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someday There's much to say about Thanksgiving this year--or as we may well call it, "Pie Day in Memory of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas"--but what sticks out to me at this exact moment is the Elvis movie marathon on TBS. I can name that Elvis movie in two notes. Go ahead and try me.*

Somewhere between G.I. Blues and Girls, Girls, Girls I turned to J. "Someday," I said, "I am going to publish my thesis and we will celebrate by renting the Drafthouse. We'll watch Blue Hawaii and play the drinking game."**

He looked up from the newspaper. "Done," he said.


*I can't identify one--Charro--because I was too fatigued to actually watch it. Yeah, I know.

Everything I write has a drinking game, including my thesis.

thanks, y'all Apologies Accepted.

P.S. Look carefully and you'll spot the famous Biker Fox!

my favorite things Shit, man, I love licorice. I will eat licorice until it's gone. Like, there could be a ten-pound feedbag of licorice wheels in the house, and I would stay home and work my way through them until I expired.

I really like Miller Lite "party" bands from the early to mid-1980s. I like Doug and the Slugs. I like The Producers. I even like Huey Lewis and the News, but don't tell anyone, okay? Good.

I like Eagles of Death Metal.

I have licorice farts. And I like that.

I'm halfway through planning my annual Trashy Christmas CD. Aunt K., you better watch out. We also have to make plans for Festivus. Apparently people wanted to be invited back this year; I just remember them looking awkward and bored by the Video Fireplace. And those were the guests not laid to waste by our semi-annual visit from Pukey the Christmas Rotavirus. Now *those* people were in a world of hurts.

master...master! Anyone care to take a guess at what's giving me hives?

My money's on the Vermox.

Man, if you don't have tiny threadlike worms crawling out of your butt at night and laying eggs on your tweener, you've got puffy itchy welts in your groin.

On the plus side, I'm eagerly anticipating Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday of the year, when we commemorate the clash of indigenous and conquering cultures with...pie!

The Boy and I have reached an uneasy peace regarding sleep. And that's really as specific as I want to be about that. Toddlers want so desperately to be in command of their own destinies. They want to put forks in the microwave and sing "Bob the Builder" in German all night. I acknowledge and honor these impulses because in a way I want to do those things as well. I cannot indulge them, however, for obvious reasons.

I do approve of Baldo's tendency to climb up to our eMac, open the drive, put in "Master of Puppets," and rock out. I'll be leaning over to take my first sip of coffee, and I'll hear BATTERY! BATTERY! And it's kind of like being hit on the head with a harmless but annoying instrument, like a squeaky plastic hammer.

Operation: Destroy All Bootyworms Something I've learned: If you peel it carefully, a clove of garlic can be inserted into your butt comfortably. Shortly thereafter, you will be tasting the garlic. Weird but true.

We have:

• wet-mopped and vacuumed the floor
• given the toddler toys a bath
• laundered everything except the cat (because cats don't carry pinworms)
• wiped every surface down with those stupid horrible disinfecting wipes I would not buy except for the fact that we have ass worms and I am not having ass worms

Unrelatedly, I must mention that I grow tired from time to time of providing succor. I have a male spouse, a male toddler who is transitioning out of his nap time, and an incredibly giant (Bert I. Gordon-type) male cat, and sometimes they overwhelm me with their love. They climb all over me. They make me want to dig a burrow in the yard and live there like a groundhog. They are heavy and awkward and difficult to carry, especially the spouse.

NIP Evidently there's been quite the spirited talk on a certain news radio station about nursing in public. Want a highlight?

"Regardless of what you might think about "breast-feeding" in a public place, we are all sexual beings. When I was a small boy, I witnessed a neighbor lady breast-feeding while my family was in a restaurant. Now, I came from a strict religious background and was taught that if you "lust in your heart" you will definitely go to Hell! I was genuinely traumatized and conflicted. I knew that my future as a human being was doomed because of that woman's poor choice. Face the facts, breast-feeding in public should not be allowed and especially in front of young, church-going children. A pox on you unsavory women!"

Anybody got a burqa handy?

Guess I'll see this guy in Hell.

lookit! Guess what the postman just brought! This!

Nice to see that I'm still "and others" in the synopsis. I will add this to this list of my goals in life: A book synopsis will mention me specifically by name. Goddammit.

I'm totally worked today. Napless overtired screamy two-year-old makes Marrit something something.

updates Scary: When our Small Boy doesn't nap, he turns into Gage from Pet Sematary.

Scary and exciting: Seal Press is publishing my book next fall.

Me too Sorry, everybody.

I don't get it So I saw the new Bridget Jones movie tonight.

Can someone please explain the romantic comedy to me? I don't think I get it. Like, I'm missing a gene or something, or else I'm not really a woman.

:checks pants:

Yes, everyone was quite lovely in it and it was effervescent and had lots of uplifting Motown and all that la la la la. But here's what I don't get:

1. Renee Zellweger is hot. She should eat doughnuts all the time, man, because she's a Texan and Texans should not be bony. She has an amazing rack, and those scenes where she's in a Thai prison wearing a Wonderbra? Were those scenes directed by Roger Corman?


2. OK, so I guess it's like a big amazing newsflash that "fat" people (whatever) can fall in love and get it on? And we're all going to clap and go "awww" at the end? Um...duh.


3. You know, women and men are sooo different. Like how we're always setting up spring traps to catch 'em and make them marry us after two whole months of dating. And we're all, like, A MAY-UHN! and we skip off to the bridal boutique and squeeze ourselves into Lycra shapers and the gowns we've always dreamed of since we were little girls in ballet class. Seriously, does anyone really live like this? I'm going through the people I know in my mind, and I'm finding a lot of ethical sluts, poly couples, and sensible lesbians. The ones of us who can and do choose to get married do it barefoot on acid. The closest thing to a married traditionalist is...well...me, and I was married by a police chaplain on top of a mountain in a dress I got off the sale rack at Robinson's-May for $19. (It was white. And I was wearing these really amazing suede platform sandals that I later ruined when I fell drunkenly into a pile of dog crap at a party.) And I just don't get this movie at all, even though I'm the same age as Bridget Jones, and I'm also a fake nonsmoker and a marginal journalist.

Don't call it a comeback (with TMI action) You may not realize this, but I've been scratching plaintively at my monitor for the last several days. The Other J moved the site to a new host in order to obliterate the spam for Cialis and zoo porn.

Note: If a search for "zoo porn" brought you here, keep moving. You'll find nothing here but toddler pictures and caterwauling.

The move obliterated all the other comments as well. But now I can say Paxil Zoloft Xanax Prozac Serzone Doxepin and all the other drugs I've taken without eliciting mail-order trollbots. And now I will say Zantac Prilosec Elidel Protopic Elocon Triamcinolone Atarax, which have all been pumped into or applied to my kid.

Add to the list for me something called Flagyl, which sounds like part of a euglena but is actually a fluoroquinolone used to treat a little something I like to call swamp pussy. The methane clouds from the seat of my chair have been observed from space. This is what happens when you travel and eat nothing but Tim Horton's donuts.

Meanwhile our house has been under attack by bootyworms (a.k.a. Enterobiasis), which occasioned a dose of Vermox. Vermox is kind of like napalm for your GI tract, so when you give it to a child he will vomit and shit prodigiously. Unspeakable things have come out of my kid. However I'm still waiting for a big glut of worms, such as the one extruded by one of Baldo's school chums. I think that could be really satisfying. Once you've gone in your kid's room at midnight with a flashlight for a pinworm safari, nothing can alarm you.

Actually, I sent J. in for that. The man has seen my intestines. When you've watched someone being surgically disemboweled, then really nothing can alarm you.

Except of course for another Bush-Cheney term.

A full confession: Sometimes in the middle of a completely unrelated conversation, I'll pump J. for more information about my entrails. ("Were they curly? Were they more gray or more pink?")

And so now we have this cat, whom we'll call Kitty J. (Yes, his name is also J.) Kitty J. weighs a metric ton and is about the size of that fake Internet cat in those kooky doctored pictures. I had to borrow a carrier from Aunt K. to haul him into the vet today, and it was like putting him into a rectangular kitty Jell-O mold. He retained the shape after we popped him out onto the table. He is completely pliant and can be tied in a knot. He spends most of the time under the bed, which probably still beats TLAC. Were I not entrusted with the care of Mr. Sensitive Toddler Guy, I might hide under the bed a lot too. If I could fit under there.