So three planets and a moon are coming out tonight, you should probably look at them.  I’m looking at them at 7 o’clock, and that’s West Coast time.  In case you want to look with me. 

It’s the last day of 2008, you likely know that, and I’m not writing one other thing until next year.  Maybe one, but no more than one, I mean it. 

I haven’t sent you my Christmas letter, I don’t know what gets into me.  I didn’t plan a big dinner for you tonight, either.  I will, though, soon. 

There’s an Adam Kirsch biography out on Benjamin Disraeli.  I’m not going to read it, I’m too busy.   And you can read it, or not, I don’t care either way.  He was an English writer and politician, 1800s, it’s not important.  What is important is that he wrote the words you’ll see first in my book.  Well, after title and all that, and my name … some copyright stuff blah blah. 

The line, I copied it down years ago, was the whole inspiration.  Almost the whole inspiration, there’s a Chekhov line, too, about routine but it won’t make final cut.  Here’s Disraeli:

“It destroys one’s nerves to be amiable every day to the same person.”

Hm.  All that buildup and now that I look at it, it’s not that big a deal.  

So back to dinners — yes, my good winemaking friend, let’s have one very soon!  Ammo Lucca up, and pick a date.

Here is something Jr. just said to me.  Word for word. 

“On my Marionette Bakugan card, if i get an Aquos Bakugan and I play him, before I roll him I can play the Marionette card and if there are two cards in the field and there’s one Bakugan on one of the cards … well, let’s say one of the Bakugan is a 650g power Bakugan.  I would move him to the other card, the one I’m not rolling to, so that I won’t lose.  But if it’s a weak Bakugan, I’d move it to the card I’m rolling to, so that I’ll win.  I can choose who I battle if there are two cards in the field and there’s a Bakugan on one of the cards.”

I think he’ll be president.

I want to be lovesick, today, I think it’s the rain.  It’s the sun, too, the weather, today, is messing with me and I’m writing a love story and I want to feel lovesick.  It’s a wonderful word, I want its affliction.  Scruffy, I think, is lovesick for me.  We’ve been inside too long, I know. 

I’m writing an unconventional love story and thinking of love stories and hate that I can’t remember the best ones, what’s the best love story?  Rick and Ilsa, the Divers, Anna and Vronsky, Hillary and Bill?  Is it the Wheelers, in their awfully tragic sort of way, is there a love story there, between April and Frank and will the movie, dammit, ever come here to Mac?   

Anyway, send them here, if you have love stories.  I want them right now.   

In other news, there’s a rumor about a column that I can’t seem to confirm, but I want you to know, Oregonian, that you should ask me to write it.  I’d be fabulous, you’d never look back.  I am full of charm and responsibly met deadlines and if you ask me to write your column (you know which one I mean) I’ll bake you cookies and drive them all the way in.  I’ll write it free for two years, until you’re so smitten with me you’ll buy me a jet.  You know where I am, I’m right here, you know how to find me, call me.  Call me, I’ll do it!  If you don’t hire me, you’ll regret it.  Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the REST OF YOUR LIFE!  (Seriously.  Call me.)

There is rain outside, rain is raining down.  The pool is going to overflow in 30 seconds and we’re going to be washed away.  I need things that float.  It has never rained this hard anywhere else in the world, at any time, since the world began. 

I hope it won’t hurt my router, I got a new router.  It’s pretty.  There’s a giant blinking blue light in the middle that makes me think we’re in a space ship, except for the rain, the rain gives it away.  It’s not the one you told me to get, M., though I did have G. memorize that one and repeat it three thousand times on the way to the store.  It’s close to that, but it has different numbers.  And I get internet now — hey, are you out there somewhere Liz?  I get internet in the front of the house.  So I can work there and duck when the churches come and scream when the bluebirds fly in and record it all realtime, for you.  Online!

It’s been years since anyone’s left the house.  Send help. 

Well this is troubling.  I planned to write a little something about weather which was to incorporate Henry Darger, a crazy man who famously kept a ten-year diary of the weather (which I have parts of somewhere) but then I saw that Henry Darger, who I thought was my own little semi-secret, is part of that brilliant encapsulation of genius called “Influence“ brought to us by the Olsen twins.  So that ruined Darger.

And the weather I guess is still here, we still have it, we’ll always have weather … it’s just been ruined for me, for today.  I remembered a line, from a book, it’s this — “all we ever talked about was food and the weather.”  It got me thinking of what we talk about when we talk about weather … but now I don’t care.  It happened fast.

The line, by the way, do you like it?  It’s mine, it’s from my book, and I realize that in my book I don’t talk nearly enough about the weather.  Weather changes everything.  I’m going to go and add in some weather.  I’ve been reading the horror stories of Richard Yates, the past couple days.  Easter Parade, in particular, the most depressing story to have ever been wrote.  And later, I’m going to print out my Christmas letter, for you, and if I don’t have your address I’ll call you and then I’ll send it.  You don’t believe me, I know.  I’m skeptical myself. 

[Man in Santa Suit Slays at Least 5 at Holiday Party]

This is in LA, I bet it’s because they don’t have snow.  Sunny Christmases make people mad, I bet there’s a study.  It makes me fear, briefly, for Todd and C., sunning themselves silly in Florida.  Todd and C., stay away from Santas, that’s all I’m saying.

There was kirsch-less fondue last night, we survived it.  Later today we’ll have standing rib roast and one or two trimmings.  Nothing creative, I’m copying this.

I think, in honor of Fitzgerald, who would be drunk today by now – (I don’t know what the hell’s taking the rest of us so long) — you and I should proceed immediately to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, it’s at a Regal near you.  Get a large popcorn, I’ll split it with you.

Merry / Happy / Lovely Christmas everyone, whether you’re into that sort of thing or not.

It’s day 3,074, I think, of snow and it’s bad.  Our bushes broke.  We have tall bushes, they hide the neighbors, and they look broke.  Not short of cash broke, but beaten and broken down, broke.  Like me, like I am right now, this morning, after 3,704 days of snow. 

If I lost a year for every hour of Mario Kart played in our house, by the way, I wouldn’t be born yet.  I might never be born, do the math.

Everything’s wet and cold and the hamster’s still dead in the garage.  I say that because I had a nightmare last night, that it got out.  Oh I didn’t tell you about the hamster.  Did I.  Uh, so remember Tedsy?  And remember how the last time I mentioned him was like two weeks after we got him?  Yeah, so … well next time I’ll know, to make sure the hamster’s not fatter than the little tube he likes to crawl up. 

I’m using A.s computer because mine, that I hate, is being hateful.  Again.  I tried being nice to it, that didn’t work, so I’m very openly hating it, it knows.  We’re all unraveling a bit.  I think I’ll watch Fargo tonight for behavioral examples of life in snow. 

By the way, the last time I watched Fargo there was snow and Anna was there, and I had just wrecked my car.   I could be wrong. 

Oh yeah, here’s some stuff I forgot about:

Did you know that Very Tall Vet has a guy who comes in with cats who he doesn’t like to touch?  Yes, it’s true and I am not allowed to say his name OR mention his partner “Bob.”  Just know they have cats and they weird Very Tall Vet out, not necessarily because of the cats.

Also, the Very Tall Vets have EVERYTHING in their car, everything, if you run out of stuff at a party, or need speakers.

Someone left their gloves, S. showed us the bare skin below her back, Annette and I did or did not get to the bathroom … did we?  Yes, we did, we were technically in range of bathroom facilities when we stood in the kitchen in the other small house.

Oh dammit.  I know a bunch of you did a bunch of other things, I know Jerod thinks I’m cute because his wife told me, thanks Jerod!  I know Mr. Johnson is thoroughly charming, as is his wife, I know that Jay’s back probably still hurts, I know that Jennifer and I are having a balloon party — soon — and that all of us have lovely kids.  I know that Ms. Cook’s fun-filled birthday is on Wednesday.

I learned to steer way clear if Ryan’s going to tackle, I learned that deer eat apples and I gave them some and I hope the one with the limp is okay.  (I’m bringing him over to your house, Very Tall Vet!)

M-III has not read me for a month so let’s just say I know nothing about him.  Except that his daughter taught his wife to make a cosmo, or something, and his wife gave me a card and he should bring all of them back here today.

We’re all of us home today with snow and headaches, and I bet I have the most alcohol.  Come drink it.  I mean it.   Be here by 2:00.

Oh, and a BUNCH of people needed BAND-aids!  But no one shot their eye out. 

There’s more snow, everything is closed, no one can go anywhere no one can even get out of bed.  Well, maybe that’s me, the bed part.  I planned to, but it’s snowing and Absence of Malice is on and I’ve never seen it and I think there should be a law, by the way, that if it snows and you can’t go anywhere you have to spend at least an hour with Paul Newman.  I think this should be much more urgent than gun control.

Which we talked about yesterday – gun control, not Newman — at my Holiday party which you made it to if you owned a truck, or in L. and S.’s case, tricked-out vans.  And which you didn’t make it to if you didn’t have one of those two — a truck or a van. 

So Absence of Malice, then, and when it’s over, I might walk in the snow.   There will be no presents for children this year, I just realized … unless something drastic happens right now, like something opens and the driveway clears.  Oh my … Paul Newman just held Sally Field’s hand, I heart them.  No, I only heart him, and now they kissed, I have to go.  Just like Michael Gallagher said.  He left at 5:30 in the morning and he said, “I have to go.” 

Come over if you want, I’ll be here all week.

I hate someone’s boss.   I think he has the heart of a dark forest.  But a friend of mine insists it’s a woman with the heart of a forest, so I’ll stick with that. 

The snow’s back, I spoke too soon.  Slush is nowhere in sight.  Drew Carney was shy to talk to the truck drivers this morning, I love that.

Today’s confusing me, my thoughts are disordered.  There’s no coffee, that’s part of it.  Deep Throat died, I’d no idea he was 95. 

I’m feeling existential today, I don’t even care about my Status on Facebook.  What’s the point, let it die. 

Civilized people should not be expected to begin the day sans coffee, that’s all it is.