It finally snowed here. Now I can stop wondering if or when we're going to get the white stuff and concentrait on more important matters like the new CNN campaign and its absolute awesomeness. I'd kill to have Anderson Cooper hanging out in my office.

Of course, I'd just have to kill. I mean, he's a good looking guy and my desk is in the middle of the newsroom...

Ah, Thanksgiving. The day when we have to list all the things we're thankful for in order to receive pie.

I'm thankful for many things like the husband and the ferrets, U2 albums and a paying job. I hope y'all are equally blessed today. Enjoy the pie.

Just in case there were any lingering doubts, yes I did go straight out to Target this morning and purchase the super deluxe book-n-dvd-AND-cd package of "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb."

What do you mean you didn't? Go! The power of Bono compels you!

That groan you just heard was the collective Firefly fandom sighing at Paramount's choice to release "Serenity" in September 05, in lieu of the original April date.

I guess we just have to look forward to the last Star Wars movie, the new Harry Potter book and, um, the last Star Wars movie?

Yeah, I'm really disappointed. I was looking forward to this. Until then, I guess I'll be wearing out my Firefly DVDs.

Flipping through the new Vogue, I ran across a blurb on the new "Phantom of the Opera" movie. I think my friend Malorie will be forced to live up to her promise of hunting down Joel Schumacher and afixing his head to a pike if it sucks.

"How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" drops on the rest of the world today. The poor American schmucks have to wait until tomorrow.

Man, and I remember hoping I'd be in Australia today when I heard the release date. Funny about that.

In the mornings, I like to flip the TV to CNN Headline News and let it burble along in the background while I go about my business. Headline News and I have a longstanding relationship spanning at least fifteen years, so it's like having an old friend give me the important news of the morning. This alone should thrill some producer somewhere. "She's twenty-six! She's kind of hip! She watches us!"

Moving on.

Part of watching Headline News is learning to stomach an endless parade of the same six commercials. If you watch them long enough, you can build a sort of lifestyle demographic fantasy lifestyle:

• Step 1: Get rich quick! (WiFi? Junky cappuchino machine? Digital photo kiosk? Bill paying center? Minimum investment required! Premium locations going fast!)
• Step 2: Buy Hummer H2.
• Step 3: Insure Hummer with Geico.
• Step 4: Insure family with additional term life insurance for $15 a month.
• Step 5: Fight IRS with J. K. Harris and Company
• Step 6: Get old, contract diabetes. Get supplies from Wilford Brimmley.
• Step 7: Become disabled. Buy scooter from The Scooter Store. They'll fill out the paperwork for you!
• Step 8: Die.

I could be a touch cynical.

Also, is it disturbing for me to realize the Geico gecko is doing the robot to the same song as played behind the L'Oreal concealer makeup?

Thought so.

Mom brings news from the south.

The school district has hired a new superintendent from the Permian Basin, the same slice of West Texas that gave the world Dubya. Said super has promised to "restore moral order" to an already overly reactionary school district. The moment of silence has been in place since 1995, they outlawed Halloween, stopped teaching evolution and have Bible clubs on every campus.

What more do they want?

And then I remembered Ruidoso High School was the first school in the state with student-run, on-site daycare and a little light went on. Yeah.

I'd like to tell this guy that as long as there is nothing to do in that stupid little town, and birth control education is dropped in favor of abstinance-only propoganda, there is no way he can stop the "immoral" students from getting it on. Doesn't matter how many copies of the ten commandments you post in every classroom, bored, hormone-addled teenagers are going to have sex.

SEX!

And engage in devil worship, download porn and listen to NPR.

Okay, maybe not so much on the NPR. Get really smashed every weekend? Get really smashed every weekend.

I wish this guy the best of luck. Sort of. He's either going to make a misstep and raise the ire of the school board within three weeks, or he's going to stay for twenty years.

It's a funky little town, folks. Just go ahead and skip it when planning your annual vacation.

In a startling development, my mother read my novel.

Oh, I know what you're saying. "Of course your mother read your novel, you two-bit hack! She's your mother. That's what mothers are supposed to do!"

Ah ha, but that's where you're wrong. Mom didn't read my first full-length (and for the time being, dead) novel. She said she couldn't get past page three, which probably said a lot about my impressive lack of sale.

I mean, if my own mother can't get past page three...

But this one? This one she read in one day. In one sitting, even. She said she liked it. "I liked it very much," were her exact words. She complemented me on a few scenes, lamented the oft-lamented lamentable plot twist, made a few suggestions about a couple of scenes, suggested I clean up the trendy language a tad and complained the last two chapters felt too rushed.

Considering this woman has read novels professionally and got her masters in English Lit, I'm taking all of it as high praise. Especially the envelope stuck to her fridge that bears the name of the imaginary retirement home.

Dad's next on the reader schedule...

Boy, howdy. Would you look at that? I just finished the second book! Would you like to know the title? I bet you'd like to know the title. Well, here it is:

"Other People's Children."

I like to think of it as an updated Jane Austen novel stuck in a food processor with Entertainment Weekly, "School of Rock," and my father-in-law. Early reviews from my friend Jordan (who helped me with the German, danke) and the husband have been positive. Adam called asking if I wanted to tinker a joke and then immeaditately begged off. "I have to, uh, work."

"You're going to read, aren't you?" I asked, with my whole butt wagging (memo to self: can the butt-wagging in the newsroom).

"Uh, yeah." And then he hung up on me.

I'm taking this as a good sign. I'm going to push through a bunch of revisions this weekend and then send it to my agent; with any luck she'll like it and we'll be in business.