As We Begin

Like just about everybody, I never had much patience for those acceptance speeches at the Oscars, The Emmys the Grammys and so on.

You know what I mean? Everyone thanking everybody on their list, from their director to their mom's hairstylist and then a few more, including their postal carrier and the little girl running the lemonade stand down the block. Of course, I'm a cynic so I always wondered, are their thanks heartfelt or merely politic? Like, you best be thanking the stunt and technical guys 'cause on your next movie shoot, you don't want those blanks they're shooting at you to suddenly, ow! become real bullets. That sort of thing.

Then I get a book published and I'm preparing to start a book tour and I discover I have one of those lists myself. And darned if I couldn't hold onto that microphone forever.

Can you see it? Up there on the stage of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and I'm unfolding my little cheat sheet and thanking everybody from my best friend to a couple of mentors to my events planner and publicist and the publishers and printer and graphic designer and web maven and my blog friends and readers and bookstore owners and librarians and my personal trainer and naprapath and chiropractor and insurance guy and the plumber and the music is coming up and the announcer is starting to talk over me and . . .

Okay, so we leave Fantasy Island and return to me sitting in front of the computer in my underwear in the little room at the back of my house at five oclock in the morning and I'm remembering how, many years ago, a woman surprised me by paying for dinner on our first date. When I protested, she said, "If someone hands you money, just say thank you and shut up."

When a whole bunch of people work hard to hand you your dream, just say thank you and shut up.

Thank you, God, for those people and these blessings.