It Ain't Christmas if You Don't Rock Out Loud

Another Christmas has come and gone-- I had a lot of trouble getting in the spirit this year, mostly because in the wake of all the wedding hub-bub, I kind of forgot that I had to continue on with the remainder of life's tasks (what? I had to organize a wedding and pick out presents for every member of my family? This excuse also works well with getting your teeth cleaned, paying your bills, and vacuuming your carpet).

But around one o'clock on Christmas afternoon, my cousin Katie broke out her newest game-- Guitar Hero II for the PS2-- and the Christmas Spirit struck. And it turns out the Christmas Spirit is remarkably like the basist for Foghat.

All I know is, this game is the video equivalent of crack-- I would gladly have remained at my parents' house for up to eighty hours, helping Katie promote our new band, Grubmonkey, to new levels of success. Sadly, I was actually kind of a hindrance to Grubmonkey, as I routinely forgot to actually strum the guitar, or got confused between red and yellow, or realized that "Surrender" is not actually the song I thought it was. But I think she was still all right with me being in the band, as kind of a Ringo character, only without the awesome haircut.

Luckily for me, there's a version for the Wii, and it includes two of my all-time favorite songs: "My Name is Jonas," by Weezer, and "Rock and Roll All Nite" by KISS (which I played in marching band, so that's bound to give me a leg up on the competition). However, this game is not available ANYWHERE in the nation, except maybe at K-Mart, and, having solemnly vowed to let K-Mart die with dignity, I cannot spend any more money there, at least until they get wise to Sears' soul-crushing succubus nature.

So it's officially on my birthday list, but I was kind of hoping we could pretend that my birthday is today, and that I would magically find a copy lying in the bushes outside my house, so that I could turn it into the rock temple that it deserves to be.

In the meantime, I suppose I could go and get the ACTUAL guitar my parents gave me out of the basement and play that to take some of the edge off. But it seems like kind of a downer if I can't use it to interpret "Heart Shaped Box," which I can't, because I never learned to play it, and there may or may not be mice living in the guitar case.

A Very Crunchy Christmas

Dear Friends of Kim,

It is I, Crunchy! The angry Christmas nutcracker. Bask in my return to cyber-typing!

Some of you may not know me, Crunchy, because Kim was infected with the so-called "Christmas Spirit" last year at this time, leaving me, Crunchy, silent on the writing desk, surrounded by pictures of black-and-white old timey people of which Crunchy does not approve. Even though they do not move, Crunchy can see that their jaws are capable of free movement, and their legs are not really one big, non-working wooden leg with roundish planks for feet.

But this year Crunchy is back with a very special Christmas message, which is this: your Kim is a bad person! Because does she write you Christmas cards? No, she does not! I can see her right now, from my old-timey people perch-- she is playing Nintendo Wii! And not sitting in her chair writing you cards of good will wishes.

She claims that this is because she is tired out of writing cards, because of her thank you card writing debacle. But if she is so tired, how has she managed to become a pro at the Wii Tennis, with so much limb flailing and the cursing of small animated computer tennis players?

The truth of the matter is, only Crunchy loves you. And by loves you, I mean does not like you at all, again because of your working jaws and non-conjoined legs.

So rise up in your unhappiness at the Kim-not-writing-cards fooferau! Adopt the Crunchy as your new favorite Oja! You will be most satisfied, as Crunchy was built for loving you.

All best,

Crunchy

The Angry Christmas Nutcracker

What follows is a list of all the words I have added to my e-mail dictionary at work:

ACCS
Acord
Argh
ain't
argh
awesomest
BFD
Boobie
babearoo
bachelorette
bizarro
bleah
blizzarding
blog
blogged
Cavs
CC'ed
Che
Chex
COI
COIs
Cyn
convincingjohn
cystoscopy
d'oh
dammit
EMFH
effing
eHarmony
ew
Fatone
Favre
Fazoli's
fraggle
Goulet
Grr
gangsta
gangstas
gonna
gotta
gushies
Hee
Itza
Itzen
insureds
journazine
Lambeau
LPR
Maimo
Mamie
Marita
Marklar
Mmm
microsite
mojo
monoline
mopey
moreso
mostest
NARM
Netflix
Ow
Paychex
pooing
poopy
punked
RIU
Ric
rad
Sasha
SIF
Stix
Superdude
sads
sammich
snarky
sorta
TiVo
veg
Whatcha
Wii
WriMeBaMoFo
wanna
weirded
wuss
Xtreme
Yay
Yo

PS:

In addition to accomplishing all the tasks listed below, I would also like to add that I managed to fall down a flight of stairs and cut my palm with a bread knife in a two-hour window this morning. I'm really just waiting to slip and bruise my tailbone while walking the dog in this white-out blizzard to really complete the trifecta.

Busybody

I don't know what, exactly, prompted this change, but while I used to be perfectly happy to wallow in my own filth, ignoring my e-mails in favor of lying on the couch with an open box of Pizza Hut breadsticks resting on my chest while watching old episodes of The Family Feud, I have now become some sort of taskaholic, running from to-do list to to-do list with the fervent obsessiveness of an Ethel Merman fan.

Not that I want to go back to living in a pet-hair-clogged super toilet, but really, I think I'm starting to take things a little far. For example, Ben is out of town this weekend. Instead of relaxing and enjoying a few hours to myself, I accomplished the following things:

• Finished thank you cards (praise whatever deity controls thankfulness-related endeavors!)


• Went to lunch with a good friend


• Bought a Christmas present for my mom (on behalf of my dad, which sucks, but it's all the costliness of buying a present with none of the glory)


• Cleaned every room of my house, including the bathroom, which still smells chlorine-fresh 24 hours later


• Vacuumed-- twice


• Emptied the trash, which is no easy feat, because we have one of those metal horseshoe garbage cans with the impossible-to-remove bags


• Did two loads of laundry


• Wrapped remaining Christmas presents


• Went to the grocery store, narrowly avoiding the blizzard that has settled over Cleveland (and which, annoyingly, prevented me from going to the Browns game today, which is what I was actually supposed to be doing instead of all this)


• Answered all my e-mails


• Made a CD (using a burner; I did not actually go to a studio and make a CD, although I think the world would really clamor for a copy of Kim Oja Sings Neil Diamond in the Voice of Tom Jones)

And now I'm writing my blog, which was the last thing on a long list of to-dos I had amassed for myself. There are still a few more things that need to be accomplished today, such as walking the dog and packing my lunch, but then I think I'll finally have accomplished my entire list.

I guess I've been trying to catch up ever since the wedding, but really ever since I got engaged, and with the latest flurry of to-do activity I am pleased to announce that I am finally, blissfully left without anything to do. The possibilities are endless-- do I work on a novel? Organize my file cabinet? Reread the entire Harry Potter series? Stage a Clue marathon?

All I know is, my chest is in for some major table duty tonight! Watch out, arteries, because the Pizza Hut breadsticks are back in the picture!

You're welcome

Number of thank you cards written tonight: 26

Number of thank you cards sealed into envelopes with this error: 25

This! This is what I get for wanting to be cute and have Ben sign the cards in his own hand-writing! Twenty-five cards going out saying "Love, Kim & "!

People who will be receiving this limited edition fuck-up card include:

1. The minister

2. The DJ

3. My boss

4. My mom's boss

Oh, my God. Please kill me now. Because there is no effing way I'm opening those envelopes and fixing this. Not tonight. Probably not ever. Because I don't have enough sticky labels left to redo the addresses, and by God, I am not doing them by hand!

Maybe? People will think my fancy ampersand is, like, a fancy, fucked-up letter O? And that I just decided to sign all my cards "Kim O," like in a fun, familial way?

Okay. If you're one of the people who receives this particular card, I apologize. If you really want, I'll have Ben stop by your house and sign your card next time we're in town.

Love,

Kim O

My optometrist speaks*

*This monologue was actually performed by my optometrist at my eye exam this afternoon. While I may not have gotten it down verbatim, there is no embellishment on my part.

"I like your sweater. I like green things. I have so much green-- green sweaters, green pants, green shoes-- wait, I take that back. No green shoes.

"What size shoes do you wear? Sevens? Oh. My. God. You must go to the Clarks store. At Beachwood Mall? The Clarks store? They have the greatest shoes there. Green shoes. With lambskin insides. They're the kind of shoes with the little foothole? That you just have to kind of dig your foot into? Well, I was wearing really loose socks when I tried them on, and the foothole pulled the socks too tight, and I was like, these shoes make my socks tight! Anyway, my mom bought some shoes there, but not the green ones, which I wanted, but they didn't come in my size-- that's why I asked you what size you were, so you could go buy them, because you seem like the kind of person that would like green shoes. So you must go buy them.

"And then? My mom and I went to Sephora-- at Beachwood Mall, you know? I love Sephora. I bought $150-- $156, I mean-- I bought $156 worth of stuff there. My husband is going to go nuts! But I was out of face cream-- I haven't bought a face cream since 2002-- and I was like, why not, right? But the one I wanted, it was a milk-based one, I think, I can't remember now, but it was the one I really wanted, anyway-- they were out of it, so I bought this one that has a little clay in it. Cambrian clay? Have you heard of this? Oh, my God. They make it into everything. They make the moisturizer, and they make this shampoo that is so good... I have an itchy head-- no dandruff, but itchy, right?-- and this stuff just worked wonders. And they make this clay toothpaste, with is naturally flavored with lemon and mint, and my gums bleed when I get my period? So I use the clay toothpaste and that doesn't happen.

"Anyway, some of that shit I'm going to wrap up and put in my own stocking and say Santa put it there, because what's my husband going to do, yell at me in front of his parents? Although it kind of sucks, because I already know what I'm getting for Christmas, mostly... my mom bought me some Clarks, but not the green Clarks, because they didn't have my size, and this shearling coat from Lands' End, but it's faux shearling, so it's washable, which is good, because I tend to wreck my coats. And then the stuff from Sephora, which is really from me, but I have to put it in my stocking so my husband can't get mad that I spent $156 on face shit from Sephora.

"But really, it's so unfair, because he does like nothing to his skin, and it's perfect. He washes it with bar soap and then puts Curel on it. Curel! Like the hand cream! On his face! If I use shit like that, it gives me hives. Or something. Some kind of itchy welt. I think that's hives, right? And I have such greasy skin. It's like, I could wipe my fingers on my face and grease a cookie pan.

"Okay, anyway. What did you come in for again?"

Rabid!

Rabies has been popping up far too often for my taste lately. First, in the season premiere of my (sadly cut short by the writers' strike) all-time favorite show, The Office, in which Michael staged a fun run to raise rabies awareness; then in Rant, Chuck Palahniuk's newest book, in which the main character starts a rabies epidemic. But most disturbingly in a show that our TiVo thought we would enjoy, "The Girl Who Survived Rabies," the title of which is pretty much self-explanatory.

My previous encounters with rabies were pretty much limited to Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, in which the main character is forced to kill her beloved Tea Cake (who is a human, and not a lap dog, despite the connotations of his name) when he is infected with the disease. Rabies is something that happens to characters in 20th Century Literature Class novels, not to me!

But now, surrounded by this glut of rabies mania, I am forced to assume my fallback position, which is, if everyone is talking about it, then I probably have it. Which is why, at two o'clock today when I cut my finger on the bathroom paper towel dispenser, a danger sign flashed: RABIES!

I am completely and totally aware that paper towel dispensers are not alive, and thus incapable of carrying the rabies virus. But at that moment, I fully expected to begin foaming at the mouth and develop an irrational fear of water, and figured by the end of the night, Ben would have dispatched me neatly with a shotgun.

What is the lesson in this? Has my rabies awareness been raised too much? Should I stop trusting TiVo? Am I, maybe, a bit too paranoid? Are the terror segments on local news channels meant for me?

I don't know. But all this talk of tea cakes is making me hungry.

Please and Thank You

The wedding has been over for almost two months, but I'm still struggling with getting my thank you cards out. Not that I'm not thankful-- really I'm nothing but thankful-- but the idea of writing 67 thank you cards makes my stomach clench up in the most unpleasant way.

There's also the added stress of being known as "the writer of the family," which is hilarious since I haven't written anything longer than a humor column on my insane urge to pee in like three years; but still, having this moniker comes with some expectations-- that you'll eventually write a best-seller and buy your dad a Ferrari; that Oprah may pick your book and yell excitedly about it in her weird baritone and millions of women will buy it and it will be made into a mini-series starring Kirstie Alley; and that you will write unique, one-of-a-kind thank you cards that accurately convey the true warmth and appreciation that one's contribution of a Deluxe Downy Ball Fabric Softener Gift Pack has afforded you.

So far, I have written ten of the aforementioned 67, but at least two need to be rewritten in light of recent developments (developments I could probably have avoided addressing in my already difficult thank you letters if I had gotten them done in October, as I had originally planned). And I am unsure when any more will be gotten to in light of the holiday season, which has T-boned me like a drunken Santa on a souped-up sleigh-- if I don't get my butt in gear, I'll have to add a sizeable amount of Christmas thank you cards to the pack.

To those of you whom I owe a thank you card, please rest assured that I am extremely thankful, not only for your gifts, but more importantly for your well-wishes and for daring to come to Cleveland in the first place (we have a lake!). The cards will be in the mail posthaste-- right after I make up my Christmas list, clean up my house, decorate for the holidays, get rid of the thirty pounds of wedding-related reading materials that I have acquired in the past year, attend a free showing of The Golden Compass, rearrange my Netflix list, make several batches of Chex Mix, and finish the three library books I started reading before Thanksgiving.

I promise.