As our favorite soap characters give thanks in this week's special Thanksgiving episodes, I feel inspired to list a few things I feel thankful for this year, professionally and personally. For starters, I'm grateful to have just celebrated by five-year anniversary at Soap Opera Digest. If you had asked me 10 years ago what I wanted to do with a career in journalism, an editorial job at Digest would have definitely been on my wish list.

Last night I had the pleasure of attending a rare Q&A at The Paley Center for Media. In attendance were ONE LIFE TO LIVE cast members David Gregory (Ford), Kristen Alderson (Starr), Gina Tognoni (Kelly), Sean Ringgold (Shaun), Florencia Lozano (Téa), Kassie DePaiva (Blair) and Hillary B. Smith (Nora), as well as Executive Producer Frank Valentini.

Oh, ONE TREE HILL. Why do you do this to me? Why did you make me love you so hard in the beginning that I can't look away now, even though you may be the worst show on The CW. (See? I'm being nice by saying "may" be because I don't watch SMALLVILLE or SUPERNATURAL — not sure who falls into that demographic).

GENERAL HOSPITAL, you have my attention. Last week's episodes — excluding anything having to do with Ireland and the knit cap that offends Weekly editor Mala Bhattacharjee so much — felt like old-school GH as Robin hallucinated a touching reunion with Stone that I felt actually gave us Robin and Stone fans closure, and as Brenda revisited Port Charles in a most entertaining way.

I am always happy when September rolls around and my fave nighttime soaps return, but I have to admit, I am a bit disappointed with the recycled plotlines I've seen so far. The biggest offender (and most boring story) by far is ONE TREE HILL's Clay and — oh my, God, Haley's sister is so boring I can't even remember the character's name — his lady love languishing in this beachy paradise when they're really in comas.

Between his valiant rescue of Blair on today's ONE LIFE TO LIVE and his WHAT IF? video on http://sn.soapnet.go.com, it is a lucky day for a John McBain lover like myself. As Caleb and Livvie on PORT CHARLES, Michael Easton and Kelly Monaco (Sam, GENERAL HOSPITAL) were just the hottest thing since Pop Tarts, and in this new steamy Web clip, they prove they still have the chemistry that made them so popular on PC.

I've been trying my best to keep up with all the soaps this week and came up with a short list of what I'm loving. Here, in no particular order, is what held my attention the week of 8/16:

Has anyone else noticed this week's trend on ONE LIFE TO LIVE of characters unburdening their problems to completely random people? It started with Natalie, who as far as I can remember, is not friends with Gigi, telling the Rodi's waitress all about her pregnancy. Um, John is Gigi's boss, so if she doesn't want John to find out that she might be having his baby, maybe she should have gone elsewhere?

As the ONE LIFE TO LIVE editor, my afternoons are frequently booked at 2 p.m. EST, but this week I am hooked on its time-slot competitor AS THE WORLD TURNS. Is that bad? Probably not, since ATWT's on its way out, and I gotta say, I find this storyline with Vienna, Katie and Henry to be such a refreshing take on a love triangle.

Today's episode of ONE LIFE TO LIVE made Cole look like a total fool. All Hannah had to do was plant a condom wrapper (which did not look open, by the way) and Starr's diploma (because every girl brings her diploma along for a tryst) in a far-away beach house and Cole assumed that Starr slept with James.