kerouac says

this band covers a song my mom used to sing at girl scout camp. if you are a seattle or a san francisco reader, they're coming to your town soon. it's fitting music to stay inside and be warm to.

images later, and possibly also a blessedly short home movie, but for now, this: my grandmother, whose confusion surreptitiously approaches senility more and more often these days, came to my house for christmas dinner. it was quite a group: me, the monkey, my squabbling parents, my ex-nun aunt whom my father can't stand, her unmarried daughter with her five year old son. there was a dog, too, whom everyone unfeelingly made wait in the car.

"it's sort of like having grandpa Simpson at the table," the monkey said of my grandmother. i watched her switch her one finger of liberally watered bourbon for my father's alarmingly full glass while he was out of the room. she winked at me, and i wouldn't have given her away except for my worry that too much juice would make her sick. the one finger may have loosened her tongue, though, because before long she was interrupting conversations at will with random anecdotes. "do you remember the time i had the bananas?" she announced in my direction once. and, truly, i did not remember. later, someone mentioned the name cecelia, which is the name of her nursing home roommate. cecelia is japanese, and because of this my grandmother believes there is a language barrier separating them (so far as i can see, this is not the case) and that she is very, very shy (also not the case; she smiles and waves at me every time i visit). she also believes, varyingly, that she has to take special sisterly care to look out for cecelia and that cecelia is stealing her hairbrushes.

anyway. someone mentions the name, and my grandmother lights up and winds up to tell a story: "at the nursing home, that chinaman . . ." and then, she falls silent. it seems that she's aware she's said something inappropriate. so she bates:

" . . . i mean, chinaperson."

it is here, the day when i fly home. i could not be happier. i'd never wish the monkey's disjointed, unaffectionate, weird family on anyone, but it does make it nice that we never have to share the holidays. this is his first full-on louella-fam christmas. mass included, although i told him he didn't have to go. but he is.

i'm a little magicked out. i can't wait to be home. it's not exactly the hippest thing ever, but i love my parents, and i love my hometown, and i love christmas eve mass, for reasons i can't quite comprehend, since i am so long lapsed i'm sure i fell off the edge. i'm crazy for this week to happen. it's small proof of good things. honestly, the best things ever.

here's something: it's fifteen degrees out here. i couldn't even get to the train without my ears in grave burning pain. my face was like to break off.

people are endlessly complaining about the rain in seattle, but at least the weather there very rarely makes you hurt. i can't imagine what the homeless people are doing right now.

it's the subway's 100th anniversary this year, and there are some old vintage trains running. we saw one in the 49th street station yesterday, and the monkey took my photo.

we saw mary-louise parker in a craig lucas play last night. it was so good that i started crying unexpectedly when i stood up for the ovation. it was sort of beyond good, this play, this performance. it was sort of incredible. it sort of made me wonder why i ever thought i wanted to do anything else.

my boss came back from china a month ago full of reports about various cultural differences and one big toilet difference. at the hotel where he stayed, which was not particularly tony, there was this magic toilet that would shoot jets of warmed water and puffs of clean warm air onto your bum. he kept talking about it. and then he ordered one.

actually, he ordered two. one for home, and one for the office. he took a break from the maddening christmas rush around here to install it, and i swear i've never seen the man so happy. it's actually a special toilet seat that gets installed on a regular crapper, with jets for air and water and some sort of heater. there's a wireless remote that controls the air and water. it looks sort of like an oldschool nintendo controller, but with a giant orange button on one side that looks like it launches some cruise missiles. there's a sticker on the toilet seat lid that said, "zoe: the washlet." we were all sent into the bathroom one by one to try out the washlet. i had to admit it was an invigorating experience, although i'm not sure what any of the controls do except for the big orange button.

small perks. i'd rather have dental, but the washlet is better than nothing.

someone has made a graffito in the elevator at work.


it is probably supposed to be a penis-and-balls set, but it looks exactly like a tremendously eager worm winning a wheelchair race.

something i love about my parents: they have no idea how easy it is to find things. google is a mystery to them. they go to amazon only when they need one specific book title, and never when they need a toaster or a pair of jeans. they are scared of ebay. my mom sent me an email today, telling me about an old movie my dad has wanted a copy of for years. apparently he's been mentioning it again, and she thought that if a copy could be found anywhere, perhaps the flea markets of new york were the answer(s?).

it's listed on amazon for twelve bucks.

also? i have a very high pain threshold. it's true. (my hair was naturally red until i was thirteen, you losers.)

it's been colorful. yesterday on the train back from the movie, the monkey put a banana peel in his nose hole and i laughed harder than i have in a long time. i was telling him that when we started dating i knew he was a funny guy, but i didn't know he was the exact kind of funny that makes me lose my breath and grab my pancreas. later, at home, we did the kind of laughing that seems to only happen in the bathroom, and--like i usually do--i fell into the bathtub in my glee and had to lie there for a while, sniffling with my giggles.

i'm trying to write fancifully about something to do with feeeeelings, and no matter how many fairies and cans of motor oil i try to stir into it, it still comes out literal. someone i love is saying things that hurt. i think it's selfish, and i think it sucks, but i also understand the value of selfish, and so maybe it only sucks if you're me, and if you're the other person, it's hard-but-necessary. for the record, it still sucks. also for the record, being hurt occasionally makes me want to fly into my attacker's face with butter knife brandished, yelling:

your life would suck with out me! you know it would! it would suck so much!

i have never before worked a job that got insaneish at the holidays. work is allowing no time for reflection and blogging--actually, it isn't even allowing much time for peeing. i am meeting the monkey for an old fashioned date tonight; a movie, then a glass of wine at one of the west village's more discriminating open mike nights. we stumbled into this place on our way to eat the taste last week, and it was so sweet and humble that we swore we'd go back. and i'm really looking forward to it, because if i have to say "have you ordered from us before?" or, "i'm sorry, we're sold out of the disappearing civi1 liberties mugs until after the holidays one more time, i'm going to barf on my keyboard.