Sorry, But You Knew This Post Was Coming

After that last post, you probably think I'm pretty miserable right now. But if you think that you'd be wrong: I am homesick; I am not, however, miserable. How could I be?

IT IS ALMOST CHRISTMAS YOU GUYS.

The one benefit to there being only a token nod to Halloween and no Thanksgiving at all is that Christmas stuff is EVERYWHERE. I've been in every kind of store from Nottcutts to Tesco to B&Q (rough American equivalents: Home Depot (the outside part), Meijer, Home Depot again (the inside part) and all of them have Christmas shit leaking out of every storifice (shut up, "storifice" is HILARIOUS). And the best part is, there is NO ONE AROUND to tell me I have to shut up about Christmas because "It's not Thanksgiving yet" or "For Christ's sake, Amber, can't we just enjoy Halloween right now" or "JESUS FUCK WILL YOU STOP SINGING FUCKING CHRISTMAS CAROLS IN MOTHERFUCKING JULY YOU ANNOYING ASSHOLE" (that last one may or may not still happen, but at least no one ever justifies it by invoking the fact that it's the 4th of July, so, you know, progress). And on the internet I found this and this and these and they are so amazing I CAN'T EVEN STAND IT. Oh yeah, AND, did you know that Seth MacFarlane put out a Christmas album this year? WELL HE DID, and his voice is like the softest, sexiest cashmere blanket and I want to have sex with it and then cuddle it forever.

Where was I? Oh yeah. CHRISTMAS IS COMING!

A Question Deserves An Answer

Anonymous said... 

Where for art thou Amberance? 

10:49 PM 

Very good question, anonymous. It's been a rough couple of months. Moving to a new country, even one that you love, is emotionally more difficult than it is possible to prepare for. Christmas, which is normally my FAVORITE THING IN THE WHOLE FUCKING WORLD, was mostly a nightmare, and my birthday, which is Sunday and which I would normally have been reminding you all about on a daily basis for the last six weeks is only being observed at all this year to appease StereoNinja, who has made it very clear that my strategy of hiding in the bedroom ignoring him (and everyone else) while failing to engage in any of my beloved hobbies (blogging, my birthday, gratuitous nudity) is no longer acceptable. Having now spoken to a number of people who have already done this, I've had to severely lower my expectations for the foreseeable future, as the collective wisdom of those who have gone before me is that I will continue to burst into tears at completely random intervals due to vicious and overwhelming homesickness for at least 18 months. I don't even want to talk about how miserable I was on New Years, though at least I managed to leave Devon the day before it disappeared into the sea.

I have two papers due in a week, so as I said in November, let me get those written and turned in, and then check back here as I plan to reward myself by writing the next Fifty Shades review and/or going to Prague (oh yeah, I've decided I want to spend a weekend in Prague though I have absolutely no idea what is actually in Prague or why I want to go there - my main motivation seems to be the ability to say "When I was in Prague over the weekend..." - so advice on what I should actually DO in Prague would be lovely). I've been ready to write it for a while actually, but have been putting it off because I felt that I was upset about the wrong things and was trying to adjust my rage to match my logic. It hasn't worked, so I'm just going to write it the way I'm feeling it and then pack my bags for my journey to Hades since I am a terrible person.

Where I am at this very minute is sitting in my living room looking out at the sea. While all you guys in the U.S. have been at the travelling Antarctica Experience exhibition this week (the first time I saw someone write "Chiberia" made me laugh much harder than was probably warranted), the U.K. has been dealing with its own disastrous weather since roughly Christmas, mostly in the form of massive rainstorms combined with extremely high tides and a recent habit of building homes on floodplains. In typical British fashion, this was described on the news in the most hilariously understated way possible as "unusual weather". Living on an island in the Thames as I do, it is impossible not to notice. The field directly across the river from us which is typically filled with sheep first became a lake (which I named Lake Titicacao because tits! and chocolate! and I'm a massive child!) and then a few days ago even that was swallowed up and now the whole thing is just part of the river. Our marina is entirely flooded, the water covering not only the gangway that goes around the outside of the marina but also the first two steps leading up to our garden It is an inch from covering the third, which would leave only two more stairs before we go from living on riverfront property to living in the actual river. There are two roads leading into the island, but only one road that leads away from it, and that road is also flooded, meaning I actually drove my car through the Thames twice this morning. I was lucky I made it through - on my way back, there were two cars stranded on the road who had tried to drive through the river but were too low profile to get through and were now stranded in non-working cars waiting for rescue. If the river doesn't crest today I may be stranded here all weekend. Every once in a while, a helicopter flies over and I imagine them looking down at us and saying "Yep, still flooded." I think I should write a really rude message for them or draw some tits so their day will be more interesting.

Anyway, give me a week to finish my papers and I will write you guys a scathing review about how E.L. James has apparently never been to a bank and being threatened with rape is super romantic. 

P.S. I have enjoyed answering this question. Feel free to send me more questions you would like answers to and I'll answer them in a future blog post. It will be like a conversation!

Tip Top

I had the BEST day yesterday you guys.

So we've bought a lot of IKEA furniture since moving here, since I sold all of mine (it is cheaper to buy everything again than it is to ship it, and given how long it took my not furniture things to ship I'd just as soon not be living out of a suitcase for three months anyway) and as everyone knows, when you buy IKEA furniture, you end up with a mountain of cardboard and Styrofoam you need to get rid of. Now, for all the Americans, let me explain something to you about England. There's no room here. The houses are small, the streets are narrow, the standard size refrigerator is  roughly the size of the one you took to college with you freshman year. And because there's nowhere to, say, bury a big pile of trash out in the vast desert (and also no desert), you have to recycle pretty much everything (I say have to, but you should be recycling crap anyway you bums). And this involves a visit to the tip.

Again, for the benefit of the Americans, the tip is pretty much the dump, except sorted for recycling to a degree our country isn't even aware of and you have to drive your junk there yourself. Top Gear did an episode where James and Jeremy go caravaning and spend the bulk of the episode either washing their caravans or throwing things away at the tip, including the Stig.

I am fucking in love with the tip. You just drive up to it, park, and run around throwing your crap into various absolutely enormous bins. If you're not sure which bin you crap goes in, there are friendly guys in orange vests who will direct you to the right place. The also have humongous metal claw reachy-thingys (technical term) that they use to fish out things people have already put into the wrong bin. I was so fascinated I almost forgot to throw my 7000 Coke cans into the scrap metal bin. And then an actual caravan drove up to throw things away and I almost peed my pants.

On the way there, we passed a sign saying they were selling real Christmas trees at this garden center practically across the street from the tip, so on the way back we decided to stop and have a look at their inventory. I've been growing more and more concerned with each passing day that I would be unable to get a suitable tree since I don't have a single friend who has ever bought one taller than about 4 feet, which is only half a tree and totally unacceptable. Not only did this place have Christmas trees that could actually reach my ceiling, but they also had a pet shop, which we went in to look at birds because StereoNinja loves them and also so I could try to have a conversation with the bunnies. We noticed a door leading to another part of the shop, and when we went through we discovered they were selling dishes and aprons and beers that were all Christmas themed. I was super psyched, picked up a Santa spoon rest and a gravy boat, took one last glance around the store and noticed a ramp leading to yet another store area above us...and it was twinkling. "OH MY GOD SHINY THINGS!" I shouted, for real, as I ran up the ramp to a GIANT CHRISTMAS STORE leaving StereoNinja in my dust and presumably shaking his head in frustration and wondering why he'd brought me there in the first place. You guys. It was a MAGICAL WONDERLAND. I may have said several times that I would go back there later this week and just sit in there the entire day.

I don't even remember what we did the rest of the day since all I could think about was the tip and the Christmas store and how everything was coming up Milhouse for me. It was the best day ever.

Happy Forty Days!

It's the first day of The Forty Days of Christmas today! Unfortunately, I can't really start decorating for it since I have Thanksgiving dinner coming up and I need to buy step down converters for pretty much all of the decorations I own anyway. Similarly, I can't watch any of my Christmas movies as they are all coded for region 1 and won't play on StereoNinja's DVD player (they will play on my Xbox I brought with me, but again, need a voltage converter). Instead I think I will just dress up in some of my Christmas getup and walk around town singing Christmas carols. I'm sure that will be annoying to no one.

Delay

Something completely awesome happened last night that I can't wait to tell you about it, but it's not happening today because TODAY my stuff is here.

It took two and a half months for my things to get here. None of it was of particular importance, but it left me wondering what happens to people who do ship things like furniture and appliances. Do they live in a hotel for months? Eat take out every night? Turn tricks on the street in exchange for food and shelter?

I say my things weren't of particular importance. What I mean is not of particular importance to a sane person. They are of massive importance to me, mainly because 75% of the things I shipped are Christmas decorations AND I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT THEM. (this was after paring down my Christmas decorations by more than half because I had no idea where I was going to put all of it. I might have a problem.) SO right now there's a pile of boxes in my kitchen mostly filled with Christmas decorations and I am gleefully opening them and looking at my stuff instead of telling you about the insanity that went down at the party I was at last night. SHUT UP IT'S SPARKLY.

Oh, I also found 50 Shades Freed in there, so I'll be finishing up that review, probably all in one post, as soon as I turn in my paper for class in a couple weeks, because holy shit grad school is a lot of work.

Hiatus

Hey you guys! I haven't forgotten I have a blog or anything, I'm just on vacation. StereoNinja and I decided it was cold in Chicago so we have escaped to Miami for a little while. There will be stories about our crazy times with the Word Whore from Air Out My Shorts, a douchebag art dealer, shenanigans at Walgreens, and hotel remodeling (aka fights with security). There will not be any stories about Christmas dildos. We also made you a video of my leftover notes from Chapters 7 and 8 in which I give good but vague advice on how to perform oral sex. Also StereoNinja bought me a camera light for Christmas so now everyone can see what my face looks like, so there's that. Back soon with more reviews my little candy canes!

Oh Holy Fuck

As she always does, H-Town reminded me this morning about our favorite Christmas song ever. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Carol Of The Belts

I haven't talked nearly enough about how it's almost Christmas. Guess what you guys? IT'S ALMOST CHRISTMAS! Please enjoy this dose of Christmas cheer from Here Come The Mummies:

Bah Humbug

The bartender and I have spent the past few days arguing because we can't figure out what to get each other for Christmas this year.

The bartender: See? I'm easy to buy for. You can get me Dragon software, and a little bottle of cologne...

Me: That's two things.

The bartender: It's two more than you.

Me: I already said! You can get me socks with kitties on them...

The bartender: Great. Socks.

Me: ...and...another pair of kitty socks...See? That's two things right there.

The bartender: Oh my god, shut up.

I'm Going To Get In Serious Trouble For This One

Feel free to just skip this one - it's late and I'm rambling, and I've just finished chapters 2-4 of a book that should have been called Fifty Times More Tedious (Than My Other Two Piece of Shit Books) in the hope that I could cover their entire honeymoon in one blog post, apparently having forgotten that James narrates every single second of every single day and that the entirety of the book probably only covers the last three days of the honeymoon. I've talked someone else into editing the video for me, but he's quite busy so it will be ready when it's ready and then you can all see me yelling and gesturing at no one. Also, apparently I rest my hand on my chest while I'm reading a lot. It looks like I'm reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. My point is I'm kind of crabby right now, and the rest of this post is kind of crabby as well and likely to make some relatives very, very angry, and I'm just too tired to care.

Today would have been my mother's 64th birthday. I'm feeling guilty about it because I had forgotten until evening, and when I remembered I felt nothing.

I spent a long time getting upset on days like today, but I seem to have stopped around five or six years ago. I also seem to be the only one. My brother did a charity bike race this year in her honor, and the rest of my family had some sort of dinner thing, both to commemorate the 20th anniversary of her death. I went to see H-Town in an improv festival instead. The whole thing seemed sort of morbid and arbitrary to me. I'm not sure why people enjoy round numbers so much, or why 20 years should be more important somehow than 19 years or 21.

Six years ago marked the point where I'd spent as much time on the earth after her death as I had before it. I think that's when I realized how much of my life had been defined by losing my mother at 14. That's a pretty shitty experience to make the focal point of your entire life and I got really, really irritated about it, which is why I stopped doing the family stuff surrounding it and stopped reading the inevitable emails I get from family members on the "important" days. I get that a lot of people find rituals important and cleansing and that's great for them, but I'm not one of them. And I'm done now pretending to be someone I'm not. For me, the time to remember my mother has nothing to do with when her birthday is or when she died. I think of my mother at Christmas. Christmas was her favorite holiday just like mine, which is probably because she made it something magical when I was a kid and I never managed to outgrow it (or because I am fascinated by shiny things). And it holds much better memories than her birthday (I don't remember a single one of them) or her death day (fucking TERRIBLE).

I don't really know where I was going with this - like I said, I'm really tired. But it's the best I can do by way of apologizing to my family for not getting wrapped up in The Great Mourning twice a year the way I suppose it makes sense that I'm expected to. It's just not for me. You guys can do what you like, but imma stick with the days that had smiles.

Please Don't Hit Me.

I am ready for Christmas now.

And yes, I know that Halloween was less than a week ago, and that all of my American readers are telling me to get off it because it isn't even Thanksgiving yet, but it's my blog and I LIKE GLITTER and I'm ready for Christmas so shut up.

There's lots of reasons why I am entirely prepared for Christmas fully nine days before the 40 Days of Christmas even starts. For one thing, the bartender was foolish enough a few weeks ago to mention that when he was a kid they always had a white Christmas tree with all red ornaments on it and that's his favorite. Since I (currently) have eight Christmas trees, but none of them are white OR decorated all in red, this is CLEARLY a veiled request for me to BUY ANOTHER TREE. I would be a terrible, terrible roommate to let his Christmas memories die by filling the apartment with trees that are all the wrong kind.

I have also been online looking at the new houses they have this year for my Christmas village. It's almost like they knew I wasn't a fan of any of the houses that came out last year, because new this year there is a dance studio AND a music store AND a library AND an accessory set of some kids playing hockey! (I miss you, Blackhawks.) ARE THEY READING MY MIND? And the timing is perfect, because I just bought a new upright freezer (since there's never room in the normal freezer because the bartender is CONSTANTLY making soup) and it didn't fit under the table in my kitchen as I had expected it to, so now it's in my room next to my two dressers (one of which I may or may not have bought specifically to have room for more houses in my Christmas village), so obviously I should buy all three of those houses so the freezer doesn't feel left out.

Also, now that I have a freezer, it means I can make SO MANY MORE Christmas cookies than I have in recent years, which is also perfect timing because last year after Christmas my dad gave me his old cookie press since he doesn't make those particular cookies anymore, so now I can make as many delicious little bows and wreaths and trees as I want. So even if you think all my other brilliant reasons are complete bullshit (which they're NOT), you have to concede that it is not unreasonable for me to be yammering on about Christmas this early because COOKIES YOU GUYS.

NaBloPoMo = Amberance Is Out Of Excuses

NaBloPoMo is starting today, which means I have no choice but to cease being lazy and write some damn blog posts already. It is hard to come up with something to write every single day for 30 days in a row, which is why I will now FINALLY be getting around to reading that last Fifty Shades book on behalf of all of you. I'll also tell you about my trip which I'd promised to do a month ago, start talking about Christmas way too early for most of you, and repeatedly remind you that my birthday is a mere two and a half months away.

Today, I am happy to report that my best friend H-Town and her lovely wife and daughter who live in Baltimore are all doing ok after the hurricane. The power is back on at their house after being out about a day and a half, and they are in the process of helping out people who didn't fare as well, including this blog post from H-Town about things you can do to help.

One other note: I am probably being overly ambitious with this, but in addition to participating in NaBloPoMo on Bizzybiz, I am also going to participate elsewhere on the internets IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. If you do know what I mean, don't run over there right this second - I haven't written for today yet because, come on, I am at work you perverts. I'll work on something at Tai's tonight (hopefully without any creepy dudes looking over my shoulder) and post it tonight before I go to bed.

My sincerest apologies to Xenu for the extreme delay in doing any of the things I have promised to do this autumn.

Having A Social Life Makes It Really Hard To Blog Sometimes

I was told this morning by StereoNinja that I am being a shitty blogger in 2012 so far. Which I know, but see, there's this thing where I'm busy at my job and travelling and other excuses both legit and complete and utter bullshit. One of them is that I went on an epic trip to Austin last weekend. And I really want to tell you all about it, but chronologically it doesn't make sense if I skip over all of December and my birthday. Also, personally it doesn't make sense either. I have never skipped December or my birthday, they are my favorite things. So herein I will attempt to briefly recap the last month and a half so that in the next post I can describe the most epic reunion of my entire life. Cool? Cool.

A Brief Recap of What Amberance Has Been Up To Since Early December, Minus The Parts That Are None of Your Business and You Don't Want to Know About Anyway (Trust Me)

• On December 10th, as advertised, I walked onto a stage at Martyr's with 16 other women and took off all my clothes in front of hundreds of strangers and it. was. AWESOME. Despite it being oddly disconcerting to be walking around in a bar all night in a nightie and a robe while everyone else around me was dressed, but whatever. The show on the whole was excellent. The girls graduating were amazingly talented and creative and their acts included a girl who stripped to the Imperial March as Darth Vader and left the mask on the entire time, two girls who did a number together to Bon Jovi's "Dead or Alive" in which one of them was the cowboy and the other one was her horse, and a girl who according to Michelle L'Amour said that she wanted to do a number in which "I do all of the things you always tell us we should never do", and so did a completely disinterested strip tease dressed in a ratty house coat with her hair a complete mess and a cigarette dangling out of her mouth, then finished with taking her bra off to reveal another flesh colored bra underneath to which she had sewn baggy tits that hung down to her knees and when she couldn't get the nipple tassels to twirl she just picked them up in her hand with a shrug and juggled them. It was the most hilarious strip tease I have ever seen.
• The bartender bought me an auto hammer for Christmas and I was filled with joy. I am a tool for tools. And puns.
• The next day I flew to Cleveland for two days because something is seriously wrong with me. I packed a backpack for the trip. My brother had also come to town, for four days, and had brought three huge suitcases and a garment bag, prompting me to ask my dad if it was weird for him that his son is his daughter and his daughter is his son (I did, after all, get an auto hammer for Christmas).
• I saw my brother again the following weekend when he came to town for the annual New Year's Eve party thrown by some friends of ours. My loving brother greeted me with a loud "Fuck you," when I walked in, due to my having worn an amazing tank top with chains and tiny handcuffs for straps that everybody but him loved, including all the women who were pregnant which was ALL OF THEM.
• The following week we had our work holiday party, to which I took the gorilla after giving me his word that he would behave himself. I shouldn't have worried, he was absolutely fine. It was me and my coworkers who were out of control, but it wasn't our fault - someone had brought a Shake Weight to the gift exchange which we were inappropriate about, and then we were under the minimum for the contract we'd signed, so the obvious thing to do was to order lots more booze which led to me teaching everyone how to twirl nipple tassels and shouting "It's PHYSICS" at everyone who tried to object.
• The following Monday I flew to Portland and didn't even try to kill my boss once!
• Which leads us to my Amber's Super Ultra Fantabulous Birthtacular Celebration Extravaganza: Now With MORE KELLY! weekend. This did not start out well. El Nino or whatever the hell the weather is doing had kept things pleasantly warm and dry in Chicago this winter, right up until the night of my birthday when it decided to drop 8 inches of snow on us overnight. This meant that only Charlie and Mrs. Sizemore showed up to my party at Tai's and got to see my Epic Cake which depicted me in not a whole lot of clothing.

  

  So hot it is literally on fire.

  This gave me the opportunity, after we had partially eaten it, to yell "WHO IS GOING TO EAT MY CROTCH?" at some innocent strangers for a totally legitimate reason. Earlier in the day, I had taken my pink princess wand to work with me in order to command people to do my bidding, such as wear hats and sing to me, and had ended up using it help my co-worker figure out what NOT to get his wife for her birthday by waving it at him after every suggestion and saying "No, that's stupid." Because of this, I decided to name it the Wand of Truth and then brought it to the bar and had a duel with the bartender and his magic wand because his Schwartz was as big as mine. The next day, Kelly and Mike showed up and we spent the weekend playing Pulse on our respective iPads and eating/drinking our faces off. Kelly ate some caterpillars. Lots more awesome things happened, but that is the thing that stands out - Kelly eating her way through a plate of caterpillars at Sticky Rice.

So that about brings us up to speed, and though I've missed some major things out (see bolded header), I feel better about blogging the Epic Austin Trip. Which I will do shortly to avoid further admonishments from StereoNinja. You don't want to piss off a ninja*.

*he is not a real ninja**.
*OR IS HE?

More Holiday Earhole Joyousness

I haven't been feeling well at all lately, and that is the excuse I am using for backdating this post to Friday when I'm actually sitting here writing it on Tuesday. It's not because I forgot to do it until just now. Nope. Not at all. Behold, your funny/cheesy/classic Christmas songs that don't suck of the week:

Rudolph and Gang - "Here Comes Fatty Claus": I have no idea whether this is a real band or a made up one just for the sake of this song, but googling it seems to indicate the latter. The only place I have ever seen it is on the John Waters Christmas album, and you should probably just go ahead and buy the whole thing because John Waters picked all the songs, which virtually guarantees there's something slightly insane about all of them. If that doesn't sell it, then let me inform you that the first line of this song is "Here comes fatty with his sack of shit". Yeah, thought so.

Chris Isaac - "Christmas on TV": Ok, this isn't exactly a cheesy song, but I am categorizing it as such because I got yelled at last month for owning anything by Chris Isaac at all (suck it, Simon). It does start out as a cheesy song (a guy missing his lady on Christmas because she's far away) but somewhere in the middle it takes a hard left turn and becomes one of the most depressing Christmas songs I've ever heard (it's his ex-wife and she's really just around the corner living in his old house with her rich new boyfriend). And since I am a horrible person it makes me laugh every time.

The Beach Boys - "Little Saint Nick": You know you love it. Stop pretending like you don't. No one is fooled.

40 Days Friday Music Update

Ok, so I was so wrapped up in my public nudity event, I completely forgot to blog y'all some holiday music on Friday, so I'm going to cheat and backdate this post I'm writing to Friday (it's Monday night) and also meet the funny song/cheesy song/classic song criteria all in one song because I'm too lazy to pick three songs out. So here it is:

"Santa Claus and His Old Lady" - Cheech and Chong: My dad has very one dimensional taste in music. As in the only band he likes is Led Zeppelin, much to the chagrin of my step mother. In fact, there's only two songs I've ever heard him listen to on purpose that aren't Led Zeppelin songs: Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" on Thanksgiving, and "Santa Claus and His Old Lady" at Christmas time. This is a stoner Christmas masterpiece (such a stoner masterpiece that I'm suddenly wondering why he let us listen to this all the time when we were little). Recession, repression - it's all the same thing, man.

This Is A Totally Normal Conversation In My World

The gorilla texted me in the middle of the fucking night on Monday to find out what I was doing this week.

Me: Just now realizing I forgot to respond to your text because I was half asleep when I got it. Pretty busy doing things involving nail polish and nipple tape from now until showtime on Saturday night. Next week I should be less busy, other than adding MORE TREES to my dwelling.

The gorilla: How can I not buy into the "nipple tape" excuse?
Of course, I am off to zee Germany next Monday evening, and will gone some days...but I will make something work. I want a tour of the Christmas forest.

Me: Forest will be up at least until the new year, no worries.
Nipple tape - for the discerning stripper who's not quite ready to go full frontal.

Once Again, Here's Some Stuff To Listen To

It's Friday, and therefore time for another installment of holiday tunage you (probably) won't hate. I'll follow my funny song/cheesy song/modern classic format that I just realized I accidentally set forth in the first two posts.

The Clydesdale - "Imo Shoot Me A Reindeer": The Clydesdale is an alt country/rockabilly band based in Las Vegas, and this song can be found on the absolute masterpiece of a compilation MERRY X-MAS DAMMIT From The Double Down Saloon. It is far and away my favorite Christmas song to sing. As if the rest of the song isn't good enough, the interlude in the middle of it when the singer's neighbor asks her "What in the name of my beer can Christmas tree do you think you're about to do over there with that rifle?" really sells it.

They Might Be Giants - "Santa's Beard": I love TMBG so suck it. This is classic Giants, in true Giants style. Originally on their second album Lincoln from 1988, it can also be found on their Christmas EP, Holidayland.

The Ramones - "Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight Tonight)": The Ramones, I said. Own it or you're stupid.

Day 28 And It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like They Shouldn't Have Given Me An Office

The CEO came in my office last week asking where all the Christmas decorations were. I told him it would be a motherfucking Christmas wonderland in here if it were up to me, but that if I started decorating the office before Thanksgiving there is a good chance that someone might stab me. He agreed that this was a legitimate concern.

Today, though, it is officially the first office day after Thanksgiving, so my first order of business was to start setting up the few things I already had left over from my Cave of Wonders days (this is what I called my cubicle at the old office space, but only in my head - they know I am crazy but it's fun to keep them guessing just how much): little felt stockings were tacked to the wall, my somewhat sparse Christmas village was arranged on top of my overhead cabinets and three wire trees covered in glitter were placed on a shelf (and now everything in my office is covered in glitter because glitter is the herpes of craft supplies). It wasn't nearly enough crap. Emergency decoration shopping was in order.

The nearest place where I knew there to be Christmas swag was downstairs at the CVS, so I headed down and grabbed the first few random things I saw, bagged them up and came back upstairs. COO and BrownsFan were sitting in the conference room when I came in, so I stopped to show BrownsFan what I'd gotten - a nutcracker, an old style German Santa, and a mealy little two foot "lighted" (in quotes, because lighted usually means the lights are already on the tree when you buy it. Not this time, they were just shoved in the box with the tree and a bunch of shitty plastic ornaments, but what do you want for $9?) tree. BrownsFan and I then briefly discussed potential wiring configurations for the various things I was planning to set up that would require a flow of electricity. This was the point at which COO finally realized what was actually happening. "Wait, so some of those things are going in your office?" he asked me, gesturing to the two GIANT bags I was struggling not to drop.

"What do you mean 'some'? ALL OF THESE THINGS are going in my office. Plus more things. I'm going to turn the air vent into a giant candy cane, and an office that size needs at least two trees. This is just what I managed to find at CVS."

BrownsFan turned to the now gaping at me in shock COO and told him what she'd known in her heart all along: "We never should have given her so much space."

Day 25 And It's Another Christmas Music Installment

I was about to start writing a post about Thanksgiving dinner yesterday, but then I remembered that it's Friday so it's time to give you another three suggestions for Christmas songs that you might be able to get behind. To wit:

Richard Cheese - "Christmas In Las Vegas": In case you're not familiar with Richard Cheese, he is primarily known for covering popular songs in lounge music style, a la Frank Sinatra (Nirvana's "Rape Me" and Metallica's "Enter Sandman" are a couple of my faves). He has very few original songs, but this is one of them, and it's hilarious - Santa sells his sleigh for gambling money, and Mary gets a suite comped at the Wynn, which beats the shit out of a filthy stable any day of the week.

Barenaked Ladies - "Elf's Lament": To reiterate from last week's second selection, the rules of music listening do not apply to Christmas music, so there's no need to worry that I may have become a huge Barenaked Ladies fan when no one was looking. They have a brilliant Christmas album though, including this song in which the elves get fed up with working for shit wages and decide to start a union.

Run DMC - "Christmas in Hollis": Look, there are other rap Christmas songs. Hell, there are other rap Christmas songs by Run DMC for that matter. You can just go ahead and ignore all of those. This classic from 1987 is the only one you'll ever need. Trust me.

Day 22 And Irresponsible Spending Month Has Started A Bit Early

I poked my head in at Claire's this morning to see what they had because I'm a girl now and I'm told that one of the things girls do is accessorize. And wouldn't you know it? The place is filled with Christmas trinkets AS THOUGH THEY WERE EXPECTING ME. So I went in and pretended to mull over the things I wanted to purchase, even though I pretty much knew that in the end I was going to be like "One of each, please". When I went to the counter with all 7,000 or so small shiny objects, the salesgirl made what for anyone else would have been a pretty sound assumption. "Oh! Are you having a Christmas party?" she asked me.

"Nope, I'm just crazy," I replied with absolute honesty.

Anyway, long story even longer, I'm now sat at my desk in my office dressed in completely normal office attire* with the exception of a tiny black sequin fascinator top hat with glitter covered holly on it. This is significant, because as BrownsFan can attest, I think fascinators are the stupidest fashion trend pretty much ever. Oh, hey ladies! Hows about we all start wearing hats that are nowhere near big enough to fit on our heads? Because that's what hats are for, not making sure your head is covered! WHAT A GREAT FUCKING IDEA! It isn't. At all. But if you stick a piece of holly on it and add some glitter, well then I am ALL IN, MOFOS.

Then there's the rest of this stuff that is still in the bag next to me, such as ornament shaped earrings (earrings? When have you ever seen me voluntarily wear earrings?), a hair clip with a mini santa hat on it (santa hat fascinator? Whatever, I don't care),  candy cane striped braces (suspenders, ya tools) and the crowning jewel: false eyelashes WITH TINY CHRISTMAS BOWS ATTACHED TO THEM. I don't even know who thought of this. I've never woken up in the morning thinking "You know what I need? Bows for my eyelashes." But as soon as I saw them I knew I'd needed them all along. And I've just recently learned how to apply false eyelashes! It's like a sign! Seriously, how could I NOT buy them?

Anywhore, I will now be accessorized like a proper girl for a while. A proper girl who is CHRISTMAS AS FUCK.

*Normal for me. There's not actually anyone else walking around in here wearing Chuck Taylors and a hoodie from a band called Dead To Me.