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First prize for the reader who can identify the factoid I culled from a Red Eye episode (one I watched, not one I was on.) Okay fine, there isn’t any prize. But perhaps you’d care to read and guess anyway? Here’s the interview.

The thing about death that gets me is the things and the way the things remain unchanged. I’ve written about my relationship to stuff and death in various places, maybe I’ll try to link if I have the energy, but basically it’s walking into the person’s apartment and seeing all their stuff there, specifically the stuff at the end of their life, the medicine bottles, the two pairs of glasses, the box of latex gloves for I don’t know what, the sticker with hospice and a phone number in giant letters stuck on the phone, the magazines that arrived after she died and the chair she used to sit in, that makes me tear up. It’s the more prosaic aspects of death that make it crushingly real.

I don’t mean to make this a blog about death, and I promise I”ll lighten it up soon.

Speaking of, I’m tired of funny people who disavow jokes. I get it, you’re a comedian. You’re deep and you do “bits” and your humor is “observational” and culled from “reality.” Me? I like jokes. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go bum myself out.

Today I’m going to the funeral. I only hope on the way some stranger says “Smile! You look like someone died!”

We may have disagreed about Best Week Ever, we may have wanted different things from our imaginary pet dogs, we may have had near knockdown drag out fights over ampersands, the role of criticism in culture and something referred to as “yelling at the duckling,” but when I put forth a recent plea for links to “We Need a Little Christmas,” you not only found one, but you found the best one. Thank you.

I feel weird coming here to write about this, and even more weird since I’m kind of half asleep which goes against my no blogging while asleep rule, but I found out a little while ago that my grandmother died tonight. She was 98, so not exactly ripped from the prime of life by death’s bony claws, but death kind of blows regardless, except not to the little bugs I find in my kitchen which I kill indiscriminantly. Except sometimes I just squish them and I don’t think those chitenous little things are damaged. They just hitch a ride on a paper towel to the trash can. So I guess what I wanted to say is that I think it’s weird that my brain felt like a big bag of jet puffed marshmallows left in the backseat of a car while my grandmother meanwhile was dying. That’s all. Now I’m going to go toss and turn for a few hours. I figure if I time it right I can drift off to sleep right as my alarm is set to go off. I’ve been waking up to the “calypso” pre-set ring on my new phone. It’s very peppy. Like there’s a very peppy, very tiny steel drum band banging me awake. That’s not a double entendre. Not intentional, that is.

Did I have a stroke or something? Because I’m trying to write an introduction to a story and it’s as if English is my second language. (And jibberish and clumsy metaphors and clunky other things are my first. See? And what’s worse, I’m trying to articulate something delicate, so this bull in the china shop of language approach isn’t going to work. Maybe I’ll just spell out what I’m trying to say with cups.) And I don’t even think “delicate” is the right word. This is bad. My head is filled with cotton. Illiterate cotton. And marshmallows. It’s basically squishy. My thoughts are squishy. Also imagine meaning as a dartboard and I’m throwing darts but they’re hitting other parts of the bar. Like dart boomerangs. (See?????)

Are Zamboni operators the fluffers of the ice skating rink world?

Today I did something I don’t normally do but always wish I’d done. I was sitting down to interview a celebrity and the publicist pulled up a chair, as if the three of us were going to have a little conversation. “Are you going to sit there the whole time?” I asked her. “Yes,” she said plainly. Then the celeb asked me if it made me uncomfortable. “Actually yes it does,” I said. He asked her if she’d give us some space and she did, but not before asking him to tell her if she needs to “red flag” anything from the interview. Sometimes I’ll discover that publicists are listening in on phone interviews, which always rankles the hell out of me, but the publicist sit in, especially when they aren’t even trying to hide it (it’s one thing if they’re sitting nearby listening in, quite another if they’re positioning themselves to be an active member of the interview) is an interview momentum killer, so I’m glad I spoke up.

Need more info about the strike? I think you do. My friend and coworker Jane went down to the frontlines and interviewed a bunch of famous people. Read her fabulous report here. And my friend and real life TV writer Wendy wrote some things about the strike in a neat numbered list here. Plus her blog is funny.

Christmas has exploded inside Starbucks. You can tell because the cups are now Christmasy and there’s more red everywhere and my coffee tasted like elves. Also, I think I heard some holiday music but I couldn’t quite tell from underneath my hat and scarf and also there were general auditory issues created by going from the cold outside to the slightly less cold inside. I remembered when my dad tried in vain to discourage me from moving to New York with tales of how cold it is here and I was thinking how that was so silly because the cold isn’t that dreadful, but the funny thing is that I was thinking this while simultaneously thinking “fuck this fucking fucked weather,” because I was in a good mood, you see. It’s just that it was raining and my jeans were wicking the water toward my skin. Like the opposite of two denim maxi pads. So anyway, if I were to get a pet should I get a bird or a puppy? I think I should get a dog but I keep dreaming about birds. Probably because my life’s like a cage, man. Also because I like to peck at gravel to keep my crop and gizzard running smoothly. I guess that’s all. I’ll be on NBC at 6:45 am tomorrow (locally) and I’m going to be on Montel next week but I’m not sure how soon it airs after taping. I’ll keep you posted. And if you’re my parents and you’re reading this, guess what, I’m going to be on Montel! It’s not that you have to find out from reading my blog, it’s that I thought sharing this news with you on the blog would be a special way for us to catch up!

Oh and one more thing everyone, I tried my hand at a Letterman style top ten list. (This was an actual Letterman topic, but my own list) Here it is:

Top Ten Signs Your Baby is Too Fat

10. doctors tell you he has a “great personality”

9. his stroller keeps getting a flat tire

8. when he was born the doctor said, “congratulations, it’s… enormous!”

7. he’s already in adult diapers

6. during delivery the doctor was overhead saying “forecepts? better make that fivecepts.”

5. he cries till you feed him a strained Whopper

3. when you interview nannies you ask them how much they bench.

2. more reinforcements for the changing table!

1. his nickname is jabba the baby