coming soon- the cheese makes good on a promise and begins blogging again.

today i am home sick from work. i have razor blades in my throat and a fountain of goo in my nose. my skin lacks luster, and my brains have been replaced, let's hope temporarily, by cotton. this is the first time i've called in sick at this job; i'm not sure i did it right as i did it via voicemail. let's hope they don't donate my desk to vagabonds and demote me to sign post as a consequence of not having the guts to speak to my boss about the razor blades, goo, lack of luster, and mass of cotton.

i am interested in designing a board game for children. i have a lot of good ideas. if anyone would like to help or perhaps knows somebody at parker brothers, please contact me immediately. i will definitely be employing use of a spinner rather than dice.

i caved and got an i-pass. i am so disgusted by the illinois department of transportation right now that i could just spit. how dare they bully everyone into getting an i-pass by doubling tolls for non-i-pass users. and what is my ten dollar "deposit" for? also, why is registering the damn thing so complicated? on the website, they make you choose what kind of license plates you have. you click on this scroll down box and expect to see, like, three choices. how many different kinds of plates could there possibly be? hot damn, the choices numbered close to a hundred. who's out there getting license plates issued by the board of beef? i mean, really.

then, the damn thing doesn't work. i drive down to the south suburbs to hang out with my friend brian and his girlfriend, the ever lovely andrea. i use the i-pass lanes the whole way there. it is not until the way back when i try to go, to no avail, through the manual lanes with my piece-of-crap-pass, that i realize the thing's not working. this requires a phone call to the i-pass people. "due to the success of the i-pass program, you may experience delays up to twenty minutes." the success of the i-pass program? the success? shouldn't it be more accurately phrased, "due to the fact that you basically have no choice but to succomb to the i-pass, which is also being used to track speeds and issue tickets, you may experience delays, or possibly be hung up on a number of times." finally, i got everything straightened out. nobody seems to know what the ten dollar "deposit" is for.

other than the i-pass debacle, which is more-so an issue in my mind and heart than anything else, i had a very lovely day yesterday. brian asked if he and andrea would be mentioned in my blog. i said, "well, christ, it's not like being mentioned in the tribune or anything." to which he responded, "it is like the tribune. but with a much, much smaller audience." also, without all the advertising revenue and sports articles.

brian has been my seasonal friend for the past six or seven years. whenever the seasons change, we call each other and schedule either a trip for a beef sandwich or a rousing game of miniature golf. although we've spoken a number of times this past year, about five seasons have passed since our last get-together. while we are not going to make up for that time, we have made plans to get right back on track in march, on the first day of spring. hopefully that excursion will involve him having to use his i-pass and not me having to use mine. i hate illinois.

44,000 dead, and counting. a disaster of biblical proportions, and if i were a religious girl, i might begin to think that all the signs were in place. is it a second coming, the end of the world, the unfolding of revelations? it's a good thing i'm not that religious; i'm starting to freak myself out.

rereading the 'chronicles of narnia' isn't helping.

holy crap, am i tired.

the holidays sure are draining, but, i suppose, worth it in the end. before chris, my xmas plans were pretty straightforward and non-existent. now, i'm running around like headless poultry. i think this christmas, i came to the conclusion that everything's going to be a-okay with my future in-laws. yesterday, i hung out with chris' sisters, and i think we had a genuinely good time, just us girls. this warms the old heart. nothing is more important than family. nothing is more important than other people's family. nothing is more important than other people's families being able to tolerate and/or like you.

i recieved a george foreman grill from my dad. this contraption seems pretty amazing, and it's rather embarrassing how excited i am over it. you know you're old when it's not a toy you can't wait to play with, but a freaking grill. nothing takes longer than ten minutes to make in this double-sided beauty, from steak to burgers to chicken to even more steak. i plan on increasing my meat intake twentyfold as a result of recieving this new gift; i'm also very excited about using the bun warmer. a bun warmer! how many times have i complained to myself, "this hamburger sure is good, but wouldn't it be nicer if my bun wasn't so room temperature?"

it was the year of the gift card, that's for sure, and also the year of cash. my dad slipped both me and the cheese some extra cash on our way out on christmas, and while i think chris was a little taken aback by my dad insisting he take some money, i thought it was just wonderful. he's treating chris just like his own kid, except without all the lecturing and life lessons.

it's christmas eve, and here i am at work. of course, for many people, it's business as usual, but i am positively dying to go home and start off the holiday with a bowl of egg nog and a few hours of no-pressure television before we start our running around.

carole is home for the holidays, and i got to hang out with her a bit last night. we swapped our latest tales of woe and wonder, cramming four months of life into two hours of gabbing. some friends, such as the super classy carole, you can go half a year without seeing, and when you finally meet up with them, it's like you were never apart. other friends, you go half a year without seeing and you might as well throw their ashes to the wind, so to speak. the awkwardness kills.

i can't wait to see her neice megan on christmas. i love this little girl; i have many times contemplated hiding her in my jacket and sneaking her home with me. i see megan only a few times a year; maybe it's all an act, but this four year old always seems to remember me. it's such great fun to play with her. did i ever have energy that boundless as a kid? i imagine myself as a sluggish four year old, constantly wanting to nap or just be left alone with a half stick of butter to nibble on.

last year or the year before, megan named her barbies "carole" and "jackie." now, how precious is that?

the answer? pretty damn.

we still don't have any new year's plans yet. last year we went off on our own to norfolk where we befriended a rag-tag group of attractive hicks just before the stroke of east coast midnight, but this year i think we had expected that at least one of our few groups of friends would have *something* going on. alas, i guess we were wrong, unless everybody's throwing parties and nobody wants us around. this is always a possibility. i think the cheese and i will probably end up taking advantage of a nearby hotel; they're offering dinner, drinks, dancing, karaoke, a hotel room, and a champagne brunch all of the nominal fee of 90 bucks per couple. singletons are clearly not allowed.

most of my new year's have been rather dull, consisting of tv with friends or parties with people i barely knew, being the tag-a-long of either my cousin or some other random friend. one new year was spent at a location that would, a few months later, become the scene of a near-deadly crime, an off-kilter brother-in-law firing a gun at the homeowner, his wife, and his two small children. the homeowner got shot in the chest but pulled through with the steady medication of alcohol and cigarettes. what a trooper, this guy. he's got a hole in his lungs, but, hey, he had just bought a carton of smokes the week before. he'd be damned before he let *that* purchase go to waste.

oh, and there was that one new year's with carole and her friends at a bar on cicero. i had just started dating a rather infamous creature, and the stroke of midnight went by with me sitting in a stairwell talking to him on my cell phone. see, he couldn't come out because he had a paper due, so instead he wasted an hour on the phone with me when i should have been boozing it up in the bar. oh, the decisions we make. he later showed up at 2 am, and we drove around town for a bit before finally parking in the super kmart lot and making out like rabbits on speed. i thought this was a great sign for the year ahead; i was certain this infamous creature would be the one. a few weeks later, i was not so sure. it took halfway into the year until i was absolutely positive, though, and then, twelve months later at the next new year's eve, i was kissing the cheese at the stroke of midnight, my new boyfriend, the one that would propose a year and a half later.

oh, the difference a year can make.

in my last year of high school, on the night of '97 becoming '98, i remember flipping out at midnight for no reason whatsoever. a lot of high school and the couple of years following it is a blur in my mind; i think subconsciously, i have done this on purpose simply because i didn't like who i was back then. i don't hold with a lot of the choices i made, with a lot of the things that i did and felt. who was that strange girl with the odd outlook on life? i choose not to associate with her too much. anyhow, all i remember is bursting into tears that year, having no hope for '98 or any of the years following it, and then, after a lengthy period of depression mixed with desperation mixed with the occasional decent hair day, i got on with it.

i think, on my own level, i was mildly disappointed when y2k turned out to be no big deal. what was i going to do with all that bottled water and extra batteries?

2004 is becoming 2005. time to start planning my wedding, time to plan another vacation, time to turn 25 and see if it affects my car insurance. time to yet again announce, "this will be the year of jackie," but underneath know that the past two years have been the year of jackie, and just hope this lucky streak of mine continues.

a remarkable amount of bank customers have been traipsing in bearing gifts for the holidays, most of them homemade treats. we've got christmas cookies, muffins, gingerbread men, pastries from every part of europe, and i think one elderly gentleman even brought in some pasta. pasta for the holidays! what a guy!

i am sometimes amazed by small acts of kindness. who would think to bake goodies for their bank? who are these people that remember not only to do stuff for their family, but to also run out and drop off gifts for their financial institution? who else are they giving these food items to? the post office? local car dealership? the girls in the denim section at sears? i find it incredible.

this just in: greg, who sits right next to me, just got a christmas card full of cash. cash! granted, we're talking ten dollars, not ten thousand dollars, but still. who gives ten dollars to their banker with the explicit instructions to "go buy yourself a drink?"

there are people who do this. and god bless them.

i think i shall make it my new year's resolution to really go out of my way to be one of those people who bring little rays of light into the lives of near strangers. i suppose i'll have to take up baking. this may be tough, considering how strongly i feel against baking. i can't explain why i hate the idea of baking so much, especially considering that i've grown to somewhat enjoy cooking. cooking a meal seems productive; baking deserts seems like a big waste of time. i don't know- i just form my opinions, i don't bother to explain them or think them through.

2005 will be my year to go out of my way for people i hardly know. and the people that i do know? well, screw it, they're already used to my ways. and they love me for them!

we celebrated, belatedly, our 2 year anniversary last night. there's this french restaurant that we go to that has to be one of the strangest places in middle america. the food is awesome, the service is top-notch, and the combination of the two makes you feel like you're really something special. however, the decor is questionable. the walls are decorated with a whole bunch of crazy crap, and the salt shakers perplex me every time. they're big, multi-colored plastic affairs that belong in some hole-in-the-wall pizza place run by former preschool teachers- not an expensive 'bistro' where the waiters know more than is humanly possible about french wines and the pronunciation of bizarre french dishes. anyhow, the place is absolutely wonderful, but i always have to wonder about the huge poster of marilyn monroe on the opposite wall. was she big in france? do the french consider marilyn especially fancy? what would she have thought about the salt shakers?

we enjoyed our meal, thoroughly, both of us telling the maitre'd that everything was exceptional "as always." first chris told the guy this while i was lingering at the table with my pile of winter gear, and then i walked up and told him the exact same thing. we probably looked like a bunch of assholes who had been rehearsing at the table.

onto the whirlpool suite in beautiful downtown palatine, where the town slogan is: "you should see the nicer towns that surround us!" the free suite was not quite as posh as we had hoped, but bearers of gift certificates can not be choosey. i filled the tub up with water so hot that i quickly cooked up like a lobster in a pot, calling out to my honey, "come on in, the water's excruciating!" i have never seen chris get into a tub before; it was both hysterical and disturbing. we sat there with the jets going full blast, drinking from our champagne glasses and commenting on how ridiculous the whole thing was, and eventually we had to get out due to the fact that our body temperatures had reached 234 degrees farenheit.

the rest of the evening was just lovely, and this morning we came home to another newspaper waiting at our front door. a few weeks ago, i made the mistake of donating money to a charity that would, in return, give me a subscription to the local paper. now the whole apartment is more of a fire hazard than usual, dry newspaper crumpled up at every which corner. who subscribes to newspapers these days, anyhow? with the advent of the ever-popular internet, who subscribes to anything?

beats me.

the mind of a genius.

we celebrated christmas eve eve eve eve eve eve eve last night at my aunt's house. my sister's new boyfriend was there, and, let me tell you, it has never been so much of a pleasure to meet one individual. he is the polar opposite of her ex-boyfriend mitch. he was social, funny, respectful, gentlemanly, and good with the kids. he knew how to make conversation with my father, and he was totally at ease with the family, which is a feat to be applauded. my mother's family is insane. she and her four sisters are the five of the six most dysfunctional women in the entire world, the sixth being my grandmother, who is indeed the most self-centered, obnoxious, ignorant woman on the entire planet. how can i say these things about my own grandmother, you ask? well, it's simple. i hate her.

anyhow, after the family party, chris and i went out with my cousin lisa and a few of her friends. marcia and her boyfriend came along as well. my underage sister handled herself quite well at the bar, and i got to talk to her boyfriend a little more. i just can't sing his praises loud enough; it's such a relief to know that my sister has finally found someone who not only treats her well, but can get along so swimmingly with her family. my sister deserves the best. maybe this dude's not the best, but he's certainly in the running.

chris and i spent the night at my cousin's townhome, which is exactly one block from my parent's house. you stand outside on the second floor balcony, and, bam, there's my parent's yard. it's a little disconcerting. i slept surprisingly well on the couch after nearly having a stroke when the dog wouldn't get off my comforter. i like to pet dogs in, say, the park. i don't like dogs around me in living areas. is it the smell, the barking, the wet tongue, the puddles of urine and barf? can't say. what i can say, though, is that i had a very nice evening. even though i have an unnatural, unhealthy hatred towards my grandmother. if i could further explain why without having a nervous breakdown, i would. instead, i will say that as years go on, i understand my own mother more and more. and it makes my heart hurt.

mr. & mrs. loudington, our upstairs neighbors, have really been asking for it these past few weeks. i haven't physically seen what they've been doing, but the noises have spoken for themselves. their schedule as of late has been along these lines:

7 am: wake up, throw up loudly in bathroom.
7:15 am: first fight of the day. "f*ck you, you dumb b*tch, you don't f*cking know anything!"
7:20 am: tap dance in kitchen.
7:30 am: break dishes.
7:45 am: jump on bed for fifteen minutes.
8:00 am: stomp around apartment looking for heavy objects to pick up and drop.
8:30 am: slam series of doors, leave for the day.
5:00 pm: return home, reslam all doors.
5:15 pm: drag stove out to middle of living room, hoist it high above heads, let it crash onto floor.
5:30 pm: drag stove back to kitchen, hoist high above heads, let it crash to the floor.
6:00 pm: drill together never-ending supply of drillable products.
6:15 pm: resume fighting from morning, throw around sofas.
6:30 pm: throw up dinner in bathroom, loudly.
6:45 pm: get out pogo stick, use liberally in living room.
7:00 pm: invite over obese friends, have jumping contest.
7:14 pm: followed by screaming contest.
8:00 pm: slam all doors, converse at the top of lungs, nail together a lot of wood.
8:30 pm: break dishes, run laps around couch, attempt to bounce medicine ball.
9:00 pm: settle down for night with another fight. "you don't know everything, you dumb b*tch."
9:15 pm: sob loudly into vent.
10:00 pm: begin bedtime ritual of more tap dancing. slam all doors shut.
10:15 pm: rigorous sex.
10:30 pm: arguments about sex being too rigorous.
11:00 pm: pick up refrigerator, drop onto sheet of metal.
11:45 pm: power-sand floors.
12:00 am: get into bed, bounce on every spring.
2:00 am: break sheets of glass, yell "sh*t."
2:15 am: stomp around trying to clean up.
2:20 am: get out the drill.
4:00 am: rigorous sex.

finally, we figured out how to get back at the loudingtons. last night, we plugged in our new karaoke machine and sang "hits of late 60s" at the top of our lungs. take a letter, maria- we're fighting back, with speakers.

because nothing's more annoying than off-key neighbors with a microphone. am i right? am i right, am i right, am i right?

the gift that keeps on giving.

don't you think our two year anniversary is cause to celebrate? aren't you excited about it?

i'd be excited about it if i hadn't expected for us to make it to two years. you're acting like you're surprised that we've been together for that long.

not surprise, exactly.

well, how long did you think we'd be together?

i don't know. how long did you think we'd be together?

forever. so two years is nothing.

we exchanged gifts, and next monday we're going out to dinner at a place i like to call "our" place, although, clearly, we have no rights of ownership. then, it's off to the whirlpool suite at the holiday inn to celebrate the non-milestone. the best thing about the whirlpool suite? absolutely free, thanks to one satisfied and generous customer from the old place of work.

dax is in town, from out of town, and we hung out with him monday night and then tues morning and afternoon. what does a boy from los angeles think of chicago? i think he actually enjoyed the cold, and i know he liked the skyscrapers, but did chicago really win over his heart? would chicago win over my heart? probably not; i'm not sure why, but i think chicago has lost my affection and adoration over the past few years. maybe i've just spent too long in chicagoland; maybe it's time for a change. i'm hard to win over when it comes to cities, though. los angeles was too sprawled out. new york was too compact. memphis doesn't have any bookstores. norfolk, virginia is a hole. milwaukee is a relative ghost town, the city that sleeps too much. washington d.c. seemed to be entirely under construction, the whole city blocked off with road signs and yellow tape. san francisco, i really loved, but couldn't they do something to flatten out those hills? i'd be getting into car accidents on a daily basis. vegas is the city to gamble and drink in, but never to live. and seattle?

well, i just love seattle. if only the thought of moving there and being so far away from our families wasn't so daunting, if only we were ambitious risk-takers, if only.

the thing about marrying somebody is that, by law, you become a part of their family, whether they want you or not. it's not like you become another mouth for them to feed, another college education to finance, or even another possible bone marrow doner. the relationship that you develop with these strange new people is similiar to the relationship between a fruit basket on the front porch and the guy who opens the door. he didn't ask for this fruit basket, but here it is, and now it has to sit at the table.

it's an odd feeling to be that fruit basket. i posed for a few family snapshots yesterday with the cheese's family, and my gut reaction was, "they don't want me in these pictures." now, who am i to say what these people do and don't want? i'm absolutely no one. i'm the kind of person that compares herself to an inanimate object filled with bananas, for christ's sake. anyhow, the thing is, i really want chris' family to accept me as a part of their family. i feel like the road to complete acceptance is going to be a long one paved with a lot of awkward silences and a complete lack of eye contact. partially, this is my fault. i am by nature a very shy individual; around them, my absolute need to be liked renders me mute, immobile, and unable to eat without food splattering all over the face.

the part that's not my fault is part their fault. i need someone to come right out and say, "as far as fruit baskets go, our son picked a good one, and we're so happy you're here." maybe i need to start reading between the lines, though. maybe i should smile wider for the family snapshots and remind myself that nobody was forcing them to include me, that they called me in from the sidelines, and probably not just out of a catholic politeness. i can't shake this feeling, though; i can't help but think that, if i weren't so quiet, i could get these people to just positively fawn over me. because once i'm able to loosen up around people, what's not to like?

rhetorical question.

i think this news story is fascinating. some good looking guy is on the ballot for a presidential election in the ukraine. instead of, say, hiring somebody to just shoot him, a "third party" puts a poison in his soup. what does this poison do, you ask? it makes him ass-ugly.

and, just in time for the christmas season, the presidential candidate gets treatment from the rudolphinerhaus clinic.

you may know mr. hank azaria from such tv shows and films as "the simpsons," "friends," "along came polly," "the birdcage," "mad about you," and "grosse pointe blank." i, on the other hand, may know mr. hank azaria from such restaurants as the "bennigans" on michigan avenue. there he was, at the very next table, eating with his friends while i calculated how i would go about asking for his autograph without having to actually open my mouth. i didn't want to bother him while he ate, and i didn't want to make a scene. i did, however, want him to sign either my shirt or my shoe. we sat a few mere feet away from each other for close to an hour; during that whole hour, i couldn't bring myself to talk to him. ... and then he and his friends left, and i proceeded to kick myself for another whole hour.

but, hey. i was within spitting distance of hank azaria. and may i say, the man sure can eat.

i watched "60 minutes" last night. the leading story was about soldiers who, instead of reporting for duty, have reported to canada. and you know what i say to these young men?

bravo.

"The United States is supposed to comply with treaty obligations like the U.N. charter, but they don’t," says House. "When the president isn’t complying with the Geneva Accords or with the U.N. charter, are we saying, 'Only the soldier who signed up when he was 17 -- that guy has to strictly comply with contract? The president, he doesn’t have to?' I don’t think so. I don’t think that is fair."

....

Hinzman decided to take his family to Canada, where he’s been living off savings accumulated while he was in the military.

Wasn't he supposed to follow orders? "I was told in basic training that, if I'm given an illegal or immoral order, it is my duty to disobey it," says Hinzman. "And I feel that invading and occupying Iraq is an illegal and immoral thing to do."

"But you can't have an Army of free-thinkers," says Pelley. "You wouldn't have an Army."

"No, you wouldn't. I think there are times when militaries or countries act in a collectively wrong way," says Hinzman. "I mean, the obvious example was during World War II. Sure, Saddam Hussein was a really bad guy. I mean, he ranks up there with the bad ones. But was he a threat to the United States?"

Still, isn't it worth fighting to free the people of Iraq? "Whether a country lives under freedom or tyranny or whatever else, that's the collective responsibility of the people of that country," says Hinzman.

damn right.

i'm looking through my amazon wish list and decide to see if anyone else in illinois with my last name also has a wish list. there's only one guy, in evanston, and he has three items on his wish list, two of which are pliers. the third item? napkin holders.

it's so easy sometimes to imagine chris as a little boy, and i mean this in the most endearing way possible. from his aversion to vegetables and his love of ice cream to the way he has to press every button that he sees, he truly has the sweet innocence of the kind of child that every barren mother would pray to adopt.

yesterday, he came home late after work and said, "i bought you a present for our two year anniversary, but you can't have it until next tuesday." next tuesday will be the big 24 months, you see. so i said, "oh, okay," and went about making a pizza. fifteen minutes later, he asked, "do you want your present now?" i said, "nah, i can wait a week." ten minutes later, he asked again, "do you want your present now? because i want to give it to you now." so i said, "okay, what the hell," and sat myself onto the couch with my eyes closed and hand outstretched.

he handed me one of those burgundy boxes from helzberg diamonds. "open it," he said giddily, and i instantly became one of those women who love their boyfriends more due to the fact that i was now recieving jewelry from him. inside the burgundy box was a gold necklace with a peridot stone nestled inside a gold setting. as some of you may know, my engagement ring is a big peridot stone in a gold setting surrounded by ten little diamonds. he really took my birth stone and ran with it, he did. "they're going to call you the peridot girl," he proclaimed as i oohed and ahhed over my beautiful gift. neither of us knew who "they" were, but i wished that my first name began with a "p," so i could be "peridot patty" or "peridot penelope."

pricewise, chris lucked out that i was born in august and not april. if i had been born in april, my birthstone would have been the diamond, and i can tell you right now that i wouldn't be sitting around surrounded by big honking diamonds. the peridot? it's not only pretty, it's affordable.

now all i need is a peridot bracelet, to go with my ring and earrings and new necklace. lucky for chris, christmas is only a few weeks away.

as of one o'clock today, i will be on vacation until monday, december 13. i had to set up "out of office" messages for both my voicemail and email, and there was a definite sense of self importance about the tasks. my last job, you go on vacation, nobody frigging cares. this job, you go on vacation and it actually affects people. mr. jones, for instance, when he calls me, his account officer, on monday to renew a certificate. haley over in bookkeeping who emails me on tuesday about a dormant account. oh, and my dad, when he calls my work line to ask me to ask chris about the do's and don'ts of buying bargain wine.

things to do while on vacation:

1. start xmas shopping, burst into tears at the mall when i can't find parking, collect myself, resume shopping at smaller retailing center, burst into tears again when i don't know what the hell to buy everyone, commence heavy drinking.
2. watch the twelve movies will is letting me borrow. try to remember that kyle maclachlan in "blue velvet" is not the same character as kyle maclachlan in 'sex and the city.'
3. add at least 12,000 words to my story. i did not make the 50,000 word goal for the month of november, but i have a grocery list of excuses for that, including 'sudden, inexplicable allergy to keyboard' and 'ate six doughnuts in three minutes, suffered from extreme digestive problems and had to lay down.'
4. see my favorite comedian, brian regan, at zanies on sunday. corner him after the show and get him to admit that we would have been 'good together.'
5. buy beads, make necklaces, live the delusion that i'll actually wear them.
6. behave appallingly.
   
7. at swanky places.
8. see the 'jackie o' exhibit at the field museum. wear pearls and a little hat.
9. catch up on my reading. i'm joining a book club, and my first meeting with them is in early january. it is my goal to walk in, introduce myself, and state that while i understood the symbolism of the green sock, i also thought it was a cheap ploy on the author's part. feign ignorance when the other girls tell me there was no green sock. eat more than my fair share of cheese cubes.
10. cook at least two or three meals. utilize recipes that i thought were impossible, mainly because they included obscure ingredients such as bat blood and eye of newt.
11. overall, become a better human being. take up either yoga, yogurt, or yogi berra.

the bank hired people to come in and put up our xmas tree. these tree decorators hardly seem qualified; one of them is about eleven. i'm not saying that children shouldn't be allowed to put up trees; i'm just saying i have to wonder how much this kid is getting paid. i would have enjoyed putting up the tree, i think. i would have definitely enjoyed it for about the first ten minutes, and that would have been reflected in the great attention to detail in the arrangement of the lights. i have a feeling i may have lost that enjoyment when it came time to put on the ornaments, which i would have no doubt tossed on in a rather haphazard fashion, my main thought being, "why am i not done with this yet?" then, with placing the angel atop the tree, i would have decided that lugging out a ladder simply wasn't worth it, and thus the angel would have ended up stuck sideways on one of the lower branches. near the back.

when i was a kid, i loved putting the tree up. too bad nobody would let me. everything had to be done perfectly, and clearly, i was not the right candidate. when my sister and i were finally granted permission to assemble and decorate the old $15 kmart tree, i had completely lost interest. i think that year i concentrated on my new hobby, which involved systematically going through all of my mother's boxes of puzzles, some of them with over 500 pieces, and taking just one of the the middle pieces from each set and promptly flushing it. that's how i derived my holiday joy, invoking the true christmas spirit by waiting for the magical moment when, after several days of hard work, my mother would realize that she was just one lousy, stinking piece short of having a one and a half square foot portrait of paula abdul. in puzzle form.

for the most part, i'm kidding. i like to make myself out to be a lazy, mean-spirited slob simply because lazy and mean-spirited is funnier than diligent and caring. really, i'm a hard working individual with clear cut goals and a heart of gold. small children and animals just love me.

i had a dream that i was president of the "twice as much" company. here's how my products worked: they were like your regular, everyday products, but you could derive "twice as much" out of them. a "twice as much" book, for example, would be like a regular book, but you would get "twice as much" information out of them, or "twice as much" of a story in the same amount of pages. bear with me here. a "twice as much" apple would leave you twice as full as a regular apple; a "twice as much" gym shoe would enable you to run twice as fast. "twice as much" shampoo would mean that you could shampoo one day and then not have to worry about washing your hair again for twice as long as you normally would. oh, my products were absolutely wonderful, and i was revered across the land.

i woke up with my alarm ringing, wondering why i was so tired. i thought to myself, "aren't i sleeping on 'twice as much' sheets? shouldn't i have received twice the amount of sleep and restfulness as i would have in a normal night?" perplexed, it took my several slappings of the snooze button to realize that my "twice as much" sheets did not really exist, and, no, i was not the president of any company, much less a company that would probably pay me.... you got it, twice as much.