Merry Christmas, everyone!!

I'm being a busy little elf, making gifts and cards and finding boxes for things and thinking about my trip and hoping I-5 does not require chains on the Grapevine, and how much fun it will be to play games instead of watching TV for a week. Wishing I could bring Buster with me but knowing Fade would not be pleased so settling for worrying about him while I'm gone instead. Putting job-hunting on the middle burner (not the back one quite). Going out of my way if I see a house down the block that looks like the decorations are worth a look. Listening to Christmas music and watching Charlie Brown.

Despite being an adult and all it entails, I love Christmas as much as I did when I was a kid, if not more.

BIG TITTY CHRISTMAS

I kind of have to hold my breath this year to make sure my unemployment extension is in place before I can actually do any Christmas shopping. This is one of those cool months with that "extra" check that happens twice a year if you get paid every two weeks instead of twice a month. But if something happens I will have to use what would otherwise be my last check for rent.

I am making a lot of gifts this year, including really useful ones like jars of Ugg deodorizing powder. Everyone I know with Uggs (or faux Uggs) gets a problem in that area eventually, and since almost everyone I know wears Uggs that should be a somewhat blush-inducing but useful gift. Hee.

Christmas Carol

I hope you all had a marvy Thanksgiving! I know I did.

The holidays are firmly upon us, but I have not quite gotten into the spirit and I think it is because I have not yet listened to Charlie Brown Christmas. I have to dig it out and load up the car with Christmas Cheer - I love Christmas music and completely overdose myself while I can, with everything from Leon Redbone to The Manhattan transfer to Chris Isaak to Josh Groban, with a good smattering of the old Rosemary Clooney and Bing Crosby-type pop classics. I also have a large assortment of Nutcracker Suites played on odd instruments, like mandolins.

While we are discussing the holidays, here is a new one:

EROS DAY

My life is so boring right now I have nothing to say.....

My unbridled joy at Obama's victory was dampened a bit yesterday at the news of Michael Crichton's demise of cancer at age 66. I know a lot of people thought he was a hack or politically incorrect (did you know "State of Fear" was actually about the media keeping us in a continuous state of fear about everything and not just a global-warming-couild-be-bogus treatise?) or whatever, but I have felt a very odd connection to this guy since I was a teenager. Several years agoI had an artisitic obsession with tornadoes about 2 months before the announcement of the "Twister" project, and since I was reading his book "Travels" at the time, which deals as much with his forays into psychic travel as much as worldly, I knew in my heart that we had met up in that vast psychic place where creative ideas are floating around for us to grab out.

I always thought I would somehow meet him in real life. Guess not this time around. See you on the other side, MC!

JURASSIC PORK

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMO 4,126

I have recently signed myself up at a website called Red Bubble. It is a site where artists can post their work and the public can buy cards, prints, posters, calendars, etc. for a reasonable cost. If you want truly unique holiday cards this year, or just need some new stuff on your wall, check it out. Search for "Tama Blough" in the search engine to see my stuff, or just poke around. It's fun.

BLACK BUBBLE BUTTS

Well, Blogger was down when I tried to post, so I think I will save my rant for next week since nobody will notice now.
Drat.

I have been fascinated by the depths to which people will sink when talking about politics.

John McCain is a doddering racist old fool and Barack Obama is not only a Muslim terrorist but a new incarnation of Hitler.

Barack has never been an idol or anything or even my particular favorite but I do think he is more elegant than McCain. Craig Ferguson did a great debate night impersonation of both of them last night, with McCain looking and sounding like The Penguin, and Obama strolling in talking about Fashion Week. (Love Craig Ferguson, by the way - since not working I can stay up late enough to watch him.) I am not easily offended, but I did sit up and take notice at McCain's "that one" - innocuous enough but the way he said it was so dismissive. The drinking games my online buds and I came up with were:
McCain: every time he said "My friend"
Obama: every time he said "aaaaannnnnd"
Both groups would have been schnockered.

Don't even get me started on Palin. She is inciting shouts of "kill him" at rallies and smiling and gee-whizzing the whole way.

Mike's theory is that the Republicans actually don't want to win so they don't have to try to clean up this mess. I think there is some merit to this.

PRIMARY PLEASURES
(is that Obama having a three-way with Sarah and Cindy??)

One thing I love about not working is being able to sleep. I know I will be in trouble when I go back to work but to be able to sleep until 8 or 9 is pretty luxurious. Once in a while even 10! My poor hungry kitty sometimes gives up and curls in with me until I wake up if all his mewings and nose-prods don't do the trick.

Thank heaven I was able to get the unemployment extension! Thank God there was one to get.

SLEEPY HEAD (starring one of my favorite porn star legends Georgina Spelvin)

I lost my job (again) due to budgetary constraints. The people who remain are in for it. Too much work for not enough folks.

Oh well, I wanted to leave anyway. Just was hoping to have something to go to when I did! Ack.

FIRED

I'm in Laguna Beach again - had a road trip. I left last night and stayed at the Harris Ranch, which is not 5-star but I kinda love it there. Drove the rest of the way this morning then stocked up my sis's fridge with some vittles. Now just loading up her 1Tunes with all the new music I have gotten lately and waiting for her to get home from work. About a 30-degree temp difference - my bod wonders what the heck happened.

(Movie review - Dark Knight has some astonishing and wonderful things about it and I loved it but for plot coherence the first one is probably better.)

ROAD QUEEN

I have little to report except that I recently found out that a pretty good friend of mine was a drunk and I had no idea. Being a recovering drunk myself I can usually figure it out, but not this time. She was a secret drunk, like Dick van Dyke. Anyway, she's working things out - more power to her. Except if she has a slip we'll never know, 'cause then she'll REALLY keep it secret. Let's hope she makes it.

Isn't this also a malt liquor? I just thought the cover was cool and kinda Grindhouse.
KING COBRA

Today Mike and Abel got married (again). This time their marriage certificate had the state-approved number on it. It all seemed much more real, less rushed, more lovely. So today, in lieu of porn, I bring you
THE NEWLYWEDS

I have loved perfume since I was a teenager and someone gave me a bottle of Chanel No. 5. I go through phases when it means more to me than at other times, and I'm in one of those phases now. I have discovered ways to get samples of all kinds of exotic, rare scents for very little money and I love it. I dab a little something on my wrist, and relish the way the scent opens, then dries down and changes and changes until it is melded into my skin. Of course, once in a while I get one the blogging perfumistas call a "scrubber" - I have had to use comet to get some of the really bad ones off.

One thing that is changing is that I am not overly concerned as to whether a perfume is marketed to men or women. It seems to be a pretty common thing for people really into perfume to not care about that, and I am finding that if I love the smell of a perfume, I don't care if it is pour homme or pour elle, only if it is pour moi.

THE SCENT OF PASSION

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It got hot all of a sudden up here, with that hot breeze that is so exhilarating. Buster is all stretched out with his catnip banana in his mouth. Two days ago it was still chilly enough to wear a sweater in the work garage, today we are happy that it is cool. I am thinking global warming really just means extremes. Maybe in a few years California will start having seasons.

BEAT THE HEAT

My job has become more hellish than ever. I and last week I seriously discovered that there is NO

PLEASING THE BOSS

Short one today - so busy...
I started yoga this week (DVD only - not ready for the classroom humiliation scenario) and also have an interview this week.

Fortuitous porn.

YOGA SEX INTERVIEW (not sure what the pool table has to do with yoga)

I went to see a really fun band last weekend. My Mom's partner Lisa plays guitar and other things like banjo and joins this band for some gigs. They are called Dr. Dee's Neo Vintage New Orleans Project. Lotsa fun! Great horn players all around and really everyone is great. My Mom was dancing with a frilly parasol that comes out during "Saints" (it was her birthday - it's allowed). They will be at Bistro Yoffi on May 31st, rumor has it. Check 'em out.

DEBBIE DOES NEW ORLEANS (she gets around, that Debbie)

My sister got tickets to American Idol on this weeks' Dolly Parton night. She flirted with the cutest Idol, Michael Johns, totally flirted with Simon Cowell...

She's a ho.

(and yes, I'm just jealous)

ANAL IDOLS

Absolutely nothing to report. Watching American Idol is about it.

DESPERATE POPSTARS

Project Runway is over (whah) and a new Top Chef has begun (yay!). I love watching those people cook but I want them to invent at least smell-o-vision if not taste-o-vision. Usually. Sometimes the food sounds pretty rank, like things made with sweetbreads and undercooked whatnots. This season features another Molecular Gastronomist, which I love.

I met a man who works for the restaurant Lulu (and Lulu Petite in teh Ferry Building), and his office sits between the room they make the Meyer Lemon preserves and the room where they make chocolate treats. Pretty awesome aromas to get trapped between, yes?

I tend to cook more when Top Chef is on. Wonder what I'll make this season?

HUMAN BUFFET II
(for some reason I find this cover art very disturbing, like this is really a snuff movie or something)

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

VALENTINE VIXENS

I have a job that is so un-private I cna;t check my email much less look for porn titles. Sorry I tend to be late.

Anyway, yesterday I ate some of the mystical, mysterious fruit called Durian. "The King of Fruits". You may have seen one: about the size of a football, covered in spikes, usually in a net bag. You probably wondered WTF?, wandered close enough to maybe smell it, and backed away slowly with your nose wrinkled in distaste. I had always heard that Durian was one of those things that was a paradise buried deep within a hell, and had been curious about it.

My boss brought one in to work and we cracked it open in the back yard. The spiked shell is actually a multi-part pod, and inside each pod is a blob of stuff that kind of looks like an alien larva. The whole thing looks alien, truth be told. The pulp of the fruit is a creamy color with the consistency of a thick pudding, or maybe a partly roasted marshmallow. There are big seeds snuggled within. It's very weird stuff.

It tastes like a savory dish made with a not-very-sweet tropical fruit. It doesn't taste at all like fruit. It tastes pretty good, really, and I can see the appeal. It is very exotic, and my mouth knew it had never had anything like it before. Completely new.

However, there is a down side. The smell has been compared to rotting corpses. It smells like a pool of gasoline in a swamp. That is the taste left in your mouth and on your hands for hours after. My biggest surprise was when I peed and IT smelled like that. I had two sizable bites, okay? And all that happened. I stopped at two bites in case it made my lips swell up or anything, but some of my more Durian-experienced coworkers gorged themselves.

I love a new experience.

TASTE THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT

I had a really nice vaca down in Claremont with my stepmom and sister. We played a LOT of Scrabble. I managed to use all my letters spelling quicken and got 110 points, which is my usual average for the whole game. I kinda suck. One of my co-players used all her letters on a move that I thought TNSC devotees would get a kick out of (check the bottom of the board):



We saw a lot of movies. My sister contributed to the "fantasy porn title" pool by renaming Atonement "Abonement". We also saw Sweeney Todd and Juno. I can recommend them all for different reasons.

My sister and I also became enormous Josh Groban fans. much to the dismay and horror of all our friends (guilty pleasures are supposed to horrify your friends, no?). Anyway, watch THIS and get back to me.

I came back to kind of being fired, but he keeps changing his mind so I am just taking it day by day. Evs.

MONEY PLEASURE

95%ALCOHOLIC

Ultrasound diagnostic

How can I still be an ALCOHOLIC after 21 years of no booze?? My own brain scares me sometimes. A fair amount of those questions were about things not around when I was a practicing lush, like mojitos and cosmos.

I have a real post but it will have to wait till next week-ish.