I really wish I could love Christmas the way that it seems most folks do. But even in childhood I found it to be a holiday of tremendous anticipation leading up to disproportionately fleeting joy followed by hours and hours of boredom and loneliness. The few pleasant associations I have with Christmas are dwarfed by the overall feelings of obligation and resentment that pervade this season. I'm sure I'm not doing this right.

I never could abide the phrase, "cuntal lips".

LAST CHANCE TO GIVE ME YOUR ADDRESS FOR HOLIDAY CARDS. This is the post for it and comments are screened. I'm mailing them off this weekend.

OK, I had LINKED to the post that was screened, but 2 ppl left their addresses here, so now this one has screened comments too. And C, don't worry. I deleted your comment with your address but I took down the address first. Sorry for the confusion!

So! Want a Gimmeeshitmas card from my household? Please to leave mailing address (some sort of non-screen name would be lovely too) in a comment. Comments are screened.

After flipping through Art or Porn on Tumblr for a bit it occurs to me that I've never given head while wearing false eyelashes and that I have no idea whether or not this measure would enhance my performance. If my husband mysteriously arrives home this evening with eyelash glue and a few sets to choose from I'll know that his curiosity has been piqued as well, and I'll be sure to launch a full blown (get it?) research project and publish my results in a reputable journal for peer review.

We're behind on cards this year, but we're working on it. Addresses to be solicited soon. If you have a definite preference for the ax card please let me know. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, it's because you either had small children the last time I sent you a card or because I didn't know you well enough to know if you like your holiday cards to be creepy. Some people don't cotton to having their sacred cows tipped, and some people's sacred cows include the trappings of this season. I tend to play it safe when sending cards. For reference, this was the picture from last year's ax card.

Why the fuck aren't peppermint coffee drinks a bigger deal in the summertime? Why is that a winter thing?

Also, a completely unrelated gripe since I seem to be coughing up random gouts of effluvium--if there are two or more servings in a package of something then the fucking package should be resealable. This is equally true of Pop Tarts and, like, large bananas (bananae?), or whatever. Mother Nature often seems no better at promulgating reasonable portion sizes than Kellog. And far worse at printing nutritional information on the label. I'm sure the Consumer's Union has a big fucking file on the bitch.

When you go to a cute little bar in the afternoon and some middle-aged lady puts "Bille Jean" on the juke box and some middle-aged guy who just bought the lady's friend a shot asks her to dance even though the bar's mostly empty and it's midday and no one is dancing...and they do dance...EVERYBODY WINS.

Today was Bulky Item Removal Day (oh, shit, that spells BIRD. I guess the bird really is the word), and since the chair I've been using at my desk is kinda broken we elected to rid ourselves of it this morning. We don't have a replacement chair yet, though, and our kitchen chairs are too tall, so I'm sitting on the coffee table as I futz around online. And I realized something: when I sit on a hard surface for any length of time I have the unshakable assumption, rooted deep within my brain, that I'm about to be transported somewhere. As I'm currently sitting in the living room of our condo I'm not sure how I expect this to actually occur. But I feel tense and expectant nonetheless, unconvinced that a vehicle of some sort won't materialize in front of me and whisk me away to an airport or a hotel or a conference.

So, there's nothing more Raven* than reading a blurb about one social networking site while you're perusing a different social networking site. I know that going into this. And I'm not trying to convince anyone to bother with the social networking site I've been bothering with. I just want to say I think Twitter is so much fucking fun. I've gotten to know some outstandingly cool people through this medium--several in person, several more to follow--and have gotten to enjoy some of both the driest and the juiciest wit the Internet has to offer. A long time ago rediscover_me urged me to try it out. Took me months and months to actually get an account, but before long I was well and truly hooked. Since then I've had a blast working with that narrowly circumscribed format, milking my latent (shush, it is latent) enfante terriblisme (no, I did not bother to check whether that was correct French) into something that, I'm privileged to report, occasionally makes coffee shoot out of peoples' noses. (It would be really cool if that happened to people who hadn't just consumed coffee.) (Oh, hai, parentheses addiction! Miss me? Ze feeling is mootchal, dahlink.) Also, they have these stars you can click when you like what someone says, and there are sites that tally them, and it's, like, insta-validation for the time you wasted paring that thought down til it looked like something Prince wrote. Anyway, in sum: Yay, Twitter!

If you're on it and want to follow me I'm, predictably, @apricotica.


Also? Thank you guys for such a warm welcome back. I delayed doing this because I didn't really have anything lined up, no piece of writing that would stand on its own and be good enough to merit the hounding I'd gotten from some of you who said you missed my words. I wanted to make a good showing. But I got nothin'. I just missed you and wanted to be able to talk again without having to be quite as concise as I am on Twitter. It's going to take me a while to get caught up with you. But I have time if you do. <3




*I had to get myself out of the habit of casually saying, "that's so gay", (a phrase we ALL know is not meant like that when uttered by ME), cos as bad as it may be from me, it's going to seem many times worse coming from my daughter. And she's gonna say what she hears said. So Mike suggested using "that's so Raven" instead. Herewith adapted for my usual clunky phrasing. Hi there.

Is this thing on? Am I on? It's been such a long time since I blogged. I can't remember how it's even done. All I know is that I can go over 140 characters now. That's like suddenly being able to race across a field after having been penned up in a stable for months. You'll have to forgive me if I go all wordy on you in the near future.

How are you? You look GREAT. Apparently, I don't look half bad these days either. Super. We're all pretty. Let's go beat up Miss America and steal her crown.

I have a terrible urge to start drinking even though it's not yet 7 in the morning. I assure you this is not the normal state of affairs around here. I actually don't often drink these days. But today, on this Friday when my silly old LJ is born anew, celebrating its own fucked-up version of Easter, bleary-eyed and slightly decomposed, shambling from its cave to meet the throngs of true believers just outside ("Hey, where IS everybody?"), perhaps it's only right to go tipsy into this good day. A belly fulla cab will make me believe enemies can be made into friends and friends can be made to lend money, and by mid-day I hope to be in debt to every damn one of you.