2.  Let’s see… I met two very awesome law school students from Texas. Mariel and Amber. And they made me laugh an entire night with stories.

3. I’m getting my motorcycle license next week. Currently, I have a permit. You know, you don’t fully appreciate the size of a city bus until one almost clips your back wheel.

4. Boss and I went to The Paris Club last weekend. We met and took pictures with Gail Simmons, Cat Cora and Curtis Stone. Curtis Stone put his arm around Boss and made this face:

I suspect he wanted her to try his truffles. Meanwhile, I proposed to Gail Simmons.

Not to be outdone, Boss put on a cow mask and we got a nice pic with Cat Cora in the background, unsuspecting of her bovine neighbor.

5. And how is Little Filthy? He’s fine.

I feel a little like this dog looks and it is ironic because I feel this way because other people have lost their temper, lost their shit, lost their control.

And I’m just done with it.

My family loves the ocean. So Turks and Caicos was the January get-away this year.

My sister and I are only 13 months apart and have grown closer as the years have gone by. We were sitting on the beach, in about a foot of water, looking out over the turquoise ocean and blue sky. Puffy white clouds were drifting lazily through the sky. I thought, “This is some serious family bonding right here.”

My sister took in a deep breath of air and turned to me.

“I heard that when you get older, your pubic hair turns gray.”

*blink*

I said, “What?”

She said, “When you get older. Your pubic hair turns gray. But that’s not going to happen to me.”

I burst out laughing.

She said, “I’m not kidding! I don’t care how old I am. I’m going to be dragging my oxygen tank into the European Hair Salon and getting that taken care of.”

I got up and brushed the sand from myself.

I said, “Family bonding time is over.”

Welcome to the family.

1.  Take daily vitamins. I started out taking gummy vitamins but realized quickly that I just don’t like candy that much. So now I swallow them. Guess what? Turns out I don’t like swallowing vitamins the size of time capsules all that much, either – but I’m doing it anyway.

2. Go to bed when sleepy. (Please see ‘Ambien is Bullshit‘.) I realize that it’s ridiculous that I act like a 5 year old and fight sleep. I know this. But the world just becomes more interesting to me after midnight. Probably because all the lame early-sleepers are not up to dilute the fun.

3. Not a single cigarette. I’m not really a smoker. I couldn’t tell you the exactly last time I smoked a cigarette (it has been months). But I also could not tell you the last time I went a full 12 months without a single cigarette.

4. Be more like Lisbeth Salander. That is: Don’t put up with bullshit.

Happy New Year, everyone.

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.

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Black cherry yogurt? ALSO DELICIOUS.

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

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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.