This is going to be a clusterfuck of a year, I can just feel it in my bones.

The RLA got a spider bite last week, and with diligence and a course of antibiotics has kept the necrotizing whatever at bay. He only has a small swelling and a little crimson spot on his drawing hand. But it was a nail biter.

My mother is drifting deeper and deeper into the waters of Lethe. Now and then she pulls a name or a complete sentence out of the ether and that makes it even worse. Yesterday she blurted out the real name of my brother, Biggus Dickus.

I have a confession to make. I am completely unable to focus today. I know that there is a pile of work in front of me, and yet, I cannot make myself attend to it. I've been looking at Today's Kitten, reading the recap of Project Runway (and don't get me started about Nicky Hilton and Santino—a perfect match of stupidity and arrogance if ever there was one), idly filing papers, and rummaging in the break room for bacon.

Not as random as it would seem, the rummaging for bacon thing. There is a week-long training session going on next door, and the breakfast leftovers have made their appearance in the break room. There were sticky pecan rolls, too, if you must know, but I was able to muster enough self-control not to eat those. Bacon, on the other hand, is a primal force against which I am no match.

Last night, on the train home, I sat in front of a gentle-looking soul with an acoustic guitar. He strummed and plucked quietly and well. Unfortunately, I couldn't hear him, because the asshole in front of me was shrieking into his cell phone the whole trip. The irony? The asshole was holding a copy of The New Times, with its headline: If Silence is a Virtue, Miami is Going to Hell.

Also, a special shout-out to Kathleen and Muv:

HOOK 'EM HORNS

I referred to the POTUS today as Du(m)bya (the m is silent) and my boss got very upset. Don't call him that, he said, it is a term used by his fans. You may call him the boy idiot, or the war criminal, or the shrub, or bubble boy, or... well he went on in that vein for a while, and then he summed up his opinion of our imperial majesty.

It was extemporaneous and brilliant. I had him write it down for me, and I give it to you.
As President, George Bush is ...

... more out of touch with real Americans than his father

... more guilty of launching illegal, covert, foreign acts than Ronald Reagan

... more insular and paranoid than Richard Nixon; more destructive of basic constitutional liberties than Richard Nixon

... more silent in the face of the hate-filled, demonization of political opponents than Eisenhower

... more incompetent than Herbert Hoover

... more beholden to Big Business than Calvin Coolidge

... more corrupt than Warren Harding

... more boneheaded than William Howard Taft

... more stiffnecked and rigidly Conservative to the overall degradation of the common good than William McKinley

In short, he is the worst Republican President of the past 100 years and, quite likely, the worst President in the history of the United States (with apologies to Millard Fillmore and James Buchanan).

I've been remiss in my blogging, in my off-line private journaling, in my correspondence, in my workout schedule, in my housework, in my banking, in pretty damn near everything in which I could possibly be remiss.

I have made up a short list of, not exactly resolutions, but things I want to be able to say, this time next year, that I have accomplished.

Podcasting. RJ and I have a library of sound files from our days in radio comedy, and I intend to put them on-line.

Skinning. Once and for all, I want to learn how to skin this site and make it work correctly.

Sales. Time to put some of my quilts and other hand-mades for sale, and on-line.

Finish. Anything, really, but specifically three or four quilts that are in various stages of completion, or non-completion.

Fit into the jeans I bought yesterday. They are way, way, way too small, and I don't buy clothes that don't fit, but they were also way, way, way too cool, and have given me an incentive.

Yesterday, or maybe the day before, the Miami Herald ran a big ass story about "The December Dillema". That dillema, apparently, is what to do about Christmas and Chanukkah in mixed families. I'm not going to touch that issue with your ten foot pole, but I am going to address their solution.


First of all, matzoh is not associated with Channukah in any way, shape or form. Second of all, it doesn't look like a happy Bavarian cottage, it looks like a freakin' graveyard. Third of all, what the fuck is wrong with just being Jewish, and having Jewish traditions, like Channukah gelt, and spinning the stupid dreidle, and lighting the menorah? And eating fried food? Huh? What is so wrong with that, that we have to coopt the traditions of another religion that coopted their traditions from the pagans who went before (i.e.: the Christmas tree)?

I accept that in mixed faith families, there may be some issues, but, hey. A tree is for Christmas, and not for Channukah. There is NO SUCH FUCKING THING as a Channukah bush, OK? Calling it that makes it no less a Christmas tree. And a Christmas tree, no matter how much my girlfriends try to convince me otherwise, is a symbol of Christmas and of Christ's birth, and not just a house-sized air freshener.

And you know what? I'm OK with that. I respect that. I honor that. I may feel like a stranger in a strange land this time of year, with most of my neighbors decorating the outside of their homes with lights, and the non-stop Christmas music in public places, and the never-ending barrage of all things Christmas, but. But I am a minority. Not in the minority, as in, most people enjoy this and I do not, but A minority. I am a Jew, and this season is not about me or my beliefs, it is a holiday, no matter how secularized it has become, of major significance to Christians. I may even go so far as to say that my recognition of Christmas is more religious than most of my Christian friends. As an outsider, it is easier for me to focus on the meaning of the holiday than of its commercialism.

The RLA grew up in a Jewish ghetto, and has no appreciation for Christmas. He is even, dare I say, a teensy bit offended when invited to share the holiday with our Christian friends. I, on the other hand, having grown up as the only Jew in a one-Jew town, understand that this is an offer of love. Christians, by and large, feel as though their Jewish friends are missing out on something special by not "having Christmas", and so throughout my childhood and into adulthood, I have been invited to tree-trimming parties, to Christmas dinners, and Christmas morning breakfasts. (As an aside, there is nothing I love better than a slice of fried ham with red-eye gravy on Christmas morning, made from the left overs of the Christmas Eve ham. Oh, I am such a bad Jew.)

What the RLA doesn't see is the love that those invitations hold. It is a manifestation of peace on earth, goodwill to men. It isn't a subtle, or not-so-subtle attempt to convert us. It is an acceptance of who we are, and an offer to share with us, what is so special to them. And that, my friends, is true love.

But I digress. I was bitching about a Matzohbread house. That, dear readers, is a cop out. That is not embracing the differences and the "true meaning" of either holiday. That is a piece of shit and not to be tolerated by Christian or Jew. I don't want my Christian friends making potato latkes and calling it hay in the manger cakes, or lighting a menorah and saying that it represents the Christ child, the three Magi, Joseph and Mary and however many goats, horses and sheep are required to make up the number 8.

I want Christians to be Christians, and Jews to be Jews, and Muslims to be Muslims, and Hindis to be Hindis. I am all for a belief in something bigger than us in the universe, but I don't think that a mishmash of pantheism is good for anybody.

Separate, but equal. Share the holiday, but don't force it. I'll invite you to my house for potato latkes and applesauce and chocolate gelt, if you'll make me a slice of fried ham with red-eye gravy. I'll teach you the dreidle song, and you can skip the Twelve Days of Christmas because I already know it. I'm happy to wish you a Merry Christmas, and not a generic Happy Holiday, because it isn't a threat to who I am or what I believe to acknowledge and honor your beliefs.

And, that, in the end, is what this season is all about. Merry Christmas. Happy Channukah. Blessed Kwanzaa. Whatever the hell you say about Tet.

This is it. I've had it. I'm mad as hell, and you know the rest.

First this, and then this.
I loved Daniel Franco . I want a Daniel Franco suit. I would wear his designs in a NY minute. That asshat Santino is an asshat. A petty, drama queen, talented, ruthless, batshit insane egotistical asshat. But let me tell you how I really feel about her.

As for Niner? Well, the Florida Marlins can just take their balls and move wherever the hell they want. I wash my hands of them. Back to the Metsies for me, girls.

Feh.

Oh, and a Bush joke, because, well, because they are so easy and they make me so happy.

Ralph Nader, Al Gore and George W. Bush go to a fitness spa for some fun.

After a stimulating, healthy lunch, all three decide to visit the men's room. There they find a strange-looking gent sitting at the entrance who says, "Welcome to the gentlemen's room. Be sure to check out our newest feature: a mirror that, if you look into it and say something truthful, you will be rewarded with your wish. But, be warned, for if you say something false, you will be sucked into the mirror to live in a void of nothingness for all eternity!"

The men quickly enter, and upon finding the mirror, Ralph Nader steps up and says, "I think I'm the most truthful of us three" and he suddenly finds the keys to a brand new Bentley in his hands.

Al Gore steps up and says "I think I'm the most ambitious of us three" and in an instant he was surrounded by a pile of money to fund his next Presidential Campaign.

Excited over the possibility of having a wish come true, George W. Bush looks into the mirror and says, "I think...", and is promptly sucked into the mirror.