast-track world has tragically deemed them to be, I regret to inform you that all that is fleeting and while I'm just as happy as the next git that I have more useless crap than I know what to do with, it's certainly nothing to give thanks for and definitely isn't something that

brings real happiness, no matter what the men in the TV tell you.

I find sheer amazement that in a world of billions and billions of wandering souls, I managed to find the one woman who completes me, who makes the very air in a room electric just by having been in it, who makes my head all ooey-blooey with love. I'm utterly flabbergasted by the fact that I have such magnanimous and beautiful friends such as the Kestersons, my dearest "sister" Mandy, my other beloved "sister" Elizabeth, and my cherished "nerd-herd" who make life in Greensboro so much fun. Without a doubt what most causes me to fall to my knees and kiss the sky, are the sparkling souls of my precious parents and the infinite depths of their love and affection that have woven the very fabric of my existence. These things and more like them are what I have to be thankful for because even when the whole world is on fire, the very thought of them can bring a smile to my face, a tear to my eye, and a warmth to my heart. So as the sun sets slowly in the West, I bid you a fond farewell from my very own happy place, which will closely resemble the home I share with my beloved, and the home I'll return to in December to be with the rest of my loved ones. Blessed be.