Me: “How old were we when we found out that Santa isn’t real?”

My Mother: “Hmmmm, I think 4 and 5.”

Me: ”Ohhh, we were just snooping, I guess? When we found the suit in the closet?”

My Mother: “What? That’s not how you found out…”

Me: ”What? I thought that’s how…? We were snooping in the spare bedroom closet and saw the Santa suit?”

My Mother: “No…It was Christmas Eve and Santa came to the house and his pants fell down.”

Me: *Blink* “What?”

My Mother: ”His pants fell down and then you knew it wasn’t Santa.”

Me: ”I can’t …I can’t help but feel that you’re leaving out some crucial details. It’s really weird that we would know it wasn’t Santa once his pants came down. Right? Like, that seems like some sort of red flag.”

We had these older next door neighbors whom my sister and I called Grandma Kay and Grandpa Lou. My sister vaguely remembered that Grandpa Lou had dressed up  like Santa that year.

So then I started to think about it and I could remember a picture from one of our photo albums of my Grandpa Lou dressed up like Santa but sans beard. Instead, he had a white handkerchief across his face like a freaking train robber. Or like he was trying to survive a dust storm.

I said, “Wait… is that the year Grandpa Lou wore a handkerchief as a beard?!”

My mother nodded.

I said, “Let me get this straight. You guys didn’t have a beard and so you just thought you’d wing it with a white handkerchief?!”

My mother nodded.

Apparently, Grandpa Lou came in, proceeded to hand out gifts and then his big old Santa pants fell down and revealed Grandpa Lou’s dress pants underneath which made everyone laugh so hard that they gave up the entire charade.

So I found out that Santa isn’t real when some bogus train-robbing bandit sandstorm-surviving Santa Claus lost his pants on Christmas Eve.

I feel like this isn’t normal.

Little Filthy sleeping on his paws (ab0ve)

PEACH YOGURT – DELICIOUS.

?

Black cherry yogurt? ALSO DELICIOUS.

I like to snap picture of the lake when I snag a cab home.

?

Dinner party at my sister’s – figs, gorgonzola, honey.

Little Filthy had an upset stomach here. He ate grapes off a table. Thought he might be toxic but the little boy pulled through and was back to himself in about a week. Scary!

There was a lot of travel at the end of the year. Little Filthy disapproves.

Legs got Little Filthy a pumpkin shirt.

Dinner one night.

Unfortunately, Little Filthy has learned that he just needs to climb over the back of the couch to look out the windows. *sigh*

Eggs lined up. These are from the restaurant Next. I was at the Food and Wine magazine event at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Playing LEGOS with my nephew.

Dinner at the loft.

First snow fall.

Passed out.

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I had a cold for a few days this month. I picked up some of these cough drops – Halls Refresh.

Then I looked at the package. What the hell, exactly, is “Advanced Moisture Action” and why do I want it? It just sounds…. off putting.

The best part, however, is the little letters right above the picture of the cough drop.

It says “ENLARGED.”

You know, in case you thought the cough drop was an actual inch across.

I have too much time on my hands when I have a cold.

I sometimes have trouble sleeping. I just… don’t have the urge to sleep until the wee morning hours and then, I sleep fitfully. Not all the time, mind you. The last three nights, I’ve had a solid 8 hours of sleep without any problem. But sometimes, it just doesn’t seem to be clicking. When that most recently happened, I decided to take Ambien.

I had some great warnings on Twitter.

“I once Ambien-sleep-walked.”

“I Ambien-sleep-ate!”

My personal favorite: “I Ambien-joined Match.com.”

But what surprised me the most were the dire warnings “not to fight it.” I was told to turn off the lights and rest in bed.

“Don’t fight it! Go to bed!”

“If you fight it, bad things happen.”

I don’t get this. I mean, what’s the point of a goddamn sleeping pill if it doesn’t knock me on my ass? If I was willing to just go to bed and rest there, I wouldn’t need this pill. Capiche? I want to be made sleepy. I want to want to go to bed. I want to be as sleepy as I remember being in church when I was a teenager. You know. Church Sleepy. God, seriously, was there ever a more sleepy sleepy than Church Sleepy?? Christ, if I could go to church right now, I’d sleep like the dead.

But seriously, some things aren’t worth selling your soul for.

I digress.

I complained to Instigator that I feel that a drug is sort of bullshit if I can just beat it with my mind. I mean, if all it takes to defeat Ambien is simply not wanting to go to sleep, how great a drug can it be? She politely informed me that not resting after taking Ambien is like taking aspirin for a headache and then banging your head against the wall and still expecting the aspirin to work. You have to help the drug work.

I told her that I want to be knocked on my ass and put down for a nap like I’ve had it coming. I want to be passed out asleep against my will. I want this shit to be magic.

She said, “Oh. What you want is Propofol.”

YES.

Is that jackass Conrad Murray in jail or is he still for hire?

*blink*

Me: “What?”

Legs: “I have to douche it!”

Me: “WHAT?”

Legs: “I. HAVE. TO. DO. SHIT.”

Oh.

See, I heard something different.

1.  I am spending the weekend with Legs. (She is amazing, did I mention?)

2.  Last night, we went to dinner and the theatre. I was ready to go and was waiting in the kitchen when Legs walked out of the bedroom in a black dress. I lit up.

I said, ‘You look fantastic!”

She looked at me and said, “I’m going to change clothes.”

*Blink*

Then she returned in a different black dress.

A shorter, smaller black dress.

I said, “Wow.  You look great.”

She looked at me and then turned back toward the bedroom. She called back to me, “Maybe I should put on underwear.”

3.  We were waiting for the cab outside when I leaned in and kissed her. I said, “I already got a kiss, this early in the date! This date is going well.”

She said, “You’ve already scored today.”

Touche.

+1 Legs

4.  We just walked to a little diner and had breakfast. We were holding hands, walking down the street and I said, “When you walk to the breakfast between 10 and 11 on a Sunday morning, it’s obvious that you had sex instead of going to church.”

Legs said, “We were walking the dog!”

I said, “We walked him after we had sex.”

She grinned.

+1 Random

5.  Legs was kind enough to let me take a picture of her t-shirt (above). By that, I mean that she put one hand on her hip and lifted her other hand, as if to say, “Fine. Go ahead, if you must.”

She is not a blogger. She does not use Twitter. My writing about her and tweeting about her is a new experience for her – one that sometimes both appalls and tickles her. Speaking of, she got the nickname “Legs” on Twitter and it has stuck.

I informed her of this.

She’s okay with it.

LEGS.

See previous exhibit here.

Unfortunately, my services have again become necessary. For follow-up, please see QT’s most recent entry here.

Sincerely,

Random Esquire

If you order flowers for a woman and don’t make a point to request ‘no carnations’, you might suck. Because carnations are bullshit.

2.  My aforementioned female guest (with the great legs) left behind a thong.  I figure that’s permission to wear it as an eye patch. Especially if I took it off of her. Right?

Right.

3.  My text conversation with said lovely woman:

Her: “So, how many women have you flirted with while at the park?”

Me: “All of them. Twice. For good measure. I have 28 dates next week.”

Her: “You’re an ass.”

4. It gets better. This morning’s conversation:

Her: “The way you write about things makes them… interesting.”

Me: “Thank y…..”

Her: “Wait, no, that’s not it. It makes them…. semi-relevant.”

It’s a tough crowd over here, folks.

This morning at the grocery store, the woman bagging my stuff said, “Do you mind if I put the shampoo in with your groceries?”

Now, first of all, it wasn’t shampoo. I got body wash for the 2nd bathroom because you can’t give guests a bar of soap. You know why? It’s just fucking gross. I mean, if I have to tell you that, then you’ve clearly never been a guest at someone’s home and gotten into the shower only to see a bar of soap staring at you with a single black, curly hair stuck on it. You follow?

Okay, so, she said, “Do you mind if I put the shampoo in with your groceries?”

I said, “No, I plan on eating the shampoo.”

She said, very softly, “…oh…”

I sort of wanted to roll my eyes or tell her I was kidding but then I figure she might as well think I’m a weirdo if she’s so gullible. I mean, life’s got harder lessons down the road for the likes of her.

2.  I might have a somewhat nosy neighbor. I take some pride in not fully answering her questions. The first time I met her, she said, “Ohhh, so you’re the new neighbor! I was wondering when I’d meet you. So… are you married? or did you buy your place alone?”

I said, “I have a dog.”

Then yesterday morning, I walked in early with some bags and she said, “Oh! Did you go to the Farmers’ Market?” Which, really, I don’t get why she would think that is the only place a person goes in the morning. Instead of telling her what I did, I said, “I’m a morning person!”

Whatever.

3.  Did you know that if you move and you decide not to take your bed frame and instead, you just put your mattress on the floor for a few weeks while you look for furniture..well, did you know that if you do that, your dog will think you are fucking awesome for giving him such a huge bed even if he finds it strange that you insist on sharing it with him? Little Filthy was disappointed when the bedroom furniture arrived.

My schedule has definitely changed since moving. Hence tirades like this from QTMama. I used to stay up until 1-2 a.m. regularly. Now, it hits 10 p.m. and I start to think of bed. WTF.

4.  I have still not purchased living room or dining room (they are all one big room) furniture. It has been suggested by more than one person that I simply put basketball hoops up on either end and call it a day.

5.  Little Filthy is completely baffled by the glass doored shower. He growls like mad when I open or close the doors. And once I am inside, when I close the doors, he somehow thinks I can no longer see him and he makes a beeline for the trashcan, getting up on his hind legs and peeking inside for goodies. I then yell, “Hey!” and about startle him to death. I really don’t get this dog.