Issues and Complaints

- My cat has taken to falling over sideways. She'll be fine, running around like the spaz she is, back and forth, length-wise across the apartment, and then just stop and keel over onto the floor. This can't be good. Is there such a thing as kitty vertigo?
- I JUST decided what I am writing my 20-25 page paper about, due Wed. evening. This is the fourth topic I have 'decided' on. Hopefully, fingers crossed, knock on wood, it will be the last.
- I am still only five pages into my other, 15-20 page paper. At least I have a definite topic. Knock on wood, fingers crossed, hopefully.
- I still have not finished my Christmas shopping. How am I supposed to do this, when I must constantly write papers?
- My Christmas package from La Gap started in Ohio, traveled to NJ, traveled to NY, and is now, according to tracking, BACK IN OHIO. Why? WHY? How am I supposed to get this by Christmas? Why would it go back to Ohio?
- I am out of food. And diet coke. I will have to leave the apartment. I don't really remember the world outside, but I feel it's unsafe.
- I will also have to leave the apartment to visit the library and use 'microform'. I have never used microform before. I am NOT looking forward to it.
- I have not had a haircut since I moved to New York. Ew.
- My gym membership is totally going to waste...on account of my never leaving the apartment.
- It is becoming difficult to walk through my small bedroom, as it is covered in books and printouts from literary journals.
- I can't remember the last time I did laundry. I might be running out of clean underwear.
- My vocab is slipping. I say "eff this and eff that" all the time. And the word 'Whatever' (sometimes as 'Whatevs,' which is worse). This morning my roommate and I slumped on our bright red couch and orally wrote the new hit children's book, "Eff you, Moon."

And on that cheerful note, I return to my paper writing.

It IS the most wonderful time of the year!

Welcome to Christmas decorating day in my apartment. It involves cursing, carols, and many mugs of glorious spiced hot cider.

Instead of cementing my tush to the red couch and my thighs to the laptop, as per usual, today, I joined my roommate on a quest for some holiday spirit.

We found it in the form of a Christmas tree lot outside of our local grocery store, where a nice hippie with a lime green van sold us a Christmas tree from Nova Scotia. A real live Christmas tree! I can't remember the last time I had one of those. So, we paid the nice hippie (who still believes in capitalism), lugged the tree home, struggled to get it into its tree stand, and decorated the suckah.

It is the most beautiful tree ever, and the smell of evergreen mixed with the smell of spiced apple cider is absolutely intoxicating.

While my roommate tackled the lights (she likes putting them on tree, I promise), I cast my eye on the rest of the apartment...

"Have you ever been to my parents' place around Christmas? It's like my Mom walks into the center of the house and vomits gold glitter onto everything. I take after her."

Last year I made those gold poinsettias into a treetop decoration.


"We are not decorating with a baby Jesus."
"But he's so cute."
"He can be baby Fred."
"How can you resist this? Look. Mary is wearing birkenstocks."

Darcy did not get into the holiday spirit, mostly because Darcy hates happiness and joy. So far she hasn't eaten any Christmas decorations yet, so that's a blessing at least.


I would like to end this blog with one of my favorite Christmas decorations, a special message from Mr. Bond:

The One About the Holidays

The holidays were slightly different at my parents' house this year.

For one thing, I have to refer to it as 'my parents' house'. It used to be my house. But now I have my own place (which I share with a pirate and a surfer and our menagerie), and, despite the fact that it currently has a gaping hole in the ceiling by the front door, I am very proud of it.

On the Eve of Christmas Eve, all I wanted to do was wrap presents, clean the ferret cage, pack, clean- the usual pre-holiday stuff. My roommate (the pirate, not the surfer) wanted to throw a party. A big, loud, beerpong playing party.

In college, I was the Queen of Beer Pong. It was my favorite sport. Now, I enjoy an occasional round, but not in my own home! Not when it means I have to move my Christmas table cloth and my delicate centerpiece and hide all my wonderfully displayed holiday cards!

I was not a happy camper. That's why, an hour and a half into the party, I went downstairs and watched Clone High.

So Christmas Eve dawned on an undecorated house and the strong stench of stale beer. I have no problem with parties. In fact, I am having people over for nibbles and cocktails on New Year's EveNING. But I feel I have moved past the stage in my life where it is acceptable to wake up to a plethora of empty beer cans. We're adults. This is our home. Let's party elsewhere and then come back to a clean, calm environment.

At least, that's my take on it.

Anyway, after many irate calls from my family between the hours of eight and twelve, I arrived at my parents' house a little before one on Christmas Eve. I'd chipped my manicure on a beer can, but other than that, I was full of jollyness. I exchanged gifts with my sisters (a tradition leftover from a time when the hours between Christmas Eve and Christmas morning stretched out towards infinity). I cooked (best recipe of the holidays: Cheese Curry Pate with Plum Sauce). There was the traditional Christmas Eve viewing of 'A Muppet Christmas Carol'. We had a great party with friends and neighbors, then filled our wine glasses and headed into church.

In our living room.

Through a strange series of events, my family has become entirely opposed to organized religion and the people who dish it out. So this year, we had seventeen people sitting in our living room for our own, home-grown Christmas service. Wine allowed. Shoes not required. My friend Hilary and I planned the hymns- it felt sort of like putting on a play. My sister and I sang Oh Holy Night and my mother cried. I almost cried, actually, when Jaimie was singing her solo. She's just gotten so grown up and beautiful. Tear. The message (we don't believe in 'sermons' at The Church of the Living Room) was delivered by a friend of ours and, I believe, reached a lot of us. Good church. Best service I've been to in a long time.

Christmas morning inched it's way into my life much later than I expected. My youngest sister let us sleep until eight-thirty. We opened stockings, then devoured the pile under the tree. I always want to drag my feet on Christmas morning: linger a little longer over the stocking stuffers, unwrap slower. It's all over far too fast. Then we're cleaning up and getting ready to head over to my paternal grandparents' house before my mother's family arrives at two. Of course, cleaning up this year went a little slower as it involved many Mimosas for everyone over the age of 18.

We expected Christmas with my Mom's family to be calmer this year, as all the male cousins were attending the Ravens' football game. The holes now burnt into my mother's ceiling (from outdoor firecrackers set off indoors) hint that it may have been the most raucous Christmas yet.

And now I'm back at work, which is always anti-climatic. But there's another holiday to prepare for in two short days. And that one's always trouble!

Some Thoughts on Christmas Cards...

I have been sick for the past three weeks (see previous post). I have also been sending out my Christmas cards.

This year, I have been an envelope licker. No because I enjoy the taste of envelope glue or am opposed to wasting tape. Just because I am too lazy to get up and find tape. Or to get water and a sponge and moisten the sticky. My tongue is always wherever the open envelope happens to be. So I lick.

This means I have been spreading my cold from Connecticut down to South Carolina and all the way west to Texas.

I am an epidemic.

So far I have sent out over forty Christmas cards. And I'm still going. This takes up a lot of paper. And money. Money for stamps, money for cards. Wouldn't it be better to just say to people: "Hey. I still love you. But I'm donating all my Christmas card money to charity this year." Think of the funds! Think of the holiday spirit!

Then again, you can't display verbal decla- rations of love and friend- ship. You need a shiny, little card. Because in the end, Christmas cards are really a popularity contest that we don't talk about. We don't tell our parents or people on the street: "I got six cards today! How many did you get?". But we walk around feeling smug all day. And we have a spot in our home or bedroom where they are all taped or tacked or neatly set up besides each other so our popularity is displayed to any visitors. I've been putting mine in the dining room.

Consider this post an electronic Holiday Card to all you readers out there. Many of you will be getting the disease-filled kind in the mail any day now.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Gimme some of that Christmas crack...

I just got finished listening to a voicemail message at work that was one minute and sixteen seconds long.

This, in my opinion, is too long for a voicemail message. Name, phone number and purpose should be stated succinctly. But this message was from a nice southern gentleman with an engineering magazine. And it was just so pleasant and courteous. This man was probably about fifty years old, but I wanted to jump through the phone line and cover him with kisses because it was the nicest, impersonal phone message that has ever been left for me. I'm still reeling.

I need to move down south and find me a nice, southern gentleman. Preferably a wealthy one.

In other news, it's December.

This means November is over, and I have successfully completed my NaNoWriMo. 50,000 words in a month. Less than, in my case, as I didn't start until the 7th. So, in early 2006, I plan on shopping my first novel. That's exciting.

Christmas is bearing down on us quickly. I feel ahead of my shopping now, sure, but in a few weeks, I'll be cramming for Christmas like an undergrad crams for exams. Awesome.

I desperately need some color in my skin. Maybe I'll pick some up in Austin this weekend. The high for Saturday is supposed to be 87 degrees. Austin is like another world.

One of my friends from my childhood just got diagnosed with pregnancy. I'm sending a card, which seems appropriate, under the circumstances. She is 24. My mother was pregnant with me when she was 24. I am 23. I am not getting pregnant anytime soon.

Tonight my surly roommate's mother is coming over to help me get the tree down from the attic. This will be one more speck of cheer added to our little townhouse. Already, I have added a festive table cloth and a table runner in the dining room. Also...I created my first centerpiece. It still lacks candles, but it is a wonder of artificial greens.

I'm kind of like a low budget Martha Stewart on crack. She always seems so calm.

Crazy Holiday Pants!

We are about to embark on the holiday season. The thought fills me with excitement and exhaustion.

There will be shopping and eating and company parties (will my date pull through?) and parties with friends and receiving gifts I love and gifts I hate and more shopping and much more eating. I'll try my hardest not to gain the requisite five holiday pounds. Put down that second chocolate chipl cookie. Step away from the crab balls and the mashed potatos.

Alright, now I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

I know I'm going to dig myself further in the hole financially- which is especially bad considering I am dropping down to part time hours in January. The idea behind the madness? Work less, write more. We'll have to see how that goes.

In non-holiday related news, I saw the new Harry Potter film this weekend. Twice (once with each sister). Over lunch afterwards, my friend plyed me with questions about the relationships between the characters. She doesn't read the books but she loves the movies and wants to know- who will Hermione end up with? Ron or Harry? It's funny but as an avid fan of the books, I can't remember ever wondering about this. In the beginning, relationships weren't important: just magic and defeating evil. And then suddenly the hormones kicked in and it was always very apparent who was going to end up with who. I just had (and still have, in some cases) no idea how they would get there.

Sigh. I want to be JK Rowling when I grow up.

I have 7 days and 13,000 words to complete for my NaNoWriMo Novel. I'm starting to get worried that the characters are not going to end up where I want them. Also, I'm getting a little too attached to some of the characters, a fact that was brought home to me when I woke up yesterday morning, thinking: "Why am I so worried about having a date for my office Christmas party? I'll just bring Will."

Will does not actually exist. He is a twenty year old actor in love with my main character and dating her best friend/roommate.

Awesome.

And now that we've discussed the holidays and my psychosis, I'm getting back to work.