Sometimes it is difficult to come up with a topic for this column each week. The space I am allotted every Thursday is one of the last things in the section to be filled. Who am I kidding?
It is the final thing to be placed, much to the chagrin of my editors. They spend a lot of time biting their nails and praying I haven’t gone overboard this time.

It can be a struggle to try to write clever, witty and edgy on deadline. Something that everyone from Raytheon retirees to freshmen at UMass Lowell can relate to, laugh at and talk about with their families at supper. Not that everything in here is appropriate for the dinner table.

Then there are my family and friends, who have taken the brunt of this thing I call Lowellita. Their dating disasters, boyfriend blunders and fashion faux pas have made great column fodder for the past three years. When my gal pals are grumbling about the pros and cons of dating someone at work, someone always says: “You better shut up or you’ll end up in the paper.”

It may be at their expense, but they do benefit by getting a comped round of drinks or VIP access to concerts at the Tsongas Arena. There is a give and a take with any friendship, and you all seem to make out better than I do.

My father has given up completely. He’s told me many times that he reads the first sentence and is too scared to go any further. My writing gives him a headache. You can see where my knack for humor comes from.

When I began this column, I was going to write a tongue-and-cheek blurb about things I am thankful for. For example, did anyone know there’s such a thing as bacon salt? And it is calorie-free? I am thankful for the college-educated stoner still sleeping on a futon in his mother’s basement who invented such a blessed thing.

Don’t laugh. He’ll be filthy rich someday and remember me plugging his artery clogging delicacy. Next I’ll be sprinkling bacon salt on our $50,000 wedding cake.

Even though pig-flavored sodium is a splendid thing to give thanks for, I realized, half-way through writing this, that I would not be writing word one if not for my patient editors, the drama-filled lives of my friends and the sarcasm I inherited from my family.

Yes, I am thankful that the skinny jean was in style for only about 15 minutes and that Paris Hilton has fallen off the paparazzi radar (See what happens when you start wearing panties? Take note Britney.), but I am truly thankful for all the people who make my life interesting enough to read about in the paper every Thursday.

Have a safe, happy Thanksgiving and don’t do anything Lowellita wouldn’t do. E-mail lowellita@lowellsun.com.