Comments are back. Adam insisted.

Be a pal and say hello!

Experiences far more miserable than having an upper resperatory infection:

• Watching a hurricane wipe out a hometown.
• Losing a home to fire.
• Losing every single loved one in a single wave.
• Mudslides.
• Earthquakes.
• Viruses that require full-on quarintine.
• Viruses that require full-on quarintine and visits from men in interesting containment suits.
• Being audited.
• Just about any experience not encapsulated in the cushy day-to-day experience of a middle class member of a first world nation.

It could be so much worse than the pedestrian misery of the annual post-holiday head cold. All I need is to knock back a dose Advil C&S, curl up on the couch with a coke, a comforter and a fistful of Kleenex and clear off the last of Boston Legal off the Tivo. Hell, all I really need is to just rest; the list is just superfluious creature comforts. Right?

God, I hate being sick.

Coming out of Hello, Deli! with Gwyneth and what do we see?

A friggin' Bentley GT Continental!

I didn't know they were allowed to cross into this state, but there it was, in front of me. My heart started pounding. My brow broke out in sweat. My inner Jeremey Clarkson put aside his differences with my inner Tiff Needell and they both started drooling over this gorgeous hunk of machinery.

I think I said to Gwyneth, "Adam'll never believe this..."

Which is when it hit me. My camera is sitting on the kitchen table. I won't be playing exotic car photo safari today. No shots of the magnificent beast in its natural environment: parked across two handicapped spaces, still sporting the paper plates from Long Beach, CA. No photographic evidence of the Baltic/Montego blue paint job and wood interior.

It was so beautiful it distracted me to silence.

...

Part of living this far west in Albuquerque is watching the mesa transform from the tumbleweed-studded jeep tracks of Adam's misspent youth into a reasonable facimilie of civilization. Or, as we tend to short-hand around here, "sprawl."

So please bear with us when we can't agree on when the Blake's went in down the street. Adam thinks it opened last summer while I think it might have always been there; we just didn't pay attention until sometime after the state fair. At any rate, at some point in the last year, the restaurant grew from the desert like so many allergy-bearing weeds and continues to nurture us to this day.

Adam says this is the product of wet winters in Albuquerque. It rains, and we get another Lotaburger.

Ruidoso didn't have a Lotaburger when I was growing up, and for that I feel deprived. The nearest was 46 miles to the south, in Alamogordo, and everyone knew that if you were going to Alamogordo and got fast food, you were either going to Long John Silver's or Taco Bell. End of story.

Still, even without visiting it, impressions were made. The sign, for one. To my six-year-old eyes, it looked just like former Governor Toney Anaya.

(I tried to find a photo of the guy, but no dice.)

For another, billboards advertising the joint looked as if the concept of "food stylist" was foreign. I remember once turning to my mom and asking "Why does food that looks sloppy just taste better?" I think I was twelve or thirteen, though. A precocious child I wasn't.

So. Blake's. We're in favor of it.

Since the local branch opened its doors, our patronage has become something of a habit. Usually on Thursday nights, I swing by on my way home and pick up dinner, which is completely unhealthy and has to stop, but the onion rings, man! Think of the onion rings!

And the thing about Blake's is how they prepare the order after it's placed. I wasn't used to the wait between ordering and delivering. I'd been well-trained by the McCulture of McGratification and didn't really know what to do with myself for those five or ten minutes. But as it became more of a routine, I started using the time to sketch out the Next Project. It was great; for a set length of time, I was forced to think about the project and brainstorm on the back of my receipt. Over a series of Thursday nights, even when I was neck-deep in revisions on the current project, the Next Project fleshed out to doable proportions.

I don't know if it's the green chile or the grease, or the forced discipline of mind. I don't know how the workers would feel if I co-opted a back booth on a Saturday and hunched over my laptop for six hours. But there's more to Blake's than green chile cheeseburgers. There's inspiration on the side.

For the first time ever, we have plans for New Years Eve. And I'm sitting here, looking at my fingers, or more specifically my nails, debating whether or not I can last through the week without hacking them off and ruining any chances of getting a decent manicure.

I'm not big on the nails. At some point in the past fifteen years, the idea of finger-nails-as-status-symbols got into my head and totally backfired. Instead of growing my nails or resorting to press-on varieties, I went the opposite route: cut to the quick, unpolished and sporting raggety cuticles. So very ungirly of me.

When I was in high school, I decided blunt nails were a testiment to having a job and, more importantly being a "writer," whatever that entailed. Never mind that I was sixteen and lacking an agent, a book deal, or even a semi-regular byline in the school paper at that point. In my head "real writers" couldn't possibly type with inch-long, blood-red talons, and I wasn't about to try.

(The mindset was probably skewed by my later career as a designer, where work is more dependant upon the nail-friendly point-n-click repetition of QuarkXPress, but still the habit persists.)

On the rare occasion I was pressed into getting a manicure (acrylic french nails for my cousin's wedding, for example), it wouldn't last. At the first chip in the color, the same compulsion which pushes me to pick labels off wine bottles and pick at sunburns would rise up, and I would pull away thick chunks of Arrest Me Red, taking the top layer of nail with it, not caring if my finger felt squicked for the next week. If I had fake nails, I'd dangle my fingers in any number of solvents Adam had in the garage to get them off, get them off, for the love of God, GET THEM OFF!

And yet, here I am, contemplating my nails.

Do I get a manicure? We're going out for sushi with some of our friends and I was planning on dressing up, so having decent nails might be nice, and the shoes demand a pedicure, so there's that. Then again, I didn't bother with my nails for my own wedding, so maybe not. And if I do decide to get a manicure, can I make it until Saturday? My nails grew to about p6 while I wasn't paying attention. And I'm not good about having nails, usually, and the more thought I put into it, the more I'm going to go crazy. Can I keep from going crazy? Just this once? Or should I schedule an appointment for later this week, and then try to touch-up on my own?

Questions I can't answer.

Coming home means hanging out with Gwyneth and hearing about her dating exploits while we were gone and telling her everything, from the back room bag experience to a run-in with a snooty clerk in the Bergdorf shoe salon.

"And then," I say towards the end of the narrative, "She tells me, 'You just do not have Manolo feet. No matter the shoe he makes, it will never look flattering on you!"

"Who even says that?" she shrieks, because that is what a best friend does, she shrieks on your behalf.

She rings me at work a couple of hours later. "Okay," she says across the staticky connection, which means she's on her cell, driving to her parents' for Christmas Eve. "Okay, here's the deal, you beautiful, beautiful woman. I was listening to the radio and 'Got to Be Real' came on and it totally made me think. That witch at Bergdorfs had no business being that awful to you. One, you're fabulous, and Issac would totally back me up here." (She's become addicted to Issac Mizrahi's show on Style, yet another reason I wish we had cable a la carte) "Two, she should understand that she's not just selling a shoe, she's selling a whole image; she's selling a fucking dream. I mean, c'mon. We know you're not a Park Avenue wife, but you were there to buy. So what the hell is her problem? She's not the shoe bouncer!"

Shoe bouncer. This is why I love Gwyneth so much.

I did end up getting a pair, of course. How could I be staying a half block from the friggin' Manolo boutique and not pop in? Twice? It's called Driving in Heels for a reason.



Eat your heart out, Shoe Bouncer.

*~*~*~*

Just so we balance out the the blog's theme today, I'd like to announce that Adam's car, Sharka is back to stock AND is up and running after sitting on the jackstands for a month.

Adam will be sleeping the peaceful sleep of the just tonight.

If you happen to know someone who'd be interested in a slightly used BRP coldside supercharger for a 1.8 litre pre-1999 Mazda MX5, sling me an e-mail at the address to the right.

And while were at it, I'd like to praise the weather we've been blessed with in Albuquerque. Okay, so there's an inversion effect and we've had a couple of red flag days, and it's just been a little bit difficult for me to breathe, but I'm totally digging on the unseasonable temperatures. A top down drive in Bucky on Christmas Eve is one of the better presents I've received. If I wasn't working tonight, we'd be taking the annual top down tour of area Christmas displays, and it might have been the first time we didn't catch pneumonia in the process. Love this weather. Love it.

This is probably the fourth? time I've pulled up Blogger to write an entry in the past twenty-four hours, and this will probably be the fourth time I'll surf away before I complete a thought. It's Thursday night, I've got the Tom Cruise samurai movie on, we still haven't done anything around the house for Christmas and the cat's being insistant upon some lovin' to the point she's nearly knocked the laptop off my lap.

There is no way I'm going to sound the least bit intelligent tonight.

The New York trip is still fresh in my mind and straining to come out, but the travel editor at work has already called dibs, so you'll have to wait a year before you hear tell of my time in the city.

That is, unless you're on the list for the New Year's blowout, which means you'll get the story, plus Adam bouncing bon mots off my narative and vice versa. Oh, and there might be slides, too. Slides of paintings in different muesums. Some featuring me making faces. Don't you want to cancel your plans and come hang out with us instead?


(A preview.)

Thoughts: Jesus, I need a haircut. And to stop wearing hoodies. And lay off the onion rings.

I look damn pretty in that color, though. And those glasses rock.

Work survived my absence, and I was disappointed there wasn't a large-scale celebrity scandal while I was gone. The big question of the day was about the transit strike: how did we survive it (hired towncar) and how it was affecting the city (bumper-to-bumper traffic at 5 a.m.). Then it was "where'd ya go, who'd you see, what shows did you see, do you totally want to move there?" (Everywhere, everyone, all of them and oh, hell yeah).

I am glad to be back in the land of salsa, really. And speaking of salsa, it's the salsa jailbreak episode of Mythbusters, and I totally have to see it.

Call off the dogs, bring in the search and rescue. I'm home. And, despite rumors to the contrary, I am not decomposing in the kitchen, the cat hasn't made a snack out of my face, the ferrets haven't turned my toes into trophies.

I am not dead.

Adam, his parents and I spent the past five days in New York. So maybe I wasn't dead, but I took a five day tour of Sarah Heaven, even if I didn't get to meet Matt or Malorie.

I'm a zillion forms of exhausted, so instead of posting gibberish, I'll just leave you with this exhibit from the Museum of Modern Art:



We have two of them in our garage right now. That's class.

Isn't there an unspoken rule that the baristas in Satellite are far cooler than the rest of us? So why am I being subjected to Dave Mathews Band's "Crash" right now? And it's on shuffle right now, and you'd better believe I just died a little inside admitting I knew the playlist order. It's kind of disturbing how decidedly unhip the music selection is. Where's the underground garage band? Where's the new French trance? Where are the Sinatra rarities?

On the other hand, it's not Chirstmas music. I heard "Frosty the Snowman" wafting out of the pool area while I was at the gym this morning, and I could only roll my eyes. If I had survived on this earth long enough to raise a brood of children, see communisim fall and collect social security, the last thing I'd want to hear during my morning pool time would be "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."

Seriously.

*~*~*~*

I haven't had a chance to digest the Golden Globe nominations, though I'm a bit disappointed Polly Walker was the only acting nomination for Rome, and I'm more than a little disgusted the Desperate Housewives shut out the Actress for a Musical or Comedy category.

But as Neal would say, "Pia Zadora," so it could be worse.

Ah, they switched over to the new Fiona Apple record. That's better.

"I do not have a man crush on Probst!"

"Oh, so you just have a crush-crush?"

"..."

"Really?"

"The ellipsis means I'm fuming in anger and plotting where to dump your body on the mesa."

"It's a crush-crush?"

"You're the one with the man crush on Probst!"

"...I'm a girl."

"Exactly!"

Adam's watching the Survivor reunion and rolling his eyes hither and yon. I have no idea why he subjects himself -- and by extension, me -- to anything past the final vote, because it's insanity unleashed live and without a script.

But he revels in the "nattering of fools" (his words, don't sue, send candy), so I try not to complain (much). "I feel like a mental giant compared to these people," he says. "Like, my god, in every reunion these people are just so stupid. I look like Einstein compared to them!"

He's passed like seven different calculus classes, and he's worried about looking intelligent? Sometimes I don't understand guy logic.

I think the best part of watching the reunion with Adam is watching him watching it. A cut to someone voted off back in September? "Who the hell is that?" A flashback to scabbed over shoulders? "HOOOOORK!" A shot of the boats and some reminiscence of the horking incident of our own and he's laughing his ass off.

I think secretly, he wants to be on Survivor. Really, I do. I think he secretly wishes that he could sit around a roaring bon fire on an art director's idea of a ruin, and flirt with Probst. That's right. He's got a man crush on Probst, I'm pretty damn sure (I'm sorry, don't sue, send candy).

He'd do well, I think, until about the fifth hour, when the last of his fat reserves dried up and he went into thin guy hunger mode. Then, the other contestants probably wouldn't just kick him out, but possibly tie him up and roast him on a spit. It'd be a Survivor first: actual cannibalism.

Or, as Adam would say, "Something Mark Burnett has been angling for since the first season!"

He'd probably die happy.

Seriously, I need a couple of Glarkware t-shirts to wear to the gym. More specifically, I think I need this one, this one and this one. Because Yakov Smirnov humor? Never gets old.

"So, who's David Krumholtz again?"

"Mr. Universe? From Serenity? The movie spin-off of Firefly? Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand?"

"...Still not ringing a bell."

"Never mind, just look at this picture of Gwen Steffani at Go Fug Yourself."

"Mmm. Gwen. The things I would eat out of her ass."

"Yeah! That's the guy!"

Google says it's 34 degrees outside, Weather.com is going so far as to say it's 39 degrees but feels like 34. The weather page in my paper says it's going to dip down to 10 degrees tonight. Weather.com disagrees, saying it's only going to drop to 16 degrees. The competition down the hall is clocking in with a cheerful 25 degrees in the heights, 18 degrees in the valley. But then Weather.com has to come back with a forecast of scattered snow showers tomorrow, and now all bets are off, because there's a giant high pressure system hanging out over the four corners and when will the madness end?

The dire predictions have me delving into the Hawaii pictures. Like this one.



Funny story about that particular place. To read the National Park brochure, it was considered sacred to the acient Hawaiians; if a person could make it to Hounounou, they'd be forgiven their tresspasses. "Instant karma!" Adam called it.

We visited twice. The first time was phenomenal. We clammored over some lava outcroppings, spotted a couple of sea turtles and gazed out at the ocean. The day before we flew home, we decided to go back. Just as we got into the park, my ankle rolled and and I went skittering across some very unforgiving, very rough sand. Ripped the hell out of my right calf; more than six months later, and there's still a faint scar where I tore away the skin.

That was not my finest moment. My leg was bloody and my ankle hurt and I just broke down and cried. Gawd, how embarrassing. Adam got me to my feet and helped me hobble to the ranger station, where I was given a couple of alcohol wipes and a band aid and told to wear better shoes. I cleaned the wound as best I could, picking out sand and sea shell shards, and washed my face. When I came out, Adam just frowned at me. "Poor poogle," he said. "You must have some serious karma issues."

He parked me on the beach for a little while to calm down and take in the scenery. While I was sitting and whimpering quietly to myself, a sea turtle crawled out of the ocean to sun himself next to me.



This impressed Adam. He decided the karma gods had taken pity on the poor, scraped up me and sent a happy reptile to come and keep me company.

Personally, I think the turtle was just as irritated as I was. Every time he got comfortable on the beach and close his eyes to bask in the sun, the tide would pick up just a bit and roll right over his butt. He'd open his eyes and give me this "Oh, goddamnit," expression before pulling himself up the beach another three inches. The process repeated until he was dead level with me. I could have reached out and patted him, but his mandible was imposing and who wants to be patted by a stranger when they're trying to take a nap? I mean, honestly.

So we sat on the karma-cleansing beach together and wondered just what the hell kind of hoop we were supposed to jump through.

The Christmas spirit has yet to move me. Polar bears on Coke cans implorng me to GIVE LIVE LOVE haven't pushed any buttons. Twinkle lights strung around desks at work haven't done it. I gave Love Actually a whirl this afternoon before work and while it hit all the emotional notes, but I'm still not feeling the season.

So I turned to the web. The guys at ALOTT5MA are discussing the greatest Christmas movies ever after linking to a list compiled by someone who didn't work the Christmas 2000 season in a Suncoast. This guy ranks Three Days of the Condor at number three and Die Hard fails to chart. What kind of madness is that?

Since I did manage to spend five weeks in the fourth quarter of 2000 working at the Cottonwood Suncoast and was subjected to every Christmas movie and special (minus the Star Wars Holiday Special) cranked out since 1940, I feel compelled to compile my own list of holiday must watch flicks. Maybe this will be the kick in the pants I need to get a jump on my holiday shopping.

10. It's a Wonderful Life George Bailey's just going to off himself without telling his wife and children why? That's not a wonderful life, that's thirty years in therapy. Still, not putting Capra on the list puts me on a government watch list, so there ya go.
9. Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas An update (sort of) of an O. Henry story (guess which one!), the flick has Muppets playing in a jug band. You just don't get that these days.
8. A Wish for Wings that Work I only saw this the one time it aired in 1991, but it was sweet and irreverent.
7. The Ref Denis Leary. Kevin Spacey. Christmas. Yuppies. Love it.
6. The Santa Clause I saw this a few days after Christmas when I was 16. I was jaded, I was sullen, I was dragged to the theater by my aunt who didn't know what else to do with me. I laughed straight through, and eleven years later, it still has a soft spot in my heart. Plus it features H!ITG! David Krumholtz, whom I've loved since "Addams Family Values." Shut up, we're the same age.
5. Love Actually I love this movie. My love for this movie is well documented, but it hasn't been around long enough to rate higher. Give it a few years, and it'll probably crack the top three.
4. Die Hard. "All right, listen up guys. 'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, except for the four assholes coming in the rear in standard two-by-two cover formation. "
3. A Christmas Story My parents didn't see this movie until the Christmas before the decamped Ruidoso for Albuquerque. I remember we caught a showing on TNT Christmas Eve. My parents sitting on the old couch in our tiny apartment, hanging off each other in laughter will forever be my snapshot memory of Christmas 2001.
2. How the Grinch Stole Christmas! What Ron Howard movie?
1. A Charlie Brown Christmas Adam can do the whole thing from memory.

Since I took the hit and started logging with Site Meter, I've found out a large chunk of traffic comes from people looking for instructions for operating automobiles wearing high heels. Or porn featuring women driving in heels. And while I wish I had the body and the Ferrari to fulfill those fantasies, it ain't gonna happen. Like ever.

But how to drive in heels? That I can do.

So cue the brass horns, because I'm about to unleash my knowledge.


Before you get into the car, a word. Anything over a four inch heel's just unwieldy. Seriously. Throw a pair of Chucks in your trunk and suck it up.

The shoe:



Okay, this is a simple matter of physics. Your foot's a level, your pedal's another lever and your heel acts as the fulcrum. So, when you're first engaging the clutch (because we've all upgraded to the big girl cars), you're resting your weight on the length of the back of the heel.



When the clutch is fully engaged, you've shifted the weight forward and the heel is perpendicular to the floor.

It then becomes a matter of shifting forwards and backwards, not unlike driving in a flat shoe. It's so seriously easy.

Tah-dah! I have now passed on the sum of my educational experience at UNM on to you, the consumer. And I'm not joking about that.

(Real blog entry might be coming up later.)

People are disturbed by our lack of Christmas spirit.

"So," the neighbor asks. "Have y'all put up your tree yet?"

"Oh, no," Adam says. "We're not doing a tree this year."

"No tree?"

It's my turn. "Nope. No tree."

"Why not?" The neighbor's getting a little edgy now.

We shrug because, really? With everything going on right now, we don't want a tree. "Just didn't feel like it," I say.

And I swear, the neighbor steps in front of his children as if to protect them from the evil Scrooges. Another five seconds and he'd report us to APD for being pod people.

"We might do stockings?" I offer, more as a peace offering than actual truth. It seems to work.

But other people are just as weirded out. I keep teasing a friend at work that I "horrified" him when he asked about the tree. But the face! All sour apples and sucked in cheeks. Totally awesome.

Truth is, I am just not feeling the holiday season this year. Target's packed and Cottonwood's a nightmare and I'm scared of opening that January PNM bill. I just don't feel like putting the energy into a Dickens-y, Ye Merry Olde English Christmas.

Boxing Day sales, though? All about that.

And ever since I found out I'm listed at Duke City Fix, it is all I can do to not refer to Albuquerque as the Duke City. That's all I'm saying. The internal monologue all friggin' day? "Damn this Duke City traffic!" "Duke City..." "Duke." All day. DUKE CITY! DUKE! CITY! DUKE CITY! DUUUUUUKE!

(Somewhere in North Carolina, Patrick just perked up.)

City. Yeah.

Also? I feel like I've got to provide more commentary on the Duke City.

(Damnit.)

In other news, Adam's looking into registering a domain for WMD and we're discussing what would go on a WMD page. For now, it'd probably re-direct to the main Revlimiter site and (ahem) sell t-shirts. Maybe. Don't you want a WMD t-shirt for Christmas?

I thought so.

And at this point? I'm so not talking about the new Site Meter I added to the blog and the main page, and all the visits, and I am so not busting out in "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!" for the last visitor from NSW.

So, the folks over at Duke City Fix found my blog and added it to their Albuquerque blog roll.

Hello! I had no idea. I sort of think Mayfield's behind this.

Mayfield!

Anyway. News in Sarahland's at a minimum, except for my undying love for R. Kelly. "Trapped in the Closet" is fan-friggin'-tastic, and the nice guys at A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago posted my recap of episodes 5-12. If you haven't seen the urban opera sensation sweeping the yuppie population, you must do so now. Drink heavily when you do.

Book news has been put under a gag order by the agent until further notice. Book? What book?

I'm kind of training for a triathlon, but that's another blog.

Exciting changes to Sarahwolf.com are slated for after the holidays. I can't say much, except expound upon my love of cereal.

That'll keep 'em guessing.