When I was a kid, Thanksgiving was a time to make construction paper stovepipe hats and wear square-toed shoes with oversized buckles. It was also a time to try to hold Karen Foster's hand during the class re-enactment of the landing at Plymouth Rock.

How times change. After ten years of politely ignoring my furtive advances Karen went away to college, and never answered my letters. The unironic wearing of goofy shoes with oversized buckles went straight out of style. And me? Well, I became a national correspondent for a website featuring an anatomically correct phallus draped over a jigsaw-puzzle globe.

I used to be a productive member of society. Now I just log onto 23/6 each morning and bury my head in shame.

What am I thankful for?

First, I'm thankful to be in the "The Room," this windowless shaft where 35 of us are chained to metal desks, pounding away on manual Remingtons that jam on the words "maelstrom" and "paella." I would rather be with my family, but I guess this is OK. Arianna says it's not torture unless we belong to the Writers Guild. At least I'm sitting next to Alex, and Teddy Wayne just offered me his last bite of donut.

I'm also thankful for Rudy Giuliani. Just think of it: A Republican candidate who located New York City's anti-terrorism headquarters in the one building certain to be the next Al Qaeda target, and whose hand-picked candidate to head the Department of Homeland Security was a mob consigliere having an extra-marital affair with his biographer in a Battery Park apartment leased for 9/11 recovery work.

Can it get any better? Thank you Rudy in advance for winning the Republican nomination, thereby making my job easier. Could you please mention 9/11 in every breath, not just every sentence?

I'm also thankful I live in America, a land completely undiscovered and uninhabited until Christopher Columbus claimed it for every European with lumpy features and a bad haircut. It was a subtle and generous way of saying everyone would be welcome. The man had more depth than history has acknowledged.

I'm thankful for so much more -- pizza delivery, Paris Hilton, the list goes on but I'm out of space.

America, I love you. Don't ever change.