A Few Heartwarming Holiday Moments

1. My mom wrote this in an email to me: "I want to rip someone's face off. Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!" (And all this time I've been claiming to be more like my dad.)

2. Dorie's husband offered me his children to serve drinks at my New Year's Eve party. By strapping trays. On their heads. And having them walk around. Now there's a joke only their father could get away with.

3. Melissa and I decided that we're breaking up all the couples at said party and drawing names to determine who will kiss who at midnight. People are then free to return to their chosen kissing partners, however, the duo who stays together the longest into the new year gets a great door prize. I may be getting a little competitive here, but I think One of My Friends Who is Entirely Unaware of What They're Getting Into and I will be very happy together. I can see it now: "Stop crying, Kevin. You can go back to Carly AS SOON AS I GET THAT DOOR PRIZE."

4. My students did remarkably well at their holiday concert today, considering they weren't allowed to say the word "Christmas." That meant plenty of Winter Wonderland and (wait for it) Winter Pokey, to the tune of Hokey Pokey. What have we become, America? You put your mittens on, you take your mittens off, you put your mittens on and you shake 'em all about...

5. Donald Trump just forced Santa into rehab. Thankfully the big guy is just grateful to get a second chance and promises to try much harder next time.

5 Things About Christmas That Are Supposed to be Touching But Pretty Much Just Make Me Want to Lay Down and Die

When Frosty melts. What's the lesson here? That someday everyone we love will die so we might as well enjoy them while we can? Fine, I guess that's an okay lesson. But I still can't hear "Frosty the Snowman knew the sun was hot that day..." without being overwhelmed with dread. My mom claims that when I was little I would become hysterical following Frosty's demise. What a treat I must have been.

When Hermey and Rudolph have to run away together because no one at home can deal with their socially unacceptable nose/fact that they want to be a dentist. Like there's anything wrong with rhinoplasty/dental school? And then the poor bastards end up on the Island of Misfit Toys, which is sort of like claymation's homage to New Jersey, with nary a licensed plastic surgeon or bubble gum-flavored fluoride treatment.

Two words: Christmas Shoes. I'll be experiencing a massive personal trauma like a long line at Bloomingdale's or the effort of avoiding the forlorn gaze of the Salvation Army bell ringer, and then I hear this song, and I suddenly want to cuddle with a homeless person and cut up my Mastercard. Kind of.

A Very Brady Christmas. Have you seen this? It's so great. And it ends with (SPOILER ALERT) Mike getting trapped in one of his buildings as it's collapsing. Personally, I'd rather see the incompetent architect go down with his own crappily built ship rather than an innocent office manager who just works in the damn place. But no worries, Carol sings O Come All Ye Faithful, and Mike is able to toss aside the ninety ton cement slabs than he's pinned beneath. In an emergency situation, it can be tough to decide between calling 911 or Christmas caroling, but thankfully she made the right call. (Miraculously, Carol's singing not only helped Mike emerge unscathed, but Kitty Carryall was also plucked from the rubble, Cindy spontaneously lost her lisp, and Jan suddenly felt okay just being Jan.)

Charlie Brown and his bag of woes. How old is he, like eight? Why is life so difficult? Where the hell are their parents? Charlie just wants to have fun, his friends all mock him, and he incessantly wonders what it's all about. Shut up, I see absolutely no similarities.

One Day at a Time

As the year draws to a close, it's time to reflect. Time to ponder. Time to buy a new day-to-day calendar!

I love day-to-day calendars. Love! Them! I don't really know why. I keep one in my bathroom, and every morning when I wake up I tear off a new page and then I just feel like I own the day. It's a special feeling, you guys.

It's also a commitment. I can't spend the year with just any old pile of paper and glue. This year I was happy to share my tooth-brushing with Jon Stewart. But since I can't really bear the idea of this, and I don't think there's a House of Carters calendar yet (why the hell not, though), I need some ideas.

The Complete Runner's Day-by-Day Log and Calendar 2007: Start small, Red, like maybe going to the gym occasionally.

Mary Engelbreit's The Happy Side of Me 2007 Day-to-Day Calendar: I'm a little touched by all the sweetness and light, but stuff like "Life is a bouquet of love and hearts" would inevitably start pissing me off by, say, January third.

Jeopardy! 2007 Day-to-Day Calendar: Ooh, the useless information I could spew forth. Can you imagine having a conversation with me? I'd be categorizing everything and only asking questions.

365 New Words-A-Year Page-A-Day Calendar 2007: I could be SO SMART by 2007. I mean 2008. While I'm at it, I should get a calendar that helps me learn what year it is.

Shoes Gallery Calendar 2007: Good morning! Look what you can't afford!

The Wine Lover's Page-A-Day Calendar 2007: Good morning! Look what you can't drink until after work!

The Civil War 2007 Day-to-Day Calendar: Do you have to wait until December of 2007 to find out how it ends? Spoiler alert: Sell your slaves now because they're about to be so two centuries ago.

Zelda Wisdom 2007 Day-to-Day Calendar: I was hoping this was going to be advice from the little guy with the gold sword, but it appears to not be that at all. What would Link have to share with us? "Always keep your shield up and stab people who are mean to you"?

Medical Bloopers 2007 Day-to-Day Calendar: I don't know about you, but misdiagnoses and malpractice sure spell early morning comedy to me.

Becky Kelly's Enchanted Little Moments 2007 Mini Day-to-Day Calendar: Shove it, Becky.

The Best of 14,000 Things To Be Happy About Calendar 2007: Becky, seriously. Give it a rest.

Bible Verses in a Box 2007 Calendar: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, BECKY.

I still haven't found one. Please send help.

State of the Products

Fellow citizens: As we gather tonight, our nation is at war, our economy hovers on the brink of recession, and the civilized world faces unprecedented dangers. Yet the products have never been better. (Applause.)

For me: Creme de la Mer moisturizing cream, because there is no other. You only use a tiny bit at a time, so two ounces can last for close to a year. Cetaphil facial cleanser. Kiehl's avocado eye cream. There's no better make-up than Bare Escentuals. Go right to Sephora and get the starter kit in your skin tone. Really. You can thank me later. Clinique Almost Lipstick in Black Honey, CO Bigelow rose salve, Palmer's cocoa butter stick, Aquaphor for whatever ails your epidermis. NARS hydrating body serum, Bath & Body Works Grin and Bare It, and Nivea smooth sensation. I also really like the La Mer body lotion, but it's absurdly expensive and I only have it because it was a gift. Also, carry a tiny Purell with lotion in your bag and you won't remember how you ever lived without it (no, really, it's good stuff, and not as rubbing alcoholy as straight Purell).

For my bathroom: Kerastase nutritive and L'oreal vive pro shampoo and conditioner, Fresh soda shampoo and pomegranate conditioner. I alternate which ones I use and avoid my hairdresser's voice mail death threats that it's been MONTHS and she can only imagine how long and full of split ends my hair must be now. (True story. She's a family friend.) Origins' Never a Dull Moment and Bath & Body Works I'm in the Mood for Scrub. Skintimate with baby oil, the Venus. Philosophy senorita margarita hot salt scrub and their cinnamon buns 3-in-1. Johnson's softwash and a rubber ducky.

For your bathroom: Guests in my home can rock it out in a bathroom stocked with either L'Occitane or Bliss minis. I like to switch it up because I live on the edge. The shower/tub has Nexxus Therappe shampoo and conditioner, Biotherm Aquathermale body wash, Philosophy Falling in Love bubble bath, and Dove exfoliating body wash. No bars of soap; sorry boys, can't do it. You also get your own ducky. Oh, and there's a bottle of Bath & Body Works aromatherapy sleep lotion on the guest room bedside table. (While organizing the haunted house at my Halloween party last month, I mistook it for a beer in the dark and almost asked Steve to throw it out, until Kate caught my near-tragic mistake.)

For Maliavale: The thing about perfume is that I sort of love it and sort of don't. If I really like a scent, I usually prefer its accompanying lotion, since walking past too many ladies who overspray has scared me out of ever inadvertently becoming one of them. Plus, I very rarely find a scent that I really like, since I think a lot of perfumes smell the same, sort of like eau de trying a tiny bit too hard. Having now talked this to death, I like (and own) Chanel No. 5, Burberry Brit, and Sarah Jessica Parker's Lovely.

And finally, for the record: This was the year that I tried ProActiv. I don't have acne (thank God, since I'm all growed up) but I figured if it could make all those stars look so glowy, I could get on board with that. Yeah, don't do it. I loved it for about a week (and gleefully announced "I'm using ProActiv!" to people who would inevitably shake their heads in response), and then one morning I woke up looking like a burn victim. Bottom line: Jessica Simpson LIES.

City Slickers

I live in a condo that my dad owns. Trust me, I have my own demons about it. I'm quick to defer any compliments about my home by making it clear that I'm a good for nothing, freeloading daddy's girl slowly suffocating under the weight of my pathological Peter Pan syndrome. Can I get you a drink?

In all seriousness, I do have a certain amount of self-loathing about it. Actually, that's putting it too harshly, but it's definitely a topic over which someone could easily call me out and I'd just have to take it. No one in my life does that because, well, they're not evil bitches.

Having said all that, the place isn't swanky or anything. I like it a lot, but it's sort of delightfully tacky: I have a mirrored wall, lots of bleached hardwood, a "sunken" living room, and when I moved in, the downstairs bathroom was rocking the most garish, purple-blue-silver wallpaper you can imagine, which actually covered the back of the door. My friends called it the disco. And of course, this savory package comes with a family of 27 next door who are offended by the way I close windows, a little girl who tries to kill cats, and a pushing-50 whack job neighbor who stumbles over whenever I have friends over, and was best described, I think, by Melissa a few months ago:

We were well into our evening when Crazy Neighbor busted in all Kramer-like, sporting a trench over a blazer over a sweater topped by a neon orange baseball cap that said Jamaica on it. In his time with us, he wandered around marveling at the decor, recounted his dinner with a sketchy Sopranos-esque figure, told rambling tales about G. Gordon Liddy, reminded us several times that he oversees four mental health clinics and has 80 employees, tried to engage us in group therapy, told Red that each of us were people she would stay in touch with forever, and shared a green, leafy substance that turned my compatriots into zombies.

Anyway, I haven't changed much about the place (well, I got rid of that bathroom wallpaper). Of course, some of my neighbors have.

The other thing is that I live in a city that I couldn't afford to live in otherwise. I have to drive twenty minutes into another town to get to a grocery store that isn't Whole Foods. I like their sesame-crusted salmon and garlic green beans as much as the next person, but who can shop exclusively at a store that doesn't sell Diet Pepsi or Goldfish crackers? The first time Party Jen raided my cabinets for post-drinking snacks and found unsalted organic peanut butter ("and why is there LIQUID on top?") I knew I had gone too far and had to spend more time shopping at places that take coupons.

It's a tired, largely untrue stereotype that rich people are snobs... everywhere, that is, except for where I live. Of course, your paycheck-to-paycheck friend here can't count herself among their ranks, but I swear, it's a stereotype that most of these folks wear with pride. Or should I say a furrowed brow and a sigh over the fact that they have to push back their mani-pedi because the nanny is running late. I once watched a woman who probably lives in a three million dollar home berate a cashier at CVS because she couldn't give the woman the Globe at a discounted price despite the fact that it was missing some piddly style section that hadn't yet come out that day. Even the mall near me is kind of snooty and filled with 26-year-old stay-at-home moms lethargically pushing double strollers. The mall! Malls are supposed to be Gaps and Orange Juliuses! And I've told you about how out-of-control my gym is.

I'm not sure what it is. Maybe the proximity to Boston breeds young, new money families who aren't ready to forfeit their chicness and move to the suburbs, or commit to cranking it up a notch and take off for Manhattan. Instead of it keeping them young, there's something kind of sad about it... faded glory and whatnot. And as the least hip person on the planet, saying that I don't see eye to eye with many of those with whom I share a zip code is an understatement.

I'm not planning to move any time soon. I mentioned the free rent, right? But I will not ever, never, ever live here if I decide to raise children. And in case you're considering moving to the area and are interested in knowing where NOT to live, that'd be where I am, on the epicenter of aging, self-conscious hipsterdom. Excuse me while my four children and I push to the front of the line at Oishi (with a take-out container of edamame only). Hel-lo, we're running late for our 2:00 family hot stone massage.

if you like pina coladas

You can't tell anything about a person from an online dating profile, maybe aside from whether or not they can spell and their aptitude for using the correct there/their/they're. Everyone thinks they're funny and intelligent and down-to-earth and rational and no game playing, please. Everyone says they want to be with someone who likes to get dressed up and go out, but also likes to wear jeans and a t-shirt and be low-key at home, all of which loosely translates to someone who owns clothes and sometimes enjoys leaving the house.

Crazy people never tell you they're crazy. They don't know they're crazy. Most of them think everyone else is crazy. Personality disorders seem to be largely undiagnosed. Hell, I'm probably rocking a couple of them myself. You can't tell much about a person by how they talk about past relationships or current relationships or family or friendships, because there's two sides to every story, and we all spin things to our advantage, even if we don't mean to.

You can usually assess physical compatability or friendability right off the bat, but of course relationshipability is harder, because foibles come out after the fact, and it's all about your, well, mutual foiblability. Some of the best couples that I know are actually quite different from each other and not people that I necessarily would've thought to fix up if they'd both been single friends of mine. There's really just no way to know. And sites like Match.com do their best, I suppose, by offering up deep dark information like whether or not your date would be open to someday owning a fish, or what their astrological sign is. You don't find out how that person communicates when they're angry, or how they interact with someone who is unkind or intolerant or less intelligent than they are. Whether they listen to you or wait for their chance to talk. Whether they think some people just have different opinions or if that means they're wrong. How they deal with stress. Whether or not they interact with you differently depending on who else is there. What they think is funny and not funny. Whether they're quirky or literal or where they fall in between. Whether they're sexually adventurous or a little more conservative (which, of course, is pretty subjective), or into things you have to Google (with maybe a couple of exceptions, run, run like the wind). How their loved ones speak of them, and not in a tribute speech at a milestone event, but in the kitchen over dirty dishes after everyone's gone home. How they speak of their loved ones, and who they love in general. Not in theory, but who they spend their time with. Who they let in and for what purpose. Who they keep out and who they keep at arm's length. What they spend the bulk of their time doing, despite what they say their interests are. What frustrates them, excites them, unnerves them, turns them on, embarrasses them, makes them pull back, makes them feel understood.

Wait, can you imagine if I sat someone down and asked them all this? I'd be reading about myself in someone else's dating blog. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to get all this detailed information about people I go out with. I'm just saying, there's no way to know right off the bat what you're dealing with or what the person's really like, which can be full of promise but also kind of sucks. They should force people to wear t-shirts that reveal their true selves, like "Will Appear Trustworthy for 3.2 Weeks But Am Actually Rotten to the Core." I'd buy them out of "Only Laughing On the Outside" and "Will Probably Write Crap About You on the Internet."

Contrary to how all this sounds, I'm actually pretty low-key (but sometimes I like to get dressed up and go out) about online dating, and dating in general. I'm just more open to random experiences right now, I guess. He's not potentially the right guy, he's my Tuesday night. Part of my Tuesday night, at that. It's the only way to date a lot without losing your mind, I think. Plus, I rarely have a bad time with someone (uh oh, now I've asked for it). I like some people more than others, obviously, but I find most people have at least a little something funny or interesting to offer.

It's been funny to be "back out there" and meeting and interacting with lots of new people, all of whom have opinions on me. You seem like the kind of person who, I get the sense that you're into, you didn't strike me as the type to. At this point it's all just theater, anecdotes, summaries. When we were kids we didn't analyze our playdates that much... I guess that's how I feel about dating. Fun and connection can exist on several levels, not just could-I-marry-him-and-when. We have plenty of emotional needs beyond that ultimate relationship. We may categorize them after the fact less crudely than "hurtin' for a squirtin,'" but no less honestly: potential, no potential, friend potential, emergency number potential. We all do/have done it, right?

And eventually I'll be interested in meeting someone outside of that last category. I swear!

A Few Reasons Why I'm Glad That Al Gore Didn't Single-Handedly Invent the Internet Until I Was Already Grown Up

My non-hipster cousin Andrew and I were talking about... well, okay, I'll talk about Andrew first. I love this boy. He's about to be a senior in college, and right now he's living in New Jersey and commuting to Manhattan for his internship every day. And he's not even living in that part of Jersey that's within spitting distance of the city. I mean, are you kidding me? After a foreverlong commute like that, I'd just find some bar and lament about public transportation all day while drinking fuzzy navels and playing with my split ends. But no, he does the commute and THEN he goes to work. He's my hero. In time, he may even restore our family's good name. It will be tough, as I've had almost a decade headstart of corrupting it, but I have faith in him.

He's just about eight years younger than me, newly 21, and it's starting to feel like there isn't a huge, gaping amount of years between us anymore. I've been waiting for this because he's always been such a blast to hang out with that I just knew he was going to be the coolest adult (read: drinking buddy). When he was 12, I'd take him to see Adam Sandler movies and to chain restaurants and let him have like seven Shirley Temples, but I was 20 and we just didn't have a whole lot in common at those ages, as I was dealing with much more adult issues like whether or not my floormates and I should smoke before or after the Stanton basement party tomorrow night and where my light blue/dark blue Grumpy Bear ringer t-shirt was.

I always used to wish he was my brother, but it's probably a good thing that he wasn't. Despite the age gap, I just know that the "why can't you be more like your brother?"s would've started before he was even able to sit upright. He's inherited my father's exact brain, which seems unfair because he's yet another person in my family who possesses that infuriatingly effortless brilliance that eludes me, and you know what else? He's athletic. And tan. Are we even related? Anyway, I should enjoy him now, before he graduates and he's making five times what I make while simultaneously being drafted for the NFL or something.

Anyway. The thing we were talking about is how wired his childhood was, compared to mine. Wired, not weird; that's a whole different topic. When I was in high school, as is also the case for most of you, we didn't have the internet, cell phones, or reality TV, not that the latter can be counted as progress. Seriously, how ancient will that lack of technology make us seem to our kids? "You mean when you stood in line at CVS you just STOOD there without having anyone to talk to on the phone?"

I was just watching, ahem, Indecent Proposal, and remember the part where Woody Harrelson goes barreling through the hotel because he's decided that he doesn't want to go through with the, well, indecent proposal, and he ends up running out onto the roof just as the helicopter containing his wife is taking off and whisking her away to the sex boat? Nowadays he could've just called her, cancelled the, uh, transaction, and saved himself the trouble of having to buy a million dollar hippo to get her back in the end.

What, you didn't see it? Oh, you should. It's terrible. And I know technology is mostly good, if only for having a handy way of keeping your wife from getting on Robert Redford, but there are some reasons that make me glad that all of it didn't exist when I was younger.

1. I would've been all about the internet porn. Not so much because I'm a sexual deviant, although sure, that would've come into play at some point. But mostly because it'd be easily accessible and oh my GOD what IS that?!?! I mean, my friends and I used to pore over the phone sex ads in the Boston Phoenix, thinking it was the raciest stuff EVER. And if Al Gore had come through earlier, I'm sure I would've been grounded twice as much as I already was for all the crazy stuff that my dad would be able to tell I was looking at online (you can always tell when you share a computer, right?).

2. Email/instant messenger/MySpace politics. Do you know that on MySpace, you can organize your friends in order of how much you like them? Imagine the logistics of this in high school, when everyone simultaneously loves and hates and dates each other. I can just hear my girlfriends' voices: "And then I looked at his MySpace and he already put that slut Christina from my trig class into his number one friend slot!" Or, "So I checked and his away message said that he was out for the night. Who the hell do you think he's with? I'm so not speaking to him tomorrow in Western Civ." Voice mail and text message analysis nowadays is bad enough, but at least it doesn't include psychological profiling via MySpace and instant messenger. Not that I've completely avoided this debacle. I have friends who perform entire seduction rituals via text message. Meanwhile, this is a typical text message from me:

hi, where (from Red, Tues 6:14 PM)

sorry. # whe8re ar we havng dinner/// (from Red, Tues 6:15 PM)

3. Like most other teenage girls, I used to be on the phone constantly, because you had to spend all night discussing everything that happened that day (which we don't do now, at all, whatsoever). And you know that if they'd had cell phones back then, I would've been on mine for hours upon hours, and I have to say that I like living in a world where I don't have to give any thought to going over my minutes or roaming charges or anything like that, because that wouldn't have been the case if I had had a cell phone when I was 15. And I'm sure that my ringtone would've been Freak Me by Silk or I'll Never Get Over You Getting Over Me or some such shit. Actually, I still feel like I'm on the phone all night long, so I suppose there hasn't been much progress in this area. But at least I don't rock out to Freak Me anymore. Not every day, anyway. Fine, it's on my iPod.

4. Of course I would've had a blog back then, because I was made for this kind of stuff. I actually kept a journal on the computer when I was in high school, and it would've been a very small leap from saving it to a disk to hitting "publish post" and immortalizing myself in all my agonizing teenybopper glory. As it is, my journal entries from that time were all very specific about things that happened and conversations that were had, and it would've been hard to live down several years of "and then she was totally like well I don't know and I was like what and he was like yeah." I've pretty much gone from transcribing every conversation to hardly even listening to my friends when they talk. If that's not progress, I don't know what is.

hot and bothered

I wish I were an anchorwoman.

"Good evening. Well, we've had another day of the mercury inching upwards. Let's go live now to a Hotness Expert to tell us how warm it actually is, in case the fact that large patches of your skin are boiling and sliding off isn't already enough of an indication. Dr. Swelter is the author of the provocative bestsellers Hot Enough For Ya? and If You Can't Stand the Heat, Do Something About Global Warming Already. Dr. Swelter?"

"Thank you, Red. Indeed, it's sizzling out there."

"Dr. Swelter, what do you recommend that people do during this kind of extreme weather?"

"Well, for starters, we are urging people to be sure to consume plenty of liquids."

"Interesting. Tell me more about these liquids of which you speak."

"Drinking water keeps you hydrated, and hydration is very important during this kind of heat."

"Undoubtedly. And actually, Dr. Swelter, one might argue that, as the human body is composed primarily of water, hydration is always important, even in, say, February. However, we don't talk about hydration in February because that's when we like to talk about frostbitten extremities and snowfall records. Honestly, we really couldn't care less if our viewers spend the entire winter sitting in a sauna eating salt and drinking Guinness, so long as you don't do that shit in the summertime when hydration is at its trendiest. Any other tips?"

"You want to make sure to stay in air-conditioning whenever possible. For people who need it, there are cooling centers throughout the city."

"Ah yes, those cooling centers, or as I call them, Giant Dirty Puddles Set Up on the Street With a Sprinkler Thrown in for Good Measure, can be quite refreshing for poor people."

"And speaking of, Red, we are mostly concerned about the elderly, particularly shut-ins, who may need help in understanding the threat that this kind of heat can pose to their health."

"Good point, Dr. Swelter. Although by definition, I'm sure shut-ins are going to be a little hard to get to, as when their neighbors knock on the door, they often pretend that they're not home, even though they haven't stepped foot outside since FDR was in office. What do you suggest in those circumstances?"

"That can certainly be a problem, Red. We urge neighbors to check in on and take care of each other at times like this."

"Right, maybe they could just try knocking really, really hard, and then draw straws to figure out which one of them has to peer in through the lace curtains and hope they don't find the old lady in rigamortis. And perhaps we should give these elders in our community a moment's consideration around the holidays as well, since their children probably never call, never write, and never give them a goddamn moment's worth of their time, you ungrateful, selfish little bastards."

"Absolutely, Red. We also want runners to take heed of the heat warnings."

"Ahh, yes, I was wondering when you were going to mention something about the emaciated crackpots sprinting down our city streets. While it's endlessly entertaining for my friends and I to sit in a pub and play Count the Eating Disorders as they run by, I must admit that I'm a tad concerned for their safety. Plus, you can practically see their tendons. Would it kill them to eat a steak?"

"Indeed, Red, this is certainly not optimal weather for vigorous outdoor activity. We are urging all your viewers to exercise indoors for the next several days."

"Duly noted. Another problem that we're running into here at the station is coming up with synonyms for hot. Scorching, blistering... there are only so many of them. We're also running short on heat-related idioms. Turn up the heat, the heat is on... they're not as abundant as you might think, and we very much don't want to risk becoming repetitive. Repetition is certainly a concern when you're a network broadcaster. We simply don't have enough air time to sit around saying the same thing over and over again different ways."

"Good luck with that, Red, and all my best to your viewers in staying out of the hot seat during these next few days."

"Oh, thanks, we haven't used that one yet! Well, you heard him, folks... grab your maracas because it's hot-hot-hot! Next up, we'll check in with a condensation expert who can tell us what to expect for our coffee tables if this balmy weather pattern continues."