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I love Christmas

I love Christmas and the only thing I love more than Christmas is nothing.  I’m happy to report that I just had my first fullblown holidaygasm of the season while standing in the kitchen thinking about Muppet Christmas Carol and cracking eggs into a bowl so I could make meringues which seems like a holidayish activity though I do it year round. Granted holidaygasm is a pretty crude term for what I mean—that visceral fluttering childlike excitement that comes from contemplating the impending season. I used to have the same feeling when I’d see the spinning “Special” letters on TV back in the old days when the world was simpler and I didn’t have this deadline hanging over me.

Oh, did I not mention? Yes, I have a deadline looming which means that everything I’m doing short of actually working on said project is both procrasturbatory (note: I didn’t invent this term) and beside the point. A quick inventory of the things I’ve done today which are beside the point? Wait, no! I will not! I will not spend time making a list when I could instead tell you that before repairing to the kitchen to think about Christmas I got up from my computer with a strange feeling of writerly satisfaction as if I’d actually accomplished something and yet I knew I hadn’t. And then I realized it’s because I was proud of a tweet. It’s upsetting on many levels.

But back to Christmas, I was standing there feeling overwhelmed and all woe is me ish and then I started thinking about how from  here to New Year’s is pretty awesome and filled with twinkling lights and carols and holiday cookies with sparkling bits of colored sugar on them and holiday parties with eggnog and going to California and seeing my California friends and going to the mall where it’s all holidayish and everyone is pissed and angry and the lines are insanely long and you can’t find parking. I love that!

January soon begins to suck though because not only is it another 12 months till Christmas again but some kind of mischievous Christmas elves snuck into your closet while you were sleeping and replaced your jeans with ones that look identical—even down to that frosting stain—but are actually a couple sizes smaller. I’m probably going to have to start putting a lock on my closet. And then maybe I’ll even put my clothes in my closet instead of crumpled in a heap on an array of available surfaces. Sometimes I like to fling a garment so it creates something I refer to as a “clothing bridge” in that part of the item is on my bed and part of it is resting on a nearby table. It’s not a beginner move but I’ve been at this for a long time.

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Ok, back to work.

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A very domestic post about paper towels

Because I am messy and trying to save money I tend to buy the cheapest paper towels I can find because I’m  not worth it. Then sometimes if my nose is running I’ll grab a paper towel and chafe the  hell out of my face. That is beside the point.

So the other day there was a sale on Viva paper towels, which everyone knows are the best, so  I really couldn’t afford not to buy them. No really. I did the math. I crunched the numbers. Had I not bought these paper towels I’d be out on the street living in a shoe box eating shoelaces.

So I hauled my two-ply booty home—and the paper towels—and promptly spilled water all over the place. I reached for the shitty paper towels as I still had some left and old habits die hard and I wasn’t going to waste the new paper towels on something so prosaic as spilled water (I was planning to use them to sop up liquid gold from leather seats of my Ferrari. “Damn you!” I’d yell at my pet who spilled the liquid gold. “No wonder you’re on the endangered species list!’ Then I’d juggle diamonds to bring my heart rate down.) Anyway, I was throwing the cheap paper towels down on the water and using the remaining half of the roll and feeling like I was just pushing the water around, not really picking it up. When I ran out I had no choice but to open the new special occasion paper towels. Two sheets cleaned up the whole mess. I don’t mean to sound like a commercial but it was kind of amazing. Then I started wondering if it’s cheaper in the long run to buy expensive paper towels because you use fewer? Then I started wondering if it’s cheaper in the long run to just use wads of cash to sop up spills? Then I started wondering if it’s cheaper in the long run to hire a cleaning lady so you can lie around on your divan eating figs and reading mystery novels? Then I started wondering where to buy figs? Also, mystery novels?

So anyway, that’s pretty much all I have to say about paper towels.

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The purse I mentioned on Twitter

So I mentioned on Twitter that I’d fallen in love with a purse I can’t afford and then everyone was like “what purse? picture?” but I didn’t want to take a photo at Bloomingdales because I’m pretty sure they’ll take you out back and shoot you for doing so and considering my already high profile, that’s really the last thing I need.

How high is my profile? Oh my god you guys, I can barely move about unmolested by the prying eyes of my public. Prying, molesting eyes. Usually the left pries while the right molests. If I happen to catch them in a mirror then it’s reversed. I think. Wait? Hm.

Anyway, here’s the purse:

It’s by L.A.M.B. Did you know that I wrote the first ever national cover story about No Doubt? I did. Be impressed. It doesn’t get my free purses though. But Gwen hugged me at the VMA’s in 1998 and thanked me. It’s like, say it with purses, Gwen. [note: I am JOKING.]
Ooh, look, it also comes in this color.

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Confessions of a Shoporexic

I’m not a big shopper. I know it goes against my chromosomal makeup however I’m just not. There are plenty of other things I can do to make myself feel feminine, such as talk about people behind their backs and scream when I see spiders. Also, I make my own potpourri.

I like to make this directly after douching and before taking Advil for cramps

In fact, there’s only been one time in my whole life that I’ve gone shopping with the express purpose of lifting my spirits and that was in college when I found out one of my friends had spent the night in a sleeping bag with a guy I had a crush on. “That’s great, I have to go,” I sniffled into the phone before jumping into my sensible Honda and driving to the world’s worst mall. “Who needs them!” I thought as I passed The Athlete’s Foot, which is a great name for a store that sells fungus but a terrible one for a store that doesn’t.

Doesn’t sell fungus. Incidentally, don’t ever blithely google “athlete’s foot” looking for an image of the store because you’ll get this instead. WARNING: disgusting ahead.

“Not me!” I announced as I passed a kiosks selling sunglasses, hair extensions and all manner of ergonomic miscellany. But the images of camping and betrayal hit me hard as I wended my way past Spencers For Gifts, Auntie Em’s Pretzels and Hot Topic. Was there love amongst the canteens? Furtive fleece-on-fleece frottage? Hot pine tree sex? How I loathed that tent of ill-repute!

If this tent’s a-rockin‘…

Eventually I made my way to the Gap and bought, I think, a black pea coat with goldtone buttons. Did it make me feel better? Sort of, until months later a friend asked if she could borrow it for a couple minutes to go outside at a party and I begrudgingly agreed, thinking what could possibly happen to a coat in two minutes?

I’ll tell you what can happen: Barf can happen. Not a lot. Just a fist sized puddle on the lapel. Repeated attempts at spot cleaning didn’t really get out the smell so I did what anyone would do, sprayed the fuck out of that spot with gross perfume and then went to class. I’m sure I smelled like a perfumey barf factory, but, um, what was I saying?

Oh yeah, I’m not a big shopper, I’m not often given to impulse purchases and even bulk discounts leave me cold. For example, though I buy toilet paper, as a courtesy to my guests since what use would I have for such a prosaic and crude household item, I always just buy four rolls instead of the gigantic 24 pack, which is surely more economical.

Seemed like I needed another photo here and I got tired of finding ones that correlate.

Also, when I used to smoke, way back in the 1950s when everyone smoked and they didn’t know yet that it was bad for you, I never ever bought cartons. I mean, I think once I did and as punishment I made sure to spend the money I saved on hard alcohol, which I also bought in bulk. As I sat there, one foot on my pony keg, four cigarettes in my mouth, I began to feel empty. Rich, but empty. Surely there was more to life than sausage? (I also bought an economy pack of breakfast links.) I dabbed at a tear with an adult diaper, which was on sale in a jumbo sized carton and then downed a fistful of sweet relish. I glanced at my compass, it was still pointing due north, and I pulled a pen from my pack of 12 and jotted a little note to myself on one of my 35 neon colored post it notepads. Then I taped the notes to my shoe tree with scotch tape, because I was now the proud owner of 12 rolls, well, 11 if you count the one I ate earlier, dipped in seafood salad. I was lonely and lost. Not literally, since I had three Thomas Bros Guides and mapping software for a PC, plus a desk reference set with collector’s globe, but just more in a spiritual sense.

Which brings me to today and CVS and their one dollar bargains. I am powerless to resist! The other day I bought this!

And then I bought this!

And then today I bought this!


I have no intention of dusting with the duster or watching this movie, or dusting with the duckling or watching the duck watch the movie, even though I know its lush cinematography will spring to life in super high def VHS format.


Anyway, I guess what I’m trying to say is multi-colored drawer organizers in an array of party colors? YOU WILL BE MINE!

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