Clay Aiken you can't touch me either

And not because you're gay. You're just creepy, and rubbery looking. Now that I think about it, Kelly Ripa is also creepy and rubbery looking. Hmmm.

I have to say going into this holiday that I'm most thankful for celebrity news. It's been a good few days, what with the TomKat wedding, the Kelly Ripa/Clay Aiken and now Rosie O'Donnell controversy, the Britney-KFed split, the O.J. book/interview, and the Kramer outburst. I'm going to have TONS to talk about Thursday at dinner. There will be no reason whatsoever to engage in any real, meaningful conversation with family and friends.

I'm shipping off tomorrow morning for the swamp in which I grew up. I wish everyone in the blogosphere a happy and healthy turkey day!

My Christmas List

This is what I want for Xmas.

1. A maid
2. An additional (virtual) liver that I can tap into remotely
3. A personal stylist
4. An eating disorder
5. A trust fund
6. Keys to my dream house on the corner of Lexington and Ada
7. 20/20 vision
8. Patrick Fitzgerald
9. Smaller feet
10.To know what was under the ENORMOUS black rectangle that was covering Sascha Baron Cohen's privates in Borat.

Did I break the Google?

I've never seen this message before:

The holidays are here, and I think I might be ok

I have a reputation at work for being anti-holiday. We have some new folks here who are asking about holiday parties and gift exchanges, and a coworker who's been around for a while said, "Why you asking her? She's a SCROOGE!"

Nice.

Sure last year I wrote things on this blog like "I feel like there's a big fat Santa sitting on my chest, jamming candy canes in my eyes," and I also told my subordinates to plan whatever they wanted for a party, tell me who I have to buy for, and I'll show up but want no part of any holiday hullabaloo that lasts for five or six freaking weeks. Was I wrong? I don't think so. The baby Jesus is way too humble to have anyone fawning all over him for more than five days, I say.

So today, I tried to conjure up some anti-holiday acrimony when a newbie brought up Christmas. In spite of myself I started suggesting things like office potlucks and Secret Santas. And when I got an envelope this week in the mail from my sister-in-law containing new school pictures of my nephew and neice Zach Tee and Kaylla Tee, with a note that read: Here's some new pics, hope they aren't bent to shit, see you at Thanksgiving."

I smiled, and thought yes, zany family. I will see you at Thanksgiving.

So it's true then

I held my own Iraq study group over the weekend. It was just me, and I held it on my couch yesterday, hungover, watching the McLaughlin Group. The study group lasted from approximately 12:22 to 12:27 CST. I poured over zero documents, interviewed zero military experts, and spent zero tax dollars and have come to following conclusion:

This country is run by a bunch of boobs and weinies. The biggest boob--President Bush--and his friends decided (before 9/11, which we knew then) that Saddam had to go to make way for a Baghdad Barnes and Noble and Wal-Mart, a.ka. democracy. Boob and the other boobs thought it would be like really easy. Maybe a month or so of shock and awe, and everyone back to Crawford for some quail hunting and keg stands. The Democratic weinies in Congress, paralyzed with the fear that the pro-war boobs would call them babies, back a war they knew was wrong. They would later lie and say they believed the lies Bush told them. No one really believed the stories about WMD though, it just kind of made people feel better about what they were doing. So how can a bunch of boobs and weinies clean up this mess?

I don't know. That's when my Iraq study group went back to bed. I have a feeling the real Iraq study group won't fare much better.

I do have to say I'm a little disappointed that Rumsfeld is gone. After he chastised Pentagon reporters a few weeks back, telling them to "relax" in the face of their questioning, I wanted to create T-shirts that say "RUMMY SAY RELAX!"

But I never got around to it, and now it's too late.

Thank you notes

My coworker, a newlywed, is plowing through a list of thank-you's she has to write and uses our Metra commute to hammer out a few each day.

Thank you notes are important, of course. Not acknowledging a gift or a kindness is terrible indeed. But I must admit there are plenty of notes I've should have written over the years, and I'd like to use my blog today to try and catch up.

April 4, 1981

Dear President Reagan:

Thank you so much for giving my family government cheese. It doesn't melt very good like Velveeta though. I'll just pretend it is I guess.

Signed,
Angie Tee, age 9

P.S. Why does my grandma hate you so much?


November 11, 1983

Dear Aunts and Uncles:

Thank you for being complete losers. Everytime I see you do drugs, or have more children, or I visit your gross houses, you remind me that 18 can't come soon enough.

Good luck and all that,

Your niece,
Angie

P.S. Where's my #@$% baby sitting money!!!!

April 10, 1985

Dear Boy I first kissed:

Thank you for sticking your Dorito-encrusted tongue in my mouth. Let's not try the hickey again though. OK? I had the imprint of your braces on my neck and Peggy said she was going to tell my mom when we were in Social Studies.

xoxo
Angie


October 1990

Dear Boy I first yada-yada'd:

Thank you setting the bar really low. I especially like how you sweat so much during sex it drips into my eyes sometimes. I can't understand why women would sleep around. What, are they worried that they'll be relegated to a life of mediocre sex if they swing at the first pitch?

Curious, huh?

Love,
Angie

I got your mandate, right here!

Ahhhh, to be a fly on the wall in the White House this morning. But I will not gloat, because I feel their pain.

Twelve years ago I was in Oklahoma City watching the Democrats lose Congress. That damned Bill Clinton was up to no good at the time. What with him trying to reform health care, passing a crime bill that banned cop killer bullets and creating something called community policing, the entire nation was up for grabs. The GOP's three pronged strategy of God, Gays, and Guns had finally taken hold. It was a horrific evening.

The candidate I was working for had lost his shirt big time in a Senate race, and I remember standing aghast in front of the TV watching what was happening across the country. A hot shot DC political consultant was standing behind me.

"Oh. My. Fucking. God," he said almost as if he was watching a mushroom cloud explode before him. He saw my face and tried to console me. "Don't worry, we'll get it back soon."

Soon? Well anyway, they got it back, and they better not piss me off.

Or I'm going to have to start my own party. And I'm taking all you people with me.

Fun with my phone

I always vote for the guy who manages to get the most signs up the night before the election. Here's the corner of 18th and Blue Island at 7:30 a.m. today.



And from a distance (and from behind my glasses that are now too weak) these abandoned cowboy boots kind of looked like a pair of severed legs on the sidewalk.

Do you guys think it's like an omen? Like, "she who sees the abandoned cowboy boots will become thrice blessed with riches"? Once when I saw a one-legged pigeon, I wondered the same thing.

Good luck tomorrow!

Maybe if we hold our noses with one hand, and pull the lever with the other?

Vote early and vote often!

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Why on earth do you read this blog?

I'm lame enough to think you're  funny I'm worried that you might write about what happenend on Halloween I want to keep tabs on my ex-girlfriend and/or current wife I hate my job and have nothing else to do I'm stalking you I'm Patrick Fitzgerald and I love you too

I'm a bad blog mother

If this blog was a newborn infant, it would be wrapped in a hefty bag, blue, with its umbilical cord still attached, hanging on for dear life in a dumpster. I've been ignoring my blog the way Madonna ignores little Rocco and Lourdes. It's just plain wrong. I'm turning over a new leaf, I swear. I'm going to up in your respective kool-aid at least 3 to 4 times a week from here on out. No DCFS case worker will be knocking on my door.

Here's a little lunch time sumpin sumpin.

I've got a sketch (btw, I've been posting them to right--check them out) planned for my Monday night class--one that utilizes something called "clash of context." When our teacher tried to explain it to us, we acted like we all ride the short bus. She seriously was getting frustrated and let us out early.

Anyway, so here's what I'm thinking. Laura Bush and Condi Rice are hanging out like a couple of girlfriends, drinking, chatting, watching Extra! It comes out that Laura didn't vote for Dubya. And I want Condi to be uber-ghetto and over the top, so I asked my coworker who teaches me all the inside lingo. And this is what I got:

Man Up: step up to the plate, be a man, etc.
Don't get cut: literally--dont' get stabbed, etc., figuratively--don't get a verbal lashing
Pour the tea: get the business done
Don't get a beat down (also heading for, or looking for a beat down)- Don't get your ass kicked.
Talk to the hand: I already knew that one
Get your end up: Get off your ass

It should be a good one.