My neighborhood has been kind of a pigfuck, if I may use that term, because they are filming LAW AND ORDER on my block. This means that the good people who actually live in these buildings get stopped three steps short of their front door by a guy carrying a walkie talkie, talking on his cell phone, and wearing a headset, saying, no, no, you cannot pass through, we are filming. Why is he talking on his cell AND carrying a walkie talkie AND wearing a headset? I don’t know, but it seems like he had communications COVERED. If you need to talk to him, he is definitely available, via different forms of communication. You could probably page him.

Sometimes, I just want to go home and not be stopped by a guy carrying a walkie talkie, you know? Especially, most especially, when I have to pee so bad that my bladder might spontaneously explode and pee oozes through every pore. Not a pretty sight. Perhaps if there were a STAIRWELL I would pee in it. That’s how bad I had to go.

Anyway, later I saw Vincent D’Onofrio get into a car on my street, and then get driven TWO BLOCKS to King Street. I know that he was going to King Street because I, too, was walking from my block toward King and actually beat him to it. On foot. As in, like, hoofing it. I just felt a little empty in side. Vincent, please. Just walk. I promise you fans will not ask for your autograph. Also, to be honest, you look like you can lose a few pounds. The walking might help that. Minimizing both your carbon footprint and your waistline! Zrzly. He was “bloaty.”

I also saw Eric Bogosian. He was rocking a stylish Jewfro. Want to know something funny? My DAD GOT A PERM in the 80’s. Like straight up perm. Not like waves. But a perm. He had a Korean fro, or KorFro. I have pictures to prove it. VERY disturbing. I don’t know why he wanted one. He just did. So he got one. I don’t know if he was trying to look like the Hoff and have these waves, but Korean hair doesn’t really do that. When you perm it, it GETS PERMED. It does not relax. He kind of looked like a pubichead. Which is not a description one wants to assign to one’s dad, but there, I said it.

My mother straightens her hair, but it’s already straight. That is a mystery to me. I don’t even get it.

This is my first blog post of 2008. Let me tell you, this post may look and feel exactly like a post from 2007, but don’t be fooled. It is a 2008-era blogging. You ladies and gents got your finger on the pulse. Do you feel that? What does it feel like? Is it ELECTRIC? This is the most current 2008 post until I write another one. Consider yourself “caught up” and “updated.” You are starting the new year right and on time. I’m proud of you. I’m also proud of myself for reasons I don’t even know, mostly because people tell me to be proud of myself. So I am. You should be proud of yourself too. Actually let’s all take a break and pat ourselves on the back. (I actually did that yesterday at work. Sometimes I do that and I feel like a jerk and then I think, wait, I am actually good at my job. Pat, pat, pat, pat).

My family doesn’t celebrate Christmas, despite my parents being super-Catholic, so everyone did their own thing, just like any other night, and I had dinner with the Moyer family. Mike is an old friend from college and my parents happened to move two miles away from his parents, so it’s all convenient. What I learned is that the Moyer family will not eat anything unless it’s made out of pork, duck, or pork and duck. And butter. And alcohol. Yet everyone is pretty thin and healthy so it’s all very confusing. But pork and duck are close friends of the Moyer family. Mike has duck set to speed dial on his phone. It’s ranked higher than his sisters. Well actually duck is ranked higher than Maggie, but not as high as Kate. They are twins. Mike really likes his sisters but he also really likes duck. So he just sort of split the twins up to make it fair. Also it is interesting to note that Mike also took Virgin America and they also LOST HIS LUGGAGE. His came on the next flight though. Mine didn’t.

New Year’s was spent with my friends and not my family, which was the most amazing thing ever. I went to my friend’s party and there was a very good mix of architects and non-architects and also a very good mix of alcohol. I did not feel well the next day. I did feel guilty about not being with my family but then I fell back asleep so that was cool.

I also forgot to mention that my toilet overflowed at home and it was so bad I don’t even want to talk about it. So I called my super but he wasn’t home so he sent his son who is a nice kid but is not a super. He tried to snake the pipe and then flushed and all of the sudden I was like NOOOOOOOO in slow-motion because of course the toilet overflowed again. And he started to panic and I’m like TURN IT OFF OH MY GOD TURN IT OFF TURN OFF THE WATER and he’s like WHERE? WHERE? WHERE? I’m like THE LITTLE KNOB RIGHT THERE COME ON. So then he called his mom to help him out. It was like watching my brother and my mom fight over fixing something. Totally awful. I started getting itchy and everything.

Then my landlord decided, hey, you like heat? TOO BAD. Then he mooned everyone in the building. But wait, he said, don’t you like the little wreaths I put up in the hallways? That was a nice and festive touch don’t you think? YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD BE NICE AND FESTIVE MR. LANDLORD? HEAT.

I have some questions and maybe you can answer them. Since I don’t know the answer to these questions, I will pretty much believe any answer you give me, as long as they are delivered with AUTHORITY and also AGGRESSION. For example:

Q: Why do people wear sweats outside of the house in a non-gym setting, such as a mall, restaurant, or bar?
A: EVERY IDIOT KNOWS THAT SWEATS HELP CUT GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS BY 9.2%. YOU SAY YOU WENT TO COLLEGE? WAS THAT CLOWN COLLEGE?

See how that works? It’s like oh man, I had no idea, apparently I am worse than an idiot. I’m sorry for even asking.

So then, on to my questions. I hope that you can help me because these questions keep me up at night.

1. Why do all middle-aged mothers like Josh Groban, Andrea Bocelli, and Michael Bublé?

2. Who would win in a deadly deathmatch-to-the-death-to-the-death: Marie Curie or Nikola Tesla?

3. How do you explain to your mother that Jimmy Choo makes shoes that are for whores?

4. Why do people watch Grey’s Anatomy? That show sucks.

5. Why do my parents yell things that can easily be spoken in an indoor-voice like OH I REALLY LIKE TRADER JOE’S ORANGE-CRANBERRY SCONES.

There are a lot of other questions, but honestly I think these are the five most pressing ones.

Also Merry Christmas if you celebrate it and if you don’t, it means YOU WORSHIP SATAN just like my parents. The good news is that you can DESTROY SATAN by beating him at Guitar Hero.

So they “found” my luggage and delivered it to me. They did not know what happened. They fly to only three cities, you’d think they’d know what was up. They are sorry, but not sorry enough if you ask me. They delivered it. It was in one whole piece and not several pieces as I had anticipated. Christmas was not ruined. Not yet anyway.

Now I think, hey I have clothes! I have my gifts! I shall take a shower. A glorious shower. I shall wear new clothes. It will be amazing. Oh, wait, what’s this? My parents haven’t had HOT WATER in two days?????? Dude. Even my crappy compartment in New York has hot water (most of the time). An outrage! So now I must drive to my friend’s house which is 40 minutes away because my parents moved out of the Valley, but in the opposite direction from where all the “action” is. This is because my parents do not like “action.” They see “action” and they think, you know what? I will avoid it. I will go way over here. But then everyday I will drive to the “action” and it will be a very far drive. It is better this way.

I’m sorry for my odor everyone. It’s not my fault. I swear. When the situation allows it, I pay very close attention to personal hygiene. So now I recommend that everyone step back a few feet from me. Or stop breathing. Either one is fine.

The best part about going to Los Angeles is sitting next to an eight-year-old beastchild who cries and whines and bellyaches because she wants to watch a Disney princess movie and then for some reason, she throws up on her mother and the stench overwhelms the entire cabin. OK no, you’re right. That’s not the best part. The best part is sitting next to a couple who decides to fight for the first half of the trip and then make out the second half, but wait, they are sitting behind the boyfriend’s parents! What?!? Who does that? No wait, alright, alright, I’m lying. That is not the best part either. The actual real best part about going to Los Angeles is landing at LAX and waiting over an hour at the “baggage carousel” which is, interestingly enough, not as festive as a carousel but twice as annoying. The even bester part is that when the bags finally start coming down this baggage poop chute contraption, you realize they are totally drenched from the rain. But wait, wait, that’s not really the best part. This is the best part:

People tell you–unapologetically–that your luggage has gone missing. They just don’t know where it is, they’re sorry. The good news is that they will write a claim on your behalf. Oh how lucky I am. What does the bag look like? I say it’s green. They show me a profile sheet of different bags of different styles. Kind of like when people go to the police station and you flip through books that have pictures of criminals, except instead of criminals there are bags with labels like “soft-material, upright, with wheels and extending handle.” So now there is a claim on my behalf! 1 bag, style: 22, color: GN. I would rather write a claim on my own behalf, to be honest. After all, I am a writer. I can write my own claims, thank you. If you start writing for me, then I will be out of a job. So, then, my claim:

CLAIM: YOU HAVE LOST MY BAG. YOU HAVE NOT ONLY RUINED MY CHRISTMAS, YOU HAVE RUINED EVERYONE ELSE’S CHRISTMAS BECAUSE THEIR GIFTS ARE INSIDE THAT BAG. YOU KNOW, THE ONE THAT “HAS GONE MISSING.” MY CLAIM IS THAT YOU ARE INCOMPETENT.

There was another woman too, whose bag had also “gone missing.” She was on her way back from Australia. She was very tired. She started to cry. Then she started to get angry. Then she started to cry. I was exhausted just listening to her.

Having said all this, I am in Los Angeles. Hello, there. Also, I do not have clean underwear and my hair smells like vomit. The time is 5:17 am New York time, which I am currently on, despite the fact that I am in Los Angeles. I am wearing random things that belong to my mother, including her underwear. It is new underwear, fresh from a little tube, but still, it is strange to be wearing my mother’s underwear. Plus, it is big. Because she’s bigger. My mother laughed at me. Thanks, Mom. Why don’t you just kick me in the throat while I’m down? It’ll make the lack of luggage go down much easier.

I am going to go to bed now in order to wake up from this horrible nightmare. Maybe tomorrow I will have luggage and my friends and family members will have gifts. Or maybe not. If that is the case, I shall continue to sleep.

Tomorrow I return to the greater Los Angeles area (ahem, the Valley) to visit my family. I have decided to do things a little differently this year, as an experiment. Normally I get to L.A. on Christmas because we don’t celebrate it because my parents rather spend all day at church with their friends than spend it at home all together, and I don’t blame them since I much rather spend Christmas with my friends (though not at church), so it kind of works out for everyone involved. Then I stay until New Year’s which is a big holiday for our family, where we actually spend time together and fight and the cousins have to sit around listening to our relatives complain that we are horrible people for not breeding. OH MY GOD WE ARE NOT BREEDING. But this year I’ve decided that I’d like to spend New Year’s in New York because I don’t think I’ve ever done that before, and even though New Year’s is my least favorite holiday, it might actually be my favorite if I spend it with people I actually care about and not my family. Ha ha ha. NO really. So I’m going to L.A. now and do the pre-holiday warm-up with my family. It is good to change it up. Maybe. The whole thing can suck, I have no idea. Holidays make people crazy. Like I said, it is an experiment. Experiments can go horribly wrong and sometimes you end up burning your eyebrows off, just saying. Then the stench of burned hair kind of follows you around. Again, just saying.

Also: darts. I really suck at them. You’re throwing sharp objects at something. This should really be my forte. But no. I suck.

Also: The “this is not part of your imagination” that I heard was actually a COMMERCIAL for a stupid A&E show and now I feel really violated. Why don’t they just break into my apartment and rearrange my furniture and then take a photo of themselves with my toothbrush up their bums? Just saying.

Also: My right eye is crying but my left eye is not. My left eye thinks my right eye is a big baby. My left eye wants to punch the right eye to make it stop crying but knows it will only make it worse. My right eye isn’t really crying, it just has something stuck in it. My left eye is calling bullshit on the right eye. I mean, what a lame excuse. Suurreee. My right eye is indignant, no really, something’s stuck in it. My left eye thinks it could be the ‘very special episode’ of Friends that the left eye saw recently. My right eye is pissed because it really hates that show and it’s not its fault there’s a writer’s strike going on and Daily Show and Colbert Report are not running new episodes. Besides, my right eye much prefers watching The Wire and has Netflixed season 4. The left eye is tired of hearing the right eye’s excuses. The left eye is walking out on the right eye, which now makes the right eye cry for real. You can’t leave me, says the right eye. The left eye says, oh yeah? Watch me.

OK. Does anyone actually like Christmas music? If so, please identify yourself so I can punch you in the throat and call you a liar. NO ONE likes Christmas music. Jesus doesn’t even like Christmas music and half that crap is about him. So, why are people playing it? Sometimes I want to break down in the store and just cry and then have a throwdown with the first “customer service representative” I see. Christmas shopping is already stressful enough, it’s like they are actually trying to kill me. Santa, why are you trying to kill me? I don’t know which is the worst Christmas song. It might be the “Twelve Days of Christmas” song because it’s about twelve days long. Like, why not just sing “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall”? Or it might be “We wish you a Merry Christmas” because the song is like 5 minutes long but there are only 10 words. The word to minute ratio is very, very bad.

That reminds me of how my mother called me “Santa Claus maid” when she in fact meant to call me an elf. This is because I am on the petite side of the human scale. I’d be huge for a dog, mind you, but for a human, I am kind of small. But not, like, that small. But you know what I mean. The point is this: if you have read Happy Birthday or Whatever, you already know this. Sometimes I find myself saying things I wrote in the book and people call me on it. Like, yeah Annie, I read it, duh. It’s particularly bad with my close friends because they’ve heard it a million times, and then read it, and then now they have to hear it again. I’m surprised I have any friends at all, really. So then I get embarrassed and it kind of puts a damper on the conversation and I have to be like oh sorry, I forgot, say, that’s a nice shirt you got on.

With the help of an anonymous architect, I have tricked out my chair. It is so tight and so pimp that every chair within a 300 mile radius is weeping from jealousy. They look at themselves and they wonder, why, baby Jesus, why can’t I be pimp? Am I forever damned to this life of mediocrity? Is there any hope?

Oh, but there is.

I have posted directions on how to turn your stupid, non-pimp, and non-tight chair into the Rick James of chairs (crack pipe not included). You can read about it on the Emeco blog, over here. But heed this warning: If you cannot handle the pimp, you should not even bother looking. I mean it. This chair is only for people who understand the power of pimp and can use it for good and not evil. Good meaning pimping and hustling. Evil meaning everything else.

And in other news: Last Known Settlers, my rock n’ roll band, has put up musical tunes for your enjoyment. You can check it out on MySpace because we don’t actually have a “real” website and Nathan would totally freak out right now if he knew, but shh don’t tell him. It’s our little secret. If you see Nathan please do not mention this to him.

I am going to Los Angeles in a few weeks to visit the family, i.e. get annoyed. I called my mother on Thanksgiving and told her I was going to spend it with a big group of friends, and she asked “Everyone you friend marry? Or are they….SINGLE?” Gasp! Choke! Sputter!

OH GOD NO NOT SINGLE PEOPLE!

Anyway I told her that we were all single and old and unhappy and we’d all sit around the table wiping our tears, and then after pumpkin pie the girls would have a contest to see whose ovaries were more barren. Clearly I’d be the winner. My womb looks just like the Gobi Desert, with camels and everything. She did not think this was funny. I kind of thought it was funny though. But I am one of those people who laughs really really hard at their own jokes. I am my own best friend.

But here is a fact: 41% of Americans 18 and older are unmarried/single.

This is a real fact. Not one of the fake ones you see on TV. Anyway it is almost like 90 million people. So for everyone out there who has to deal with a parent complaining about your barren womb stuffed with camels and scorpions and roving bands of nomads, fear not, my friend. You are in good company.

I’m in Los Angeles now, for an education conference. I got here a few days before it started so I could visit my parents and why I do shit like this I do not understand. It’s like I could’ve just slipped into town quietly, gone to the conference for three days, and then go back to New York–simple, clean, no headaches, good times for all. But I decided no, no, better visit the parents and harsh my mellow. Anyway I get to their house and there’s a sticky on the door: “Gone to San Jose. - Dad.”

“He go San Jose?”
“I guess so. How come you didn’t know about it?”
“How come YOU not know?”
“Because I don’t live here. But you’re his wife.”
“So, you his daughter.”
“But you’ve known him longer than I have.”
“But you know him you whole life. I only know maybe half my life.”
“That’s still longer than me.”
“You relate more to him.”
“Dude, no one relates to him. He’s crazy.”
“No, I mean you relate. You his daughter. You have same blood. That mean you know him more.”
“That has nothing to do with it. You’re crazy.”
“See? You just like Daddy.”

Last night I went to the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre and watched their MySpace show, where they bring up an audience member and show and discuss their MySpace profile and then do sketches based on it. Anyway I volunteered myself and I kind of realized while being up there that my MySpace profile is really boring and it doesn’t play music or blink or bounce or flash or scroll and there are no photos of me being “like, totally wasted.” Go look at it and fall asleep. I was kind of embarrassed about how absurdly lame it was and also because I have like 116 friends but they are book stores and inanimate objects. And I didn’t even friend them. I gave Doretta my password so she could just manage my MySpace for me. How sad is that? Plus two of the profiles belong to Micah. So basically I have like three friends. Anyway they did this one sketch where an author met an art director at HarperCollins for a book cover meeting in which they revealed a cover of a Leprechaun drinking whiskey while hitting someone with a stick. I was like SHIT THAT IS BRILLIANT.