I’m usually all about doing the holiday blog posts and leaving nice cozy Christmas Eve messages as if I’m Joan Crawford in a velvet dressing gown addressing radio listeners from her home, but this year I was busy up to the last minute, I guess.

I went dancing with a couple of friends on Christmas Eve. That was fun, and I don’t know why more Christmas traditions don’t involve go-go dancers. The dancing lady at the nightclub last week was very tiny (elfin, even) and one of her costumes was this sort of drapey, dramatic caftan thing with a sheer veil. I guess it could be a Nativity costume, if you went to Dirty Church. Anyway, I’m glad I had something different to do this year.

I also got a real tree this year, for just the second time in my life. I’m not sure if I’m going to continue to get these real trees every year; I get kind of unnverved by them. I’m used to a fake tree that does absolutely nothing under normal circumstances, so to have a tree that lets ornaments fall and dramatically relieves itself of needles at random, passive-aggressive intervals is getting on my nerves a little bit. It’s like living with a performance artist. I’ll be sitting there at my desk and I can hear the tree clearing its throat, wanting me to look over and see it do something stupid.

It’s still kind of pretty, though.

Princess Leia sings the Life Day Song powered by audblog.

I saw the Star Wars Holiday Special last night for the second time in my life. The first time was in 1978, when I was seven years old. My brother and I were watching it on the black-and-white TV my parents kept in the spare bedroom, so I guess my parents were watching something else on the TV downstairs. Something that didn’t suck big bantha balls.

At the time my brother and I were profoundly into all things Star Wars. We had the 45 single to Disco Star Wars Theme and I would nearly pee myself during the part where they’d do the Space Creature Cantina interlude. But after about the first ten minutes of the TV special, I was fidgety and slightly freaked out, because I guess my kid intuition was telling me that Star Wars People (and that included Wookiees) weren’t supposed to be on TV with Bea Arthur. We stopped paying attention to the TV and played board games.

And then at one point I remember looking up and thinking: “Um, Princess Leia is singing.” And that really was not right.

So I did a guest entry for my friend Sour Bob today. Or rather, for my friend The Guy Who Writes Sour Bob, since the entry is about making those kinds of distinctions.

I usually don’t have to think about that stuff here; I never set out to make Wendy Online anything other than a fairly close approximation of Wendy Live, but of course you know I’m going to leave stuff out, right? There are things you don’t know about me. Like you don’t know which Sanrio character I am. I bet you think it’s Batz Maru, but really, the truth would be too much for this blog.

Also, I hope you all understand that I’ve chosen to keep the matter of which Harry Potter candy I am private. I don’t want to piss readers who might be Chocolate Frogs, and moreover I’d like to avoid the total shitstorm of criticism I got when I revealed that I was the Kevin Smith movie Clerks. And I totally appreciate your concern over whether I’m ketchup or mayonnaise, but, well, I guess I’d like to deal with these issues on my own. Thanks.

On Monday I finally got to meet Debbie, my editor at BUST, when she was in town to promote her knitting book. She was very cool and funny. And okay, she didn’t read from the book, because, well, that would be weird, but she showed off a bunch of projects. The kids these days, they can knit anything: cell phone cozies, panties, cute drug paraphernalia. It was amazing.

Okay, I am not a knitter. I mean, I have never knitted. At the bookstore on Monday I was the one furtively tucking her Target scarf down into her coat where nobody could see it. But then I wound up buying the book. I don’t think Debbie would have minded either way but… yeah, I think I might try this knitting stuff. I watched the other women sit there with their needles and fingers working away. I’m a fidgety person–or maybe I became one after I quit smoking–so I suppose the busy fingerwork appeals to me. I like to think it’ll be just like how I play with gift wrap bows and rubber bands and plastic fast food beverage lids, except then an adorable hat or scarf will magically appear. Right? That would rock. And then, sometimes I kind of like to chew on stuff, like pens and drinking straws, and I bet the flat ends of some of those knitting needles would be ideal, along with some nice tough yarn. I am so not kidding.

Seriously, though, I’m going to try it sometime. Hilarity may ensue. But then again, maybe not. If I get completely lost I might ask Cinnamon for advice.

The sounds of Women’s Workout World powered by audblog

You know those audblog posts that are showing up on people’s weblogs lately? Apparently Blogger users get a one-post free trial, so last night I got all ambitious and tried recording and posting one. I tried it because, for once, I had a good reason to get all multimedia on you people.

There’s this cat. Or kitten, I guess: it sounds like a kitten. I’ve never seen it. It lives across the hall in the apartment of a new neighbor I don’t think I’ve met yet. I think this cat is an even newer neighbor, because evidently it hasn’t gotten the hang of apartment living. A few nights ago I started to hear it next door crying and crying. I went out in the hallway and stared at the neighbor’s door. I could tell it was right there on the other side, mewling and yipping and channelling the despair of the entire universe. My heart wrung its hands and crawled into a fetal position and I think also my ovaries got all confused and started buzzing with some kind of displaced mommy instinct. “Kitty,” I called. “It’s okay.” “Fuck that shit,” it meowed back. “God is dead.”

Since then, whenever I hear the yowling, I check to see if the neighbor’s been home–there are signs that he or she has–and furthermore I can hear the TV or radio in the apartment sometimes, which means either someone’s home or is trying to provide comforting backround noise for Drama Kitty. So I think it’s under control. Still, I guess I must come home before the neighbor does, because the sound of me coming up the stairs seems to be the cue for another episode of Existential Cat Theatre, and I can hear it even after I’ve gone inside.

Anyway, I thought I’d share that with you through the magic of Audblog. I’d sign up and then step over to my neighbor’s door with my cordless phone and let kitty do the talking. So I tried. Like I recorded and re-recorded. I sat on the floor and held the phone near the crack beneath the door. The cat yowled pitifully enough times and then some, but then there were also some uncharacteristic silences where I think it knew I was up to something. After several tries I finally decided to post the damn thing and see how the mp3 sounded.

Please explain to me why this cat’s voice can carry all the way into the living room of my apartment, even when I have the TV on, but then almost doesn’t register at all in an audio recording made a few inches from the source. I’m sure there’s a scientific reason.

The audblog post pretty much consists of an uncomfortable silence with only a few little squeaks that you can barely hear over the hum of your monitor. I cranked up the volume and listened to it as well as I could over the sound of the cat still meowing in real time. It’s not good.

(Note: just now I realized I still have the link in my cache. I might as well post it, I guess)

audio post powered by audblog

Yeah. I don’t know if you can even hear it. Sorry. If I ever get the chance again I’ll recite a dirty limerick.

If it helps, I posted something on Michael’s blog this morning. Go there, too.