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Facts of Life Christmas plus some info about cheese

I’ve been occasionally listening to channel 633 on my cable box which is Sounds of the Season which mostly leaves me feeling jolly but also frustrated by the ease with which people refer to Rudolph as Rudy. He’s  just not a Rudy to me, you know? He’s barely a Rudolph. He looks like a Todd. Anyway, when not getting overly familiar with said reindeer, the channel sometimes plays “We Need a Little Christmas” which is cool and all, but the official version just is nowhere near as awesome as the Facts of Life version, and I realize I’m probably the lone person in the world who feels this way and do I even feel it or am I being ironic? Or worse, ironical? God, I don’t even know anymore. I don’t think so?

I do genuinely love this while also recognizing and one might say celebrating its cheese. Maybe *I* am cheese? But if so what type? Have I told you about my sister and my cheese game? It’s called Cow, Sheep or Goat and the way you play is you say a cheese and then have to guess what kind of milk it’s made with. The problem is that soon you’ll realize you actually have no idea what kind of milk most cheeses are (cheese is?) made with beyond the obvious unless you happen to have spent copious amounts of time in a dank cave in France doing untoward things with curds. If so, please be on my team next time we play the game. In the meantime, enjoy the hunk of gouda below.

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Wintry mix

It’s officially that time of year. That time when weather turns wet and gloomy and I put rollers in my artificially straightened hair (for volume, duh!) even though it doesn’t do a damned thing. Okay, actually that happens year round, but moreso when it’s cold. It’s also the time of year when jeans wick moisture from the ground which is great exercise because the denim becomes very heavy and so pretty soon you’re walking around with weights on your legs. The downside is that you’ll sink like a stone should you happen to fall in any body of water or end up in a pair of concrete shoes in the Hudson. Concrete shoes, it should be noted, also function as excellent free weights for toning your glutes and your triangles. One time I wore concrete shoes during a sprint on the beach and by the end I could have sworn I had the body of a 22 year old… trapped in the tangle of kelp I was dragging around along with some tin cans and a desert boot. You never know what (or whom!!!!!!!!)  you’ll find at the beach!

But back to this weather, it’s also the time of year when weather people give you their forecast, which I’m pretty sure they make up (no offense to meteorogolists! Some of my best friends are umbrellas!) and they will employ the term “wintry mix” to describe a blend of slush, rain, wind, snow, carob chips and sometimes yogurt chips or dried cranberries. By the by, I’m not using the word craisin because I decided one second ago that I didn’t feel like it. I’m fickle.

Onward! The word fickle makes me think of pickle which reminds me that last night my friend and I had a long talk about our hopes and dreams and then an even longer talk about foods and flavors we like or don’t like. It also veered into smells. To be fair, we didn’t talk about our hopes and dreams. I don’t like the smell of distilled vinegar, for example. She doesn’t like the smell of Rosemary. I don’t like the smell of Edith. I don’t like octopus, but not because I’ve tried it and made an informed decision, more like because there is a part of me that’s five years old and thinks it’s grody. Also grody? A fair amount of innards and entrails including but not limited to brains, testicles and insects. I guess I’m not that unusual really. But when I was in preschool I ate gizzard and I think I even liked it. I suspect I’ve already written about that here. Is it ringing a bell? For “nutrition” which is what they called “recess” different parents would bring in a snack and it was usually kid friendly fare and if you ate all of it you were in the “clean plate club.” This was back in the 1820s before everyone was worried about obesity. Clean plate club = Precocious fat ass club. Anyhoozers, someone brought in gizzard and I ate it and was praised for being in the clean plate club and to this day I wonder why someone’s parents brought in gizzard for a bunch of preschoolers. You know? Did I mention it was human gizzard? It wasn’t because humans don’t have gizzards, and also the preschool was staunchly anti-cannibal (this was conservative Orange County in the 1820s after all) but just wondering if I’d mentioned it.

I guess that’s all I have to say. What foods or flavors (or smells) do you guys like or dislike?

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My brain is stuffed and words are leaking out my ears

I’ve had to memorize copious amounts of text in the last two days—text which I’ll likely forget just as soon as I regurgitate it in front of a camera—but when I say regurgitate I mean with passion and conviction, sort of like a really violent episode of food poisoning, but sexier, and anyway the point is that my brain is stuffed with all these words and I’m pretty sure some vital info may have been jettisoned in order to accommodate all the new paragraphs so if you see me wandering around confused, shaking my phone unsure how to answer it, pawing mutely at elevator doors, drooling in front of escalators, throwing my upper body at clothing in a vain attempt to put on my coat, just know that I can tell you a lot about about other stuff but that I don’t remember what a fork is or where I live.

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Announcements

Hey everyone. I have many important announcements.

1) Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. Mine was good save for the marshmallow disaster which I will surely tell you about one day over a warm mug of Postum or perhaps at our next slumber party.

2) Okay this next tidbit is going to hurt a little bit however because I’ll be aloft in an airplane tomorrow night there won’t be a Ustream show. I realize this is going to throw a monkeywrench into your Wednesday night. Blame the laws of physics, I know I do.

3) But wipe away your tears because perhaps I will reschedule that show as a surprise.

4) But it’s possible I won’t in which case the next show will be the following Wednesday and boy howdy, it’ll be a doozy. Seriously.

5) I think I’d be remiss if I didn’t make my somewhat predictable vacation apology for not writing more often. All sorts of merriment and whimsy has been happening around me, I mean, I’m practically Patient Zero for whimsical merrymaking and I’ve been tracking it on Twitter. I doubt anyone reading this isn’t following me on Twitter but if you aren’t, go check that action because there’s all sorts of delightful ephemera over there including photos. In other news, I know big words. So but anyway what I wanted to say was once I get back to New York I’ll be returning to the regularly scheduled pith and mirth you’ve grown accustomed to.

6) Anything else? Hm.

7) I guess not.

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Thanksgiving seasons

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I’m sitting at the kitchen table of my parents’ house sweating my lady balls off. Everyone says there aren’t any seasons in CA however there are seasons in this house. It’s nuclear winter in my old bedroom and Dante’s Inferno in the kitchen. Those are some of the seasons right? My understanding is that these are the seasons:

Spring
Summer
Fall
August
Autumn
Winter
Winter Squash
Tennis
Cricket
Racketball
Blue
Seven
Dante’s Inferno
Gary’s Inferno
Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride
Nuclear Winter
Nukuler Winter
Fred Winter
Shelly Winters
Indian Summer

So last night I shivered into bed wearing sweatpants, socks, a nightgown and sweatshirt and then slept under a duvet and three blankets. I’m not even making this up. Now I’m in another room sweating. And I’d adjust the air/thermostat/air conditioning/what have you but my parents bedroom is not only another season but another time period entirely (Paris before The War, if you must) (basically the problem is that the whole house is set up so their bedroom is a toasty 70 or whatever they like it at, the rest of the house be damned) and I’m afraid I’ll broil them or flash freeze them or whatever if I adjust anything.

In other news, there is no other news.

Oh wait, well there is this. Remember when I took up biking over the summer? And then I got back to New York and borrowed Dustin’s bike and named it Ernesto and it’s currently sitting in my kitchen and I don’t ride it because it doesn’t fit me well? Well my sister’s bike which fits me better is here in CA and yesterday my mom’s handy man who is 6’5″ or maybe 6’8″ and helps put up holiday lights and remodels cabinets and removes dead rats and is like family to us told me yesterday he enjoyed watching me on TV to which I responded that I simply CANNOT live like this, having to interact with fans in my own home. Then I stormed into my room, put on a parka and began shrieking.

Anyway, he got the bike down from the hooks where it normally hangs and so perhaps I’ll ride it as a way to offset the junk I fear I’ll be smuggling in my trunk this holiday season. Tusks mostly. And those tiny turtles which are illegal but so adorable.

And thanks to everyone who joined in the live Ustream show last night. That was fun!

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