Art causes problems. You know, like, for a change.

The chocolate Jesus (also known as a conceptual sculpture by Cosimo Cavallaro entitled “My Sweet Lord”) is causing quite a stir amongst… well, you know, the kind of people who get upset about this sort of thing. I caught it this morning on Good Day New York, where they were discussing the controversy in typical fashion, which is to say that they assembled a group of women in a beauty salon and then asked them what they thought about this creamy, calorie-laden Christ. (One woman responded, “Well, I mean, what kind of chocolate is it? White chocolate?”, as though the true source of disgruntlement lay not in the fact that somebody had made a Jesus out of chocolate, but that the chocolate might be the wrong color.) You can also read about it on ArtInfo.

The general, offended public seems to divide itself into two distinct groups. Group number one finds the Chocolate Jesus offensive because it’s sacreligious. I don’t know anything about that (does the Bible contain a line specifically addressing this, such as, “Thou shalt not forge a Cocoa Christ”? Or does it count as “worshipping a false idol”, even though this is a chocolate representation of the real one?) but I do know that art, even the works that really tread on the toes of the faithful, is protected by the first amendment.

And then there’s group number two, who find the Chocolate Jesus offensive because it has a penis. And to group number two, I say, go walk around the Greek sculpture wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art until your milquetoast heart ceases to beat, because art imitates life, and in life, sometimes, there’s a penis. And only in the luckiest of circumstances is the penis made of chocolate. But I digress.

Anyway, in spite of all the arguments in favor of letting the Chocolate Jesus stick around until Easter (my favorite being, “But it’s delicious!”), the Man on the Street interviews on this morning’s news segment all featured uniformly angry people expressing their fury at the sculpture and saying things like, “This is an outrage!”

Well. The Chocolate Jesus could be upsetting, I guess – I mean, upsetting to people who feel that a large piece of candy is a direct threat to their personal relationship with God – but before we call it “an outrage”, maybe we should take a quick look at what else is going on in the world today:

Hmm, lots of outrage today. Outrage all across the spectrum: 52 people dead in Afghanistan, a middle school teacher molesting children, a love triangle murder, some ten year-olds who nearly beat a homeless man to death, and… Chocolate Jesus.

If Jesus were around today, I wonder which one of these things he’d be upset about.

Leigh Lezark, Ruiner of Life

Even though astronauts have gotten some bad press lately, I think we can all agree that they’re a smart bunch. Right? I mean, if you were to have, oh, I don’t know, a blog or something, and you were starting to wonder if it was really any good, then having Astronauts read it would be pretty validating, wouldn’t it?

So I nearly peed my pants when, while cruising through sitemeter in search of prime material for another installment of “Dear Googly”, I saw this:

OH MY GOD. Nasa.gov? NASA, dot GOV?! Holy shit! Astronauts! ASTRONAUTS ARE READING MY BLOG! I have ARRIVED!!!

There is nothing quite so fabulous as that feeling, namely, that one is on the verge of establishing a fan-base relationship with a person whose IQ is nearly (ok, more than) double one’s own.

I rode that tidal wave of good feeling for about thirty seconds, but then I noticed that my new astronaut friend had actually come my way via a Google search. Not that there’s anything wrong with an astronaut doing a little Googling – on the contrary, it’s a savvy way of staying well-informed. But I had figured that a googling astronaut would be looking for something… well, out of the ordinary. Something complicated, something science-y, something that incorporated a search term like “what is the terminal velocity of an object in planetary orbit given an x factor of ten gigalometers”. (Or, like, whatever. Leave me alone. This is why I write a stupid blog and leave the astro-naughtiness to other people.)

I had not figured on this:

This is what occupies the nation’s most brilliant scientific and mathematical minds when they are left to their own devices? C’mon, astronauts! You guys should be looking for the secrets of the cosmos, or checking out a new recipe for freeze-dried ice cream, or researching funding for an initiative to launch Ryan Seacrest into space, permanently! You do not have time for piddling, insignificant online shenanigans, and you most certainly have better things to do than google-search a girl whose only discernible talent is to cast a cold, black-bang-obscured eye upon the quotidien lives of others, and who often-as-not is not even wearing any fucking pants. For crying out loud! I am REVOKING your internet privileges until you LEARN TO USE THEM RESPONSIBLY.

The Saga of the Dog, Part III: Ferdinand's Horror

The local, Greenwich Village pet stores are real neighborhood places, each with its own distinctive character and clientele. The one on Washington Street, for instance, carries expensive food and understated accessories, designed to delight entitled dogs with expensive coifs and abandonment issues. The one near Sheridan Square is always populated by urban-cool mix-breeds, puggles and labradoodles accompanied by one or both of their two daddies. And then there’s the one on West 8^th, which, as far as I can tell, is specifically for people who want to dress their dogs like little four-legged tranny hookers.

The pet store on Bleecker Street is understated in comparison— tiny, overflowing floor-to-ceiling with bright-colored toys and treats and things made of indestructible rubber, with a pompous-looking resident cat that glares at you as if to say, “I suppose that a moron like you would buy that sort of dog food,” before slouching off to patrol the aisles. The various biscuits and kibbles and rawhide are crowded together and fill the air with a dry, meaty-smelling dust. And the guy who works there – a sweet man with a bowl cut and a Spanish accent– is happy to both answer questions AND hold your dog while you shop.

All in all, a nice little place. To which I won’t be returning for a long while.

Here’s what happened—a few days ago, I detoured with the dog into this pet store, thinking I’d buy him something to chew on. (Note: When I say “something”, I really mean “something ELSE”, since upwards of $50 has already been spent in the search for an object that the dog prefers to the taste of human flesh, and said search has been largely fruitless, and I am starting to think that too much early chewing on people’s hands and arms has actually turned the dog into a vicious man-eating beast. Like in that movie—the one where Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin are lost in the Alaskan wildnerness and being pursued by a very large bear which ate their friend in a previous scene, and which is now chasing them in order to fill its newly-awakened need for man-meat, and which Anthony Hopkins kills with a pointed stick in a very exciting scene. I think the movie is called “The Edge”, although my dad always calls it “Three Men With A Bear Behind”. Good movie. But I digress.)

“Hallo,” said the man behind the counter.

“Hi,” I said. “I came to get him a chewy thing?

“I can hold heem while you look aroun’,” he said, coming out to take the leash.

I wandered up one aisle and down another, ending up back at the front of the store near the rawhide stuff. I bent over the display.

“I was thinking about rawhide, but the kind covered in meat, y’know?” I said.

“Sure,” said the man.

“Like this,” I said, brandishing a reddish-brown bone stuffed with something soft-looking.

“Thass a good one,” said the man.

“Ok, and let me see…” I walked a couple of paces and then noticed some smaller, but much meatier-looking, chews on a lower shelf. I picked one up. “What’s this?”

“Ees a booly stick,” said the man, blinking a little.

“A what?” I asked, then turned it over. A label around the chew’s middle said Bully Stick. “Oh, ‘bully stick’. I’ve never seen it before, is it good?”

“Ah,” said the man, shifting from one foot to the other, “Ees okay, I guess? The dog, he like it.”

I tapped the chew in my palm, then tried to bend it. It didn’t move. I put an eyeball to it, then sniffed it.

“I’m just trying to figure out if it’ll smell good to him,” I explained to the man, who was looking at me with an odd expression. I put the chew under my nose and inhaled again, then tapped it absentmindedly against my cheek. “What is it, is it made of meat?”

“Ah, yes,” the man said, looking nervous.

“What kind of meat?”

“Ah,” said the man, his voice suddenly dropping, “Ees a… oo… nis.”

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that?”

“A boo… eenis.” The man’s cheeks were flaming red.

“Sorry, what?”

“Ees a bool penis.”

I turned to face him.

“Did you just say, ‘bull penis’?”

“Yes,” said the man, eyeing the chew, which was resting against the corner of my mouth in mid-tap. I looked at him.

“You’re kidding. Bull penis?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” I said, still holding what I now knew to be a dried-out bull wang, “Well. I… huh. I kind of wish I hadn’t just let it touch my face.”

“Me too,” said the man, looking like he really meant it.

***

I said earlier that I wouldn’t be going back to the pet store anytime soon, which is true. Partly it’s out of embarrassment. But mostly, it’s because the dog loves chewing on his bull penis so much that I don’t need to go back. What a relief, huh? He’s not a man-eating beast.

Just, y’know… a bull-fellating one.

Scandal!

It’s irresponsible rumor-mongering time!

Early last week, I came home from work to find Brad and the dog sitting together, watching television.

“Guess what the dog did today?” said Brad, grinning.

“Um… he pooped outside?” I suggested. One thing that nobody mentions about owning a puppy is that you will spend massive, untold amounts of time discussing the dog’s bowel movements—where he pooped, when he pooped, what the consistency of the poop was, and whether he tried to eat it. (The other thing nobody mentions is that you’ll think it’s totally great.)

“No!” said Brad, beaming, “He MET SOMEONE!” and then proceeded to tell me that he’d been outside with the dog, trying to coax him back into the building, when all of a sudden, he was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with an Important Political Figure-- one whose name I will not type here, but it rhymes with General Schmesley Schmark.

According to the story, General Schmesley eyed the dog and then said, “How’s he doin’?”, to which Brad replied, “Ah, he’s alright, General—just needs a little discipline!”, at which point the General nodded in a military sort of way and disappeared into the building.

“What was he doing in your apartment building?” I said.

“I don’t know,” said Brad. “Who cares?”

***

“Have you seen General Schmesley Schmark again?” I asked, a few days later.

Brad gave me a narrow-eyed look.

“No, but – “ (more eye-narrowing) “I think he’s banging someone in this building.”

“What? Why?”

“Well,” said Brad, “First of all, I googled him. And I could only find, like, two pictures of his wife.”

I wasn’t following. “And?” I asked.

“And she didn’t look like a very warm person, if you know what I mean.”

“Ok,” I said, picturing Brad hunched over a computer, google-spying on Schmesley and passing unfounded judgements on his blameless wife, in a sort of modern-day twist on Rear Window. “Is there any other evidence to support your theory?”

“Yes,” said Brad, “Because I saw which apartment he went into, and later on, I was out back with the dog, and I could see that apartment, and all the lights were off.”

“Ok…”

“And then, the next morning, there was food delivered to that apartment from the diner up the street, and,” he said, eyes gleaming with triumph, “it was FOR TWO!”

“Wow,” I said.

So, there you have it. General Schmesley Schmark spent an afternoon last week tangled up in the sweaty, tainted sheets of extramarital lust with an anonymous West Village resident.

Also, my boyfriend needs a hobby.

I'm onto you, Schmesley! You sly dog, you.

Night of the Living Dog

In a recent bid to act like a real, functioning adult, I decided to co-adopt a dog with my boyfriend. I am completely and utterly serious when I tell you that we both thought this was a fabulous idea, in spite of the fact that we do not live together, and therefore that my responsibilities as a co-owner would necessitate my living out of a bag at the boyfriend’s apartment for an indeterminate amount of time and only going home once a week to get clean underwear. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Are you 100% sure about this?

Him: Yeah, are you?

Me: Yes! This is going to be fabulous! Underwear is , like, SO overrated.

I know what you’re thinking, but no, I do not have regrets. I am still… well, 95% sure that this was a fabulous idea. The other, fabulous 5% has been co-opted by sleep deprivation, and also by the sudden exposure to the intricacies of Daily Life With a Man that accompany this sort of pseudo-co-habitation (faux-habitation?). And when I say “intricacies”, I pretty much mean "nose hair".

But, nose hair aside, life is fun and filled with the joys that only dog ownership can bring. Especially when THIS is the dog:

Awwwww, right? Admit it, you said “awwww”.

However, there is one problem that keeps needling at me— in the past 3 weeks, the dog has pretty much doubled in size. And though I know that he cannot logically continue to grow at this pace, it hasn’t stopped me from having nightmares that look something like this:

No, it won't happen. But in the meantime, I'm really missing my usual dreams. Especially the one where my building is on fire, and the entire NYFD Calendar crew shows up to put out the blaze, and none of them are wearing pants.

Let me eat cake

(Alternate title: It’s My Party and I’ll Blog if I Want To)

Today is my 25^th birthday.

Whee!

I realize that this is supposed to be a “significant birthday”—most of my friends are older than me, which means that I spent last year watching many of them become boggled by the whole quarter-of-a-century turning point they’d achieved on their 25^th birthdays. As for me, I’m not really boggled, per se, though I am nursing a hangover following my pre-birthday party last night, at which I drank 2-and-a-half-beers-plus-a-shot, became violently drunk, and viciously murdered a cupcake. (Before you say anything -- no, I cannot hold my liquor; and yes, it really was only 2.5 beers; and yes, that is pretty funny. Ha, ha.)

Still, although I’m not freaking out over having reached the All-Important Age of 25, I have been thinking a lot about birthdays. And I realized that, for the past few years, I have had no frigging clue how I’m supposed to celebrate mine.

The thing is, for the first couple decades of your life, milestone birthdays (and their corresponding celebratory activites) are totally obvious. At 13, for instance, you’re all, “I’m a teenager now! I’m independent and mature! I’m staying up all night with my best friends and eating six bags of Doritos!” At 16, you celebrate your driving aged-ness by skipping school to sit in the DMV office, chewing on a pencil and filling in the answers to difficult questions about automobiles so that you can strut into class at 11am with your freshly-laminated learner’s permit in your pocket.

(*Note: Somebody in the New York State legislature should take a look at the, um, difficulty level on the Learner’s Permit test. Seriously. I swear to God that one the questions was, “What is this?”, followed by a picture of a stop sign, FOLLOWED BY MULTIPLE CHOICES.)

So really, right on up through 21, big birthdays all correspond to important milestones in one’s journey toward adulthood, and those milestones all correspond to easily discerned activity pairings. For instance…

Age: 17
Milestone: NC-17 movies
Suggested celebratory activity: Rent “Showgirls”

Age: 18
Milestone: Porn and cigarettes
Suggested celebratory activity: Jerk off to legally-purchased pornography while smoking legally-purchased cigarettes

Age: 21
Milestone: Alcohol
Suggested celebratory activity: Drink until you throw up on your shoes

But now that I’m 25, I realize that there aren’t any good milestones to look forward to. First of all, there is no remaining legal activity from which I am barred due to my underaged-ness-- I don’t even have to pay those creepy surcharges on rental cars anymore, that’s how fucking old I am. I’ve also noticed that all the “big” birthdays from here on out are decade-based, meaning that I have to wait 10 years to get excited about another one, and furthermore, based on extensive research conducted in the Greeting Cards aisle at Duane Reade, these birthdays are not so much “milestones” as “occasions on which I will be made the butt of horrible jokes about my wrinkles/ fat/ varicose veins/ lack of sex appeal/ impending death”.

So, after much consideration, I have decided not to participate in this hackneyed pseudo-celebration of birthdays. Instead, I’ve discovered that there are, in fact, lots and lots of milestone birthdays (both legal AND biological!) on my horizon (and, hopefully, on yours).

Age: 25
Milestone: Metabolism slows down
Suggested celebratory activity: Eat cake, in fact, eat a cake—eat a whole, entire cake; blame weight gain on Arbitrary And Nefarious Metabolic Slowdown

Age: 26
Milestone: No longer eligible for the military draft
Suggested celebratory activity: Give an 18 year-old a copy of “The Things They Carried”; laugh
Bonus activity: Come out of the closet

Age: 27
Milestone: Fertility decreases (women only, sorry)
Suggested celebratory activity: Have unprotected sex; replace morning panic run to pharmacy for Plan B with more unprotected sex, followed by bacon

Age: 29
Milestone: Bone mass peaks
Suggested celebratory activity: Challenge elderly people to a “falling down” contest; jeer at them when they lose

Age: 30
Milestone: Legal age to hold office in U.S. Senate
Suggested celebratory activity: Announce plans to run for Congress, have massive fundraising party, use money raised to purchase alcohol/cocaine/cheese; blame 21 year-old “campaign manager” for disappearance of funds

Age: 32
Milestone: Peak age for onset of depression
Suggested celebratory activity: Make unreasonable and self-serving demands; if anyone objects, say, “Fine, but don’t be surprised if your unwillingness to accommodate my high-risk status for depression results in my violent and untimely death by my own hand”

Age: 35
Milestone: Eligible to play in “Over-35” sports clubs with other over-35 year-olds
Suggested celebratory activity: High-stick someone’s grandpa

Age: 40
Milestone: Peak age for onset of mid-life crisis
Suggested celebratory activity: Buy a convertible, get hair/breast implants, have sex with 19 year-old food service employee
Bonus activity: Die.

There, that should do it for the next 15 years or so. I am so going to eat cake right now.

Nervous

I think I’m going to get fired.

Not for any good reason. I just have, like a Feeling.

I know I’m not alone in my paranoia. I’ve heard my friends talk about this same thing before, but their worries always centered on having noticed the signs of impending job termination. There is, apparently, some sort of recognizable series of events that immediately precede being called into an office and told to clean out one’s desk. I’ve never been fired before – except once, which doesn’t count because I was 1) a waitress, and 2) seventeen – so I don’t know what the signs are. I guess that there’s a spectrum of pre-firing telltales, from the nuanced (the boss always wears a pink tie the week before he lets someone go) to the obvious (Mary from Accounting grabs you on your way back from the bathroom, punches you in the mouth, and yells, “Smell ya later, SUCKA!”)

None of these things have happened, yet.

Nevertheless, I’m getting nervous. I feel like people are spending a lot of time in offices with their doors closed. I mean, sure, they could be aving a conversation like this:

Person 1: Let’s talk about those TPS reports.
Person 2: Ok.
Person 1: I like them.
Person 2: Me too.

...But, logically, they could also be having this one:

Person 1: So, about Kat.
Person 2: Oh, yeah.
Person 1: Bitch gettin’ FIRED.
Person 2: Serves her right.
Person 1: Let’s go throw something at her.
Person 2: How about this taco? (holds up taco)
Person 1: Excellent choice.

I seem to be having trouble controlling THE VOLUME OF MY VOICE!

You know how sometimes you'll be eating at a really loud restaurant-- the kind with a thumping soundtrack over which you must SHOUT TO BE HEARD -- and then, out of nowhere, the music... just... stops.

I know that some people, the ones with catlike vocal reflexes, will immediately modulate their tone to accommodate the sudden overall drop in sound level and carry on a conversation as though nothing happened.

But I can't do that. I actually lack the capacity to just stop something I'm doing at the drop of a hat. Which means that

1. I sucked at Musical Chairs
   
2. I cannot EVER stop peeing in mid-stream, and
   
3. I will ALWAYS continue talking at a 250-decibel level for at least 10 seconds after the impetus for doing so has been removed.

And though ten seconds isn't much, I can tell you that it is more than enough time to shout, “...AND THAT'S HOW I ACCIDENTALLY SET FIRE TO MY VAGINA!” into an otherwise silent room.

Not that I have ever done that.

Anyway, if you can’t go from shout-to-whisper in under a second, the next-best thing is to hang out with similarly-afflicted friends. And then you can just have the most inappropriate possible conversation at top volume while praying that, if the music stops and someone ends up shouting into the void, there's a 50%-or-better chance that it'll be the other guy.

Scene: The boyfriend and I are at a Chinese Restaurant, trying to have a conversation in spite of “Angel In The Centerfold” pumping at full volume from overhead speakers.

Brad: (shouting) Are you coming over tonight?

Kat: (shouting) No, I have to go home and do laundry.

Brad: Come on, just come over tonight! You can do laundry tomorrow.

Kat: No! I haven’t been back to my apartment in five days and I want to change
my pants!

Brad: Why?

Kat: What do you mean, "why?"?!!

Brad: Well... fine, maybe I’ll just... do something.

Kat: Alright, maybe you should.

Brad: And you’ll never know what I’m up to. I could be doing anything. I could be out on the town.

Kat: You could be.

Brad: With the dog.

Kat: Oh, of course.

Brad: Just me and him, a couple of bachelors, taking a dump on the sidewalk.

Kat: Rock on.

Brad: It’s gonna be awesome.

Kat: Totally. And then later, you could put peanut butter on your balls and let the dog lick it off.

Brad: Ew.

Kat: And it’s not cheating, you know, ‘cause it’s your dog!

Brad: Ha!

Kat: Ha, ha!

Brad: Actually, I would never let him near me. It (music abruptly stops) MAKES ME NERVOUS WHEN HE’S GOT HIS TEETH, LIKE, SIX INCHES AWAY FROM MY DICK.

(pause)

Brad: (whispering) Shit!

Since my last post has caused a backlash of self-esteem boosting from my mother (“Don’t say bad things about your writing!”) and my boyfriend (“Don’t say bad things about your thighs!”), I feel like I should get something else in here, lest the slew of visitors who are finding their way here via Gawker linkage (Gawker! whee!) think that I am Just Another New York Girl Who Complains A Lot.

Problem is, I was so effing thrilled to get linked that I kept waking up last night, first because I was excited (I can’t believe I got gawkered) and then because I was panicked (Oh my god, five hundred people have seen that picture of me in the footie pajamas) and then because I was concerned (What if somebody leaves a comment about my thighs being fat), and then I lay awake for several hours, sweating and thinking about death.

So what I’m saying is, I’m very tired and I have writer’s block. And instead of expecting great things of me, you should watch this video of a baby panda sneezing…

And I'll be back in full force on Monday.

Rational jealousy

Sometimes I think I’m a good writer. But then I read this girl (whose writing is so exhilarating and breathless-out-of-control that it threatens to become corporeal and begin running around the city, howling and smoking and stealing things from Bergdorf Goodman), and I realize that I’m not even close.

And also, that my thighs are fat.

I don't want to KNOW what happens at the retirement village

The New York Times has been writing a lot lately about “The Graying of Naughty”. Because… well, I don’ t know. My guess is that we’re being punished for something – what other possible reason could there be for reporting that compels us to think about grandparents, geriatric patients, and retired high school teachers having sex with each other? I mean, really. But whatever the reason, journalism has been witness lately to a variety of articles about sexy septuagenarians, and 50-something latecomers to the porn industry, and someone’s grandma learning about the many, um, uses of saran wrap.

Euuuuuuuuuuuuuuw.

Still, I hadn’t seen concrete proof of these sexed-up elderlies anywhere. I was starting to wonder whether they really existed (hoping that the answer was no). I figured that perhaps they were all gathered in nudist retirement communities down south, where they were safely hidden away from the general public and certainly NOT haunting the aisles of, oh, say, Duane Reade.

They’re sneaky like that—they want to catch you off guard.

I was in the Astor Place Duane Reade with Brad, who was buying a birthday card for his friend Liz. It showed a glossy photo of a white-haired old lady hanging a pair of racy, lacy, hot-pink underpants on a clothesline and looking guilty. The card read,

What happens at the retirement village, stays at the retirement village!

While we were waiting in line at the register, Brad, in what was probably a display of affection, had put his hand on my neck and was pushing it back and forth, making my head bobble like one of those big-noggined dolls that sit on people’s dashboards. In front of us, a fantastically old woman with a ratty knit cap was shuffling through the checkout line on her way to the exit. She was hunched, wrinkled, ancient, wearing bedroom slippers. She stopped in front of us and smiled. We smiled back.

“Are you practicing for later?” she said.

She was still smiling. I thought to myself, Poor thing, she’s confused. Brad also looked baffled.

“What?” I said.
“You know,” she said, the smile broadening, deepening the creases on her heavily-lined face, “you know, are you practicing, with her, for later.” She pointed to Brad’s hand, which was still resting on the back of my head.

Brad and I looked at each other with dawning horror.
It didn’t seem possible.
But it was.

An octogenarian in fuzzy slippers was joking with us about blowjobs.

Brad shoved his hand in his pocket. I turned beet red.
“Um, I don’t know,” he said.

I could not speak.

The old lady was grinning demonically. She brandished her plastic Duane Reade bag.

“Well,” she said, “guess what I’ve got in here! You’ll NEVER approve.”

I gaped at her and thought, If she pulls out a bottle of KY, I am going to run screaming from the store. She looked from Brad’s face to mine, expectant.

“It’s ice cream,” she said.

And left.

“Did that just happen?” said Brad.

The moral of this story is that what happens at the retirement village does NOT stay at the retirement village. Rather, it comes to Duane Reade wearing a moth-eaten hat and a pair of slippers, where it toddles around with the express purpose of horrifying unsuspecting twenty-somethings who only want to buy a birthday card and then go get drunk.

Blogging while exhausted

Hey, guys.

I’m too tired to really, really write.

So instead, I’m going to take the cheap way out and post another ridiculous eye-barred photo of myself, which should entertain you until next week when I’m a tad less sleep-deprived. (Those who emailed asking for more photos, here’s looking at you.)

First, the Story Behind the Picture:

It was 2am on December 24^th. I was at home for Christmas and getting ready for bed. Teeth were brushed, contact lenses were removed, and overnight bag was unpacked. At which point I realized that although I had brought extra underwear, a jar of peanut butter, and a bathing suit (just in case!), I had forgotten my pajamas.

And in upstate New York, to be pajama-less is to face the imminent possibility of freezing one’s ass off. I mean, actually freezing it off, such that you get up in the morning, thinking everything is ok, only to get out of bed and trip over the sad, frozen full moon that might once have been your buttocks but which is now detached, lying on the floor, being chewed on by the dog.

I ran back downstairs.

“Mom?”

“Yes?”

“Do you have any extra pajamas or sweatpants?”

“Not really, honey. Why?”

“I forgot to pack mine. They don’t have to be fashionable, I just need something pajama-esque.”

“Oh,” said my mom. “In that case, I do have a one-piece union suit with a snap-front that I bought when your father and I lived in Connecticut.”

“Sure, let me try it on,” I said, having failed to consider that my parents had last lived in Connecticut sometime in the mid-1970s.

And that’s how I ended up scrambling around the house in a pair of red-and-blue-horizontally-striped-adult-sized-footed-pajamas, looking like the Christmas Mental Ward Mascot Escapee and with my father behind me shouting, “HOLY SHIT! GET THE CAMERA!”

It’s been a hit on Myspace, though.