Kris Kringle, Kwanzaa Karenga and Hanukkah Harry walk into a bar...

'Tis the season for circling mall parking lots endlessly or surfing the internet for the perfect gift for ungrateful family members. Seriously? I love my family but I could get my dad a Porsche or some golf tees and his reaction would be roughly the same. My sis is so harried with the tots (Sam, 18 mos., Brady, 4-mos.) that she's just happy to keep my adorable, yet--oh-so-mischievous 18-month-old niece Sam from creating lawsuits everywhere she goes. The wake of destruction behind Hurricane Sam is far-reaching and astounding. For such a little person she has the biggest life force I've ever seen. We are not really a religious folk as a group though my parents still attend church weekly becuse they like their radical parish priest who is so opinionated, rebellious and random that I secretly think he just has fun creating controversy much in the way Sam likes to create chaos and mass destruction. But being that she is less than 2-years of age...she has a valid excuse.

In exactly one month minus one day (but who's counting?) I will be finished with my two-year 'temp' gig...Oxymoron? How did I stay here so long? No clue. Cool peeps, probably, because Lord knows that the work is about as stimulating as watching dust particles swirl in a ray of sunshine. But really...much less so. Here is the part where I'm supposed to get all philosophical and try and think of positive things about how there are worse ways to get a weekly paycheck. But I'm fresh out of faking it until I make it. Ready to get the book (*Free plug* Lipstick and Thongs in the Loony Bin) in publishable shape once and for all and have even recruited help in getting it polished and ready. I've been sending out what amounts to a completed first draft for a year and have gotten some very nice, very thoughtful and some very detailed rejections as well as a few nibbles that seemed promising until Fate stepped in and said---"NOT YET, SORRY, BABE!" Fate can be a really snotty bitch with a twisted sense of timing and humor like that sometimes.

So 2007? Am I ready?

Yup.

But first I have some damned shopping to do. Merry, Happy, Jolly and all that other friggin' crap. 'Bah humbug' you say? Not exactly but slightly wishing that I were Sam's age again and had license to misbehave a little. Like getting cocked on eggnog and telling certain relatives who insist that I get a 'real job, already' to go take flying leaps into a big pile of yellow snow. Bitter? Not much. Cranky? A wee bit, I s'pose. I just need a three-week nap is all.