12 Things to Get Those ‘Not Friend’ Friends for Christmas

You know who I’m talking about. That ‘friend’ who always seems to look at the dark side of things, is happy to give unasked for advice for fixing yourself in ways you didn’t know were broken, and who constantly apologizes for not thinking to invite you to the amazing thing they did last week. Sure you could just forget them at Christmas, or give a generic card, but that just looks like there could have been an oversight (like them not inviting you to any of the last several dinner parties they threw, and mentioning that pregnancy scare when they ran into your parents at the mall). I say your best bet is to spend a little time, and maybe even a little money – on wrapping paper – and make sure your frenemy knows you were thinking of them this holiday season…and sharpening the good knives.

1. Awkwardly sexual boudoir photos. Include a perplexed-sounding note not quite implying that a significant other mentioned that this would be a welcome and appreciated gift.
   
2. Used make up. Especially effective if given with the gentle suggestion that the really horrible shade of orange lipstick you got for your daughter’s Halloween clown costume is much more attractive than any other choices you have seen recently. Or ever.
   
3. Make up remover. This one is self-explanatory. If this seems too extravagant, a couple of those free soaps and shampoos from your last hotel visit. Style points for a pretty wrap job.
   
4. A pet ferret. Try to find one that bites. And snores. Make sure you give it in front of kids if there are any, so they can put lots of emotional pressure on the deserving recipient to keep it.
   
5. Botox injections. Always fun, and half price if you catch the right Groupon.
   
6. Coupons. Grocery coupons, drug store coupons, any coupons really. Coupons are a great way to say, I didn’t think you were worth a real gift! (Homemade coupons for useless stuff are extra fun. ‘Good for one girly chat!’)
   
7. Expired candy. Valentine’s Day candy is fun, if you include a note that says something like “This Christmas, wanted you to know how much you’re in my heart.” Bonus points if the candy is also open, small hole are poked in the bottom of each one, and all the good ones are gone.
   
8. Tube socks. If that seems too useful, then cheap scratchy pantyhose, in the wrong size.
   
9. One of those seven day free trial offer cards to a gym. One that’s nowhere near work or home. Put it in a really pretty gift card and present it with the comment, “I KNOW you can use this!”
   
10. A book on dressing professionally. If you gave that book last year, a book on etiquette.
    
11. Tickets to an event that occurs when the ‘friend’ is going to be out of town. Make sure travel arrangements were booked. Bonus points for an event they would actually want to attend.
    
12. A gift certificate to a restaurant where you got food poisoning. Try to tell the story of your horrible malady at great length sometime at least a month before the gift is presented.

There are a lot more things I could suggest. Spanx, for example, or a good self-help book. But the real key to this kind of gifting is finding the sore spot and choosing something that will jab right in it, and maybe even draw a little blood. After all, you've put up with more 'help and support' from this person all year than anyone should have to without committing a little mayhem. 'Tis the season to show them how much they're appreciated. Not.

The New Blog

So I have these blogs, one is this one, one is the one where I put a bunch of random stuff, one is the secret blog, which I will not tell anything else about, and one is coming. In theory the one that's coming will be of short duration, written in frequently, possibly every day, and get me book deal. Am I dreaming? It's hard to tell, I've been awake all night. So, anyway possible topics for the new one are:

1. Weight loss after 40
   
2. Exercise every day
   
3. Yoga - maybe not every day...
   
4. 365 Tips on writing
   
5. Amazon review a day
   
6. Food around the world maybe with the cooking
   
7. Zero to 60 - Business from scratch
   
8. Swingers - A Blog about bipolar disorder
   
9. Gardening (but is there something to say about gardening every day?)
   
10. Something about organizing?
    

Anyway, I'm just thinking it would be a good project...and since there are things I'd like to work on, and I'm not working on them, maybe the pressure of an audience might possibly keep me on track...maybe. If that doesn't work, I could always deputize someone to taze me if I fall off the blogging wagon. Volunteers?

Animals I'd Like to Own

Sometimes I think I'd like to be one of those old cat ladies with a million cats...but then I think about the smell and I realize that it's never going to happen. Unless I get really rich. Because then I could hire someone else to clean the fifty gazillion litter boxes four or five times a day, and take all the dirty litter out and open all the windows and spray all the odor neutralizer. Come to think of it, even if I'm rich I'll probably stop at five. Or six. But that leaves so many other animals:

1. Cats - More kinds of cats than I can even tell you, an F1 or F2 Savannah, a Japanese Bobtail, another Turkish Angora or three or ten, an Egyptian Mau, a Ragdoll, a Siamese, just about everything except those stupid looking, squashy-faced Persians, and their bitchy Himalayan decedents.
   
2. Goats - Especially pygmy goats. - At least three. Maybe five. Fresh goat milk rocks, less than fresh goat milk tastes horrible.
   
3. Horses - At least three. Herd animals are happier in herds.
   
4. Chinchilla - They're soooo soft, and they smell good, and how cool is an animal that takes dust baths?
   
5. Chickens - They have more personality than people realize, but I wouldn't want more than a few, since they're also kind of stupid and mean.
   
6. Small Dogs - Particularly a Papillon, a Beagle or a Cavalier King Charles. Not anything too small, or anything too high strung. Good working dogs. I used to want a Lhasa Apso, but I decided that they're too much work.
   
7. Big Dogs - Something like an African Boerboel or a Rhodesian Ridgeback. My honey's love of big, stubborn dogs is rubbing off. Weird, but true.
   
8. Bullfrog - I know, but someone I know has one, and I fell in love.
   
9. Rabbit - Who knew they could be litter box trained? Not me.
   
10. Ferrett - But probably only for a couple of hours, because I saw someone walking one, and it looked amazingly cool. Maybe owning one is extreme.
    
11. Hedgehog - It's weird, but I think they're cute and cuddly. Plus there's the thing where they run around in the balls.
    
12. Sugarglider - They're marsupials, they're small, they're cute. I really want a platypus, but that's just crazy.
    
13. Parrot - Or something similar. At least a conure, but preferably something colorful that might talk, but definitely cannot bite my finger off.
    
14. Turtle - Because I never got to have one as a kid. And kids should have pets.
    
15. Bearded Dragon - I like lizards, and honestly how cool is it to say 'yes, this is my pet dragon.' Plus, they apparently like interacting with humans.

I'm going to stop now, because when I hit the snakes this list will just get plain weird. I like animals. I do. I'm realistic enough to recognize that I probably won't own half of the ones that I want, but I'll keep buying lottery tickets, and hoping.

Halloween Costumes I Never Wore

I love Halloween, I really do, but I never seem to get my costume act together. I have made some fairly elaborate costumes for the kids and even worn one of the ones I made for the first offspring (which only fit me because it was hugely too big for him). But the ones I long for with the secret unrequited lust of a lonely candy-less child peering out the front window I never have gotten to wear. Which ones are those, you ask? Well:

1. Marie Antoinette.
2. Fairy (with working wings!)
3. Bride
4. Bride of Frankenstein
5. Guinevere
6. Queen Elizabeth (the first, not the dowdy)
7. 20's Flapper
8. 50's teenager (poodle skirts! sigh)
9. Knight in Armor - but you know, a girl knight, with the metal breasts on the armor.
10. 40's Mobster's Moll
11. Sexy Pirate Wench - ok, I did once dress up as a Pirate Wench, but it wasn't satisfying.
12. Harem Dancer
13. Flamenco Dancer
14. Tango Dancer - shoot, I just want to BE a tango dancer, forget the dressing up part.
15. Ballerina
16. Xena Warrior Princess
17. Victorian Heiress - This is kind of my own invention. Fancy dresses and rhinestones r kool!
18. French Maid - Maybe this one isn't exactly for Halloween.
19. Betti Page - Umm, or sort of a dominatrix thing in general.
20. Harlequinne

I would include Cleopatra, but I dressed up as Cleo one year, and looked pretty awesome, IMHO, but I refused to wear socks which would damage the authenticity of my costume, so my mother wouldn't let me leave the house. How old was I? Eleven, maybe? Twelve? Dunno, but I wonder to this day why I didn't just tell her I'd wear them and then take the stupid things off when I got outside. Guess I wasn't so devious back then. Anyway, maybe I'd have another go at old Cleo sometime, but it's not a must. I also dressed up as a hooker one Halloween when I was a teenager, and then a couple of friends of mine and I walked around knocking on doors and saying "Trick." We got a fair amount of candy, and also several invitations to come in at adult parties, and one guy offered us a drink. Nowadays I mostly don't dress up, mostly because what's the point when you've got nowhere to go? I do love this holiday, though.

What I Ate Today

In honor of my losing five pounds, I will bore you with yet another list of my dietary deficiencies:

1. Banana
   
2. Plum
   
3. Oatmeal with butter, salt, brown sugar and dried cherries (yum!)
   
4. A couple of handfuls each of dark chocolate covered cranberries and dark chocolate covered edamame.
   
5. Three or four handsful of stale popcorn
   
6. An obscene number of pills.

I've gotten to the point with my medication that it's killing my appetite, which has both it's good and bad sides. Except I'm not sure what the bad side is.

Things I Write About

Soooooo... in that whole vein of avoiding responsibility by taking on OTHER responsibilities, I've stepped up to lead my writing group for some unspecified period of time that will probably amount to as long as I am: a. willing to do it, b. doing it competently, and c. financially viable enough to pay the fees. (This mini list is a freebie!) I am a little frustrated that I can't get very much response from the 253 other members of the group. I guess to get a lively group of 20 or 30 regular participants, you actually need about 500 members. Crazy. Anyway, I will persevere. I am trying very hard not to hijack the group for my own purposes, but the temptation is veerryyy sttroonnnggg.

Anyway in honor of my new ascendancy, a list of the topics I am interested in:

1. Serial killers
   
2. Lesbians
   
3. Teddy Bears
   
4. Death
   
5. Chickens
   
6. Beads
   
7. Communities
   
8. International Jewel Thieves
   
9. Elves
   
10. Random Kindness
    
11. Geisha
    
12. Friendships
    
13. Aliens
    
14. Children
    
15. Quilting
    
16. Weight and Fitness
    
17. Goals
    
18. Vampires
    
19. Dysfunctional Families
    
20. Lovers
    
21. Cats
    
22. Gardening
    
23. Nocturnal Life
    
24. Food
    
25. Femme Fatales
    
26. Science
    
27. Unicorns
    
28. Writing (and do you know, I almost left this one out!)

If that's not enough to keep me writing for the rest of my life, well, I guess I'll just have to start being interested in something else.

What I ate today

Ok, so it's been a while, so I'll bore you a bit more:

1. Two bananas - I was feeling decadent
2. About two ounces of delicious trout
3. Some broccoli and carrots I sauteed in soy sauce and sesame oil
4. about 3/4 cup of rice
5. Nectarine
6. Handful of dried cherries
7. Sample of chicken breast - plain
8. 3/4 Cup of praline pecans - at least I hope that's all it was
9. Most of a Trader Joe's spa salad
10. Handful of dark chocolate covered blueberries
11. Two handfuls of dark chocolate covered edamame (and counting).
12. About 8 ounces of organic lemonade tea.

I've also had quite a bit of water today, and that's why I have to pee. Right now.