THE WoD BOOKS TAKE UP SO MUCH ROOM ON THE BOOKSHELF. Thanks for your question, Christian. In regards to one of your other questions, I think pineapple pizza is an abomination, but can occasionally be a tasty one. - Jessi

And there are a great many supplements, too. Also, Christian, since you asked, D&D 4E seems interesting, but I haven't gotten a chance to actually play it yet, so....yeah. I've been playing 3.5 for long enough that I'm used to most of its quirks, though, so it's still my favorite edition at the moment.- Matt

Sitting in the office just now, my assistant and I heard a sad meowing from somewhere.

I went outside and there was a kitten and a teenage cat hanging outside the steps. When they saw me, they headed for the hills. Ferals, clearly, since all domesticated cats love me.

No, its true. I've never met a domesticated cat that wouldn't pretty quickly come over to hang out with me. I think this is because I frequently smell like ham.

Anyhow, went back into the office, but the meowing started again. Indeed, it was a kind of distressed meowing.

There's this pile of scrap theater flats leaning against the outside wall beneath my window. Walking over to it, I listened carefully and thought I heard something rustling around in there.

I carefully moved the flats around. I reached the second to the last flat and - lo and behold - there was a very distressed looking kitten. Distressed both because she had been trapped, but also because suddenly this large, ham-odored human was staring at her.

With one last mew, she leaped past me and flew off in the direction of the other two cats. Ungrateful little thing!

The good news is that I didn't end up touching the kitten. If I had, there'd have been some 'splainin' to do to Kitty Michaels later.

I'm aware that I'm a total crank in this comic.
I wrote this one before New Year's, and ended up having a really fun celebration, actually! In spite of my curmudgeonly musings.

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I was in Florida for Christmas with my family. I made this little doodle comic while I was sitting on the beach, getting freckles.
Oceans

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I'm going to be at NonCon this February, where I'll be giving a panel talk on my personal experiences with self-publishing and professional-publishing (with slides!). Really excited to be at Vassar as a professional grownup, because I used to walk past it on my high school lunch breaks and go, "Look at those smart grownups!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My birthday is next monday-- January 11th! I'll be 25. ...So the holidays aren't over yet!

This is my entry for the eighth official round of therealljidol. Special thanks to sharya.

---

“I Don’t Want The World – I Just Want Your Half”

When the loneliness became too much to bear – which had been every night recently – Jonah would put a single bullet into his revolver and sit at his kitchen table with the muzzle pressed against the roof of his mouth.

He’d cock the hammer and then sit there until the gun metal was no longer cold, until his mouth got used to the foreign taste. Sweat would start dripping down his face and back, soaking his wife-beater. The seconds on his wind up alarm clock, would tick away loudly. The length of times between the ticks would seem to grow.

Exhausted and defeated, Jonah would put the gun back down on the table and pour himself a glass of whatever alcohol he had in the apartment. It didn’t take much for Jonah to get drunk. He was only two and a half feet tall. He’d heard of other little people who could really put away their liquor, but one glass of pretty much anything and he was at least buzzed and usually passed out.

Tonight, all he had was Blatz beer. Specifically, an opened can of Blatz that had been out on the counter for at least a day. Though it made Jonah gag, he drank it down.

Jonah felt something lodged in his throat. Then he remembered why he’d not finished the Blatz. He’d dropped a Marlboro cigarette in it, when he’d had to answer the phone.

Choking, Jonah tried forcing himself to cough, then smacking himself in the chest. He felt himself getting light headed so he started stumbling to the phone on the kitchen table. Maybe if he called an ambulance…

The first thing he grabbed was his revolver. He immediately dropped it, intent on feeling around for the phone again.

BANG

Jonah emitted a startled yelp that dislodged the cigarette.

Somewhere, a neighbor yelled “Jesus Christ! What was that?”

The soggy cigarette still in his mouth, Jonah stayed very still. Hopefully he hadn’t just accidentally shot one his neighbors. When he didn’t hear any screams and when nobody came knocking on his door, after ten minutes he breathed a sigh of relief and finally spit out the butt.

Time to survey the damage. The first thing he noticed was that he’d shot through the wall calendar that the local garage had kindly provided him, even though he didn’t own a car. Shot right through May 24 – that was tomorrow.

On the other side of that wall, there was a shelf with various knick knacks. Jonah found that his globe had been shot clean through – the bullet had entered New York and the exit wound was in Hong Kong. It had fallen off the shelf onto a copy of the New York Times – specifically onto a big advertisement for the World’s Fair at Flushing Meadows.

The bullet appeared to have lodged itself into the cinder block wall on the other side of the apartment.

“Fill it with tooth paste and it will never be noticed,” he figured.

Bending over to pick up the globe, Jonah noticed that the World Fair ad focused an attraction called “It’s a Small World.”

He laughed a bitter laugh and resolved to go see this “small world” the next day.

It was as obnoxious and alienating as he’d imagined. Many of the patrons chuckled when they saw him getting onto the ride. The operator even made a crack about how “maybe there was a job opening for him.” The ride featured 80 dolls at least singing a song about world harmony and implying respect for differences – a message clearly lost on the operators.

“Tonight, I’m going to pull the trigger,” he thought, wandering into the Dupont Pavilion. The show – titled “The Wonderful World of Chemistry” had ended and most of the patrons had cleared out. Jonah sat on one of the benches – still warm. He tried to imagine the person who’d warmed the seat. It was probably one of the same morons who had been snickering at him earlier. Human warmth indeed!

“Excuse me,” said a quiet, foreign sounding voice behind him. Jonah was in no mood to be gawked at, so he didn’t respond.

“Excuse me, but do you see my bag anywhere?”

Jonah turned his head and looked straight into a pair of stunning brown eyes. She wasn’t a little person, but she was definitely less than five feet tall. Chinese, he guessed. Stunning.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Pardon me; my English is not so good.”

“It’s great. I mean, no, I mean, it’s, uh, it’s fine. I just was somewhere else… I mean, I was thinking, uh… bag?”

“Yes, yes, my bag. I left it somewhere after chemistry show. Do you see?”

“No, but I’ll help you look. I should be able to find it in no time if its here. After all, I am closer to the ground, right? Ha ha.”

“I am very grateful for your help, sir.”

“Jonah. My name is Jonah.”

“Pleased to meet you, Jonah. I am Ana.”

“Pleased to meet you, Ana.”

When the bag didn’t turn up in the pavilion, Jonah made a point of walking Ana to the lost and found.

“They can be pretty rude to foreigners here, Ana. I’ll take care of it for you.”

When the man in the booth – who turned out to be Chinese, too – made a crack about Jonah’s height, Ana chewed him out in Cantonese. To Jonah, her voice sounded like some beautiful record being played backwards. They ended up spending the afternoon together, until she had to catch her bus back to her hotel.

He practically floated while walking her to the bus stop.

“Can I see you again,” Jonah asked.

“I would like that,” said Ana, shyly, “but I am going back to Hong Kong tomorrow. Let me give you my address. We can be pen pals.”

They exchanged addresses. As their hands touched, Jonah impulsively kissed her fingers. Ana smiled.

“I like your half of the world, Jonah,” she said as she boarded the bus, “you should visit my half.”

The bus pulled away. In the distance, a speaker announced that the fair was closing, though Jonah heard something else. He heard – something about what he should have said before she was just a memory, just an address on scrap paper, just a scent on his lips.

Jonah didn’t feel a whole lot better that night, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to load his revolver. He tried to write her a letter, a poem, anything, but nothing came out quite right. Worse and worse, he discovered he had no alcohol in the apartment at all.

He received a post card from her two days later, postmarked from New York. The photo on the card was the Unisphere, the symbol of the World’s Fair. The message was simple and brief and signed “Ana”. Jonah felt like his heart had swollen to the size of his whole body.

Jonah couldn’t afford to travel to Hong Kong – not yet – he didn’t know if he ever would. But he knew she was out there and, for now at least, that would be enough.

---

Based on the song Ana Ng by They Might Be Giants

Ah, sisters. Seriously, send us questions and we'll pick our favorites to answer in comic form! Just e-mail us at geekswebe AT gmail DOT com! We also changed the layout on the front page a bit. There will be a New Readers page (as well as a few other new things) posted throughout the week.

Heads up
Heads up
Heads up

You hold me up
You hold me down
and up and down
and up and
up and down

Mrs. The Wife Michaels and I have spent the last two weeks at stately Michaels Manor hanging out with my parents and my brothers family - particularly with his four children (7yo, 5yo, and twin 17mo).

I love my family, this house, this state, and being here. On my last nights during these trips, I walk around the house and ponder how much I wish I could live here forever.

Of course, part of what makes these trips so special is that they are temporary. I am sure if Mrs. The Wife and I were here always and forever, it wouldn't be a never ending vacation. No, the kids would continue to grow up, the pets would come and go, the seasons would change and relationships would fluctuate.

As much as I miss everything about this place when I'm not here, the absence is sort of what makes it magical for me.

(Or maybe not)

Anyhow, I am flying back to Honolulu to a job that I like, two lovable cats, and a very nice life with Mrs. The Wife Michaels. While I feel like the last year only gets a B- (some excellent stuff, but that ugly business with the collapse of my improv group pulls the whole grade down), we have a lot to look forward to in 2010.

All right, so I figured out what was up with notifications.

Basically, Hotmail (around noon EST on Christmas Day) deemed all comments on my entries to be spam. Spam that they blocked so fricken' hard that they couldn't even leave the remains of it in my Spam folder. I mean, frick, I get every Nigerian banker scam e-mail in that Spam folder.

I know this is when this happened because emo_snal was commenting on a bunch of my entries in a row at that time and half showed up and the other half didn't. I only found out about the second half of comments by visiting my LJ Inbox - something I had not previously known I had.

Anyhow, I poked around in Hotmail's guts and added livejournal to my safe senders list. Kitty Michaels then kindly volunteered to write a couple of comments in my journal (and a reply to a comment of mine in another entry) and both appeared in my hotmail account.

I have a gmail account, but I just can't quit my hotmail account. No idea why.

As a bonus prize, here are links to two of my favorite things I've written on the Interweb.

PEN*IS*MIGHTIER - originally published in six chapters at Unlovely.net and later reprinted at ValidateThis.com or Vutant.com. The formatting is lousy because I cut and pasted the whole thing into Wordpress and didn't ever bother fixing it.

Five parts of Donner Party (though you'll need to start at the bottom) - originally published in five chapters at Unlovely.net. Same formatting issues. Christmas themed, but bleak.

Dick Clark's mouth still moves
Because Seacrest covers it
With peanut butter

I sleep in the nude. My wife sleeps with a pair of scissors.

The first time this happened, it was entirely by accident. She was doing some scrapbooking and just fell asleep. I was nude and just fell asleep.

When we awoke, the scissors dangerously close to my crotch, we both said "oh boy, that was close - better make sure that never happens again."

Then the next morning, we woke up again, the scissors again loitering by my genitals.

"Wife, what the heck," I asked.

"I don't remember going to sleep with them she replied. And why are you naked? Its freezing out?"

I confess, I had no idea. I thought I'd gone to bed in my pajamas, but there they were, folded up nice and neat in the dresser drawer.

We joked about it that night. She jokingly got out the scissors and I jokingly got naked and before we knew it, we were both asleep.

"All right," I said the next morning, "that was our own fault."

That night, we were careful to put the scissors away in the desk drawer in the study. I put on my flannels and we went to sleep. God damn if I didn't wake up naked with the scissors practically jabbing into my groin.

"I swear I never took out the scissors."

"I never took my clothes off."

So that night, we set up the digital camera and recorded the night to our hard drive. When we woke up the next morning, nude in my case and armed with scissors in hers, we rushed to the hard drive to see what happened. Watching the time stamp, we were dressed and scissorless until 3:14 AM. At that point, the screen went all loopy, but the picture came back at 3:15. Sure enough, I was naked, she had scissors, and it looked like we hadn't moved at all.

That night, I wore a chastity belt and the scissors were locked in the file cabinet.

The next night, we slept in different rooms.

The night after that, I stayed at a hotel.

The night after that, we both stayed at different hotels.

It made no difference. We kept waking up in our own bed in the same menacing (at least for my reproductive organs) position.

One night, we decided to stay up all night. It was no use. At 3:14, just as we were at our most anxious, we both suddenly konked out and woke up the next morning in potential castration mode.

So we asked me brother to stand guard. The next morning, both he and I were nude on either side of her and she had two pairs of scissors.

We asked her sister. Only I was nude, but both she and my wife had scissors.

We taped the scissors to my hand. I was still nude, still had the scissors, but her hand was taped to the scissors underneath mine.

Spooky.

We've had a number of spirited discussion about what might be causing this. She suggested poltegeists. I think either God or Satan wants me to be castrated because I'm destined to father either Christ or the anti-Christ. Our siblings think that they don't want to visit our house anymore.

On the positive side, its injected a note of danger into our relationship that we find exhilerating.

On the negative side, one night she's going to accidentally snip it off.

Why is it that every so often, something will be so bad that it almost crosses back into the realm of 'good'?

Things like live action DBZ movies, although the new one might be alright. I haven't watched it, but it will probably be better than the anime, in any case. Crucify me if you like, but after watching that strangely addictive drivel for a few days straight, my husband and I gave the DVD's away for the sake of self preservation.

Failing all else, Pug dogs are a good example (along with any other dog which looks like it's been hit in the face with a skillet). They are the very embodiment of the phrase, "I'm so ugly, I'm cute".

Maybe our fondness is born out of a sense of pity, but I think it's more likely that somewhere in the back of our skulls, part of our brain is dancing around singing, "HA! Sucked in! I'm SO glad I'm not you..."

...Good grief I get sidetracked easily. All of this started because I found a fan fiction that I will never read, despite how much it's summary makes me laugh.

I have a rule that I usually obey which states, 'I will not read fan fiction with summaries ending in the words: "Not good with summaries".'

Unless I am incredibly bored or feeling generous, I consider those words to mean, "I can't write a few short sentences, so my attempt at a story is doomed from the start".

The fic in question's summary is comprised of 44 words, and my fist thought upon reading their final, fatal claim was, 'Not good with spelling, either'. (Akinarei would have a fit if she saw the grammar.)

I'll admit my spelling isn't the best, but that's what dictionaries, and at the very least, spell-checkers are for. Seriously, how do words like 'adventure' and 'revenge' end up as 'advanture' and 'revange'?

...It occurs to me that I am a very argumentative person, despite the fact that it's rare for me to have a serious argument with anyone. (The first and only time I've ever argued with my dad was towards the end of 2004.)

I play fight with my husband all the time though. One day I will make him admit that I'm right about the meaning of Cake's song, 'Friend is a Four Letter Word'!

(unlinked because two links from me already seems like overkill - this was inspired by the underwear bomber and TSA's response to him)

School Safety

Shortly after the Columbine incident, Parkhurst High School's administrative team met to discuss how they were going to respond.

After much deliberation, the faculty was informed of administrations' bold decision. Trench coats had been forever banned from the hall's of Parkhurst.

Dr. Struthers, an Advanced Placement social studies teacher of advanced years - who, it should be noted, regularly wore a trench coat - pointed out that none of the students at Parkhurst wore them and, thus, banning them was ludicrous.

"In fact," he said, "banning something like this is just going to make the students want to wear them."

It was explained to him at some length that both of the Columbine killers wore trenchcoats regularly. Clearly, kids that wore trenchcoats could be perceived as a threat in this post-Columbine world. Banning them would surely allay the fears of the community.

The students were somewhat perplexed at the banning, but they didn't have a whole lot of stake in the matter. They, after all, truly did not wear trench coats - though local retailers did report a leap in sales of that particular piece of outerwear.

A few years later, poor Natalee Holloway vanished in Aruba while on a school field trip.

The administration reacted pro-actively, banning field trips of all sorts.

Dr. Struthers - in a parka - again objected, reminding the administration that the Holloway incident was an isolated, single event. He stated that the school already had strict, effective policies regarding field trips and that Parkhurst had never had any problems.

This time, several of Dr. Struthers fellow teachers - most of whom were relieved to not have to worry about chaperoning field trips ever again - shouted him down. Other than banning field trips, they reasoned, how could the parents of their students ever be certain that their kids would be safe on field trips.

Dr. Struthers made several comments about how it made no logical sense to change their effective rules based on a single incident that they weren't involved in in any way, but it was to no avail.

The administration of Parkhurst made a similar pro-active decision in response to the seeming rash of attractive female teachers having sex with their students. Over Dr. Struther's objections, cameras were installed in every classroom aimed at the teacher's desk. Teachers were forbidden to stray out of camera range for any reason during the work day.

Dr. Struthers pointed out that most of the incidents of sexual assault occured outside of school.

"We need to make sure the parents feel safe when they send their kids here."

"What if the child is choking?"

"Call the nurse, but don't go out of camera range."

When a student in Kansas attacked another student with a pen, Parkhurst responded by banning pens and pencils. When a Vice Principal brought in a newspaper article about a student who'd been run over by a schoolbus in Nevada, Parkhurst stopped their bus service. Then they banned cars when it was pointed out that kids had been known to get hit by cars as well. Sports went next, due to the injuries. The rest of the afterschool activities after that, since nearly all of them involved activities that were potentially damaging.

The most difficult decision of all came to pass when two Parkhurst students got into a fistfight one weekend. With great sadness, Parkhurst announced that the only way they could be sure the students would be safe from each other was to ban students from coming to school. The administration persuaded the town council to pass laws requiring all students to stay at home at all times.

That was when Dr. Struthers, in a somewhat childish snit, pointed out to the town council that parents have been known to abuse and even harm their children. His sardonic comment led to the council banning parents from making contact with their children until age 18.

Fortunately for Dr. Struthers, he was at retirement age and his children had grown up long ago, so it was easy for him to announce his immediate departure from the town.

Some discussion was held about how the children - now locked safely in their chained-up houses - would eat since they couldn't get out and their parents wouldn't be able to bring them food, but no immediate decisions were made. After all, there hadn't been any news stories about children starving to death in recent years.

At least not for another three weeks.

Is anyone else not getting their LJ comment notifications?

A Brief Exploration Of The Hazards Of Inter-species Dating

NSFW

History has recorded dozens of incidents where fairies have fallen in love with larger beings. The most famous instance of this sort of unrequited love - the one that young fairy girls romanticize in the same way that modern human teenagers romanticize Twilight - is the love of Tinkerbell for the human boy, Peter Pan.

Now, one could argue that Tinkerbell was a sort of fairy cougar. She was, after all, well over three hundred years old at the time she fell in love with the boy. To be fair, nobody has ever been able to say for certain how long Peter had been a boy. Potentially, he was much older than Tinkerbell, which makes her crush a little less creepy. Furthermore, fairies have a notoriously difficult time judging the age of creatures who are significantly larger than they are - which is to say, of almost every non-fairy species.

This story - which is best viewed as a sort of cautionary tale - concerns a time when a young fairies love for a larger being was, in fact, requited. While I won't go so far as to say the couple met a tragic end, they didn't really think things through as well as they should have, to their sorrow.

Rosebud Applebottom (I know, I know, that means something else in 2009, but it was her name) was a charming young fairy (which is to say under 200) with olive colored skin and raven-black hair. Had she been human, she would have surely been considered a head-turner, especially when she wore those little shredded dresses that fairies seem to like so much.

Indeed, this was partially how this whole situation started. While Rosebud was all of four inches tall, she did have a rather nice laptop computer with a built in web-cam.

It is, of course, impossible to judge scale via web-cam. When she first "met" Garfled Macteiver online in an AOL chatroom ("Older Women 4 Younger Men") they hit it off immediately. After some cybering in a private chatroom, they decided to engage in a bit of web-cam sex. She was overjoyed to discover that he was a decent looking man (which is to say, no obvious facial scars). Garfled, for his part, had no idea that she was anything but normal height, since everything in her room was scaled to her size.

What started as virtual lust soon turned into something much more profound. They learned that they shared many similar interests (the outdoors, folk tales, mythology, and frolicking) and even some of the same traumas (both had lost their parents to woodland creatures). Soon, they were staying up all night just to chat with each other - and would leave their web-cams on even when they weren't chatting just so the other could watch them whenever they wanted.

Soon, it became clear to them both that they were in love - in fact, they were perfect for each other. That's when Rosebud realized she'd never been completely honest with Garfled about her size - indeed, she'd never been completely honest about her species. She pained about this for a week before a particularly tearful AIM conversation:

ImUrSled: hey
GarfledMc: hey how u
ImUrSled: got somethin to tell u baby is breakin my <3
GarfledMc: whats up sweetpea
ImUrSled: don call me that went to high school with a ho named sweetpea
GarfledMc: sorry rose whats up why u sad?
ImUrSled: i never tell u this but i short
GarfledMc: im short too so no problem
ImUrSled: no u donut get it i am real short
GarfledMc: u could be like smurfette size and i still luv u
ImUrSled: 4 real?
GarfledMc: ya 4 real
ImUrSled: i luv ya
GarfledMc: luv ya too sweepea
GarfledMc: shit
GarfledMc: rose

They resolved to meet at a local park for a picnic one sunny Sunday afternoon. Rose saw him as soon as she got to the park. He looked just like his picture! She started running to him, but he wasn't as close as he seemed to be. In fact, he was considerably far away.

Now, short is a relative state. For a fairy, Rosebud was exactly average height. For his part, Garfled was short. Short for a giant. Indeed, in the land of the giants, he was considered "puny." Still, at thirty feet tall, he was something of a terrifying presence in the park.

Rosebud reached him and he didn't notice her at all until she started throwing pebbles at him. She had to practically fly right up to his eye ball for him to get a good look at her.

After several initial moments of stunned silence, they resolved that love conquers all. Despite their considerable size difference, they resolved at once to get married. Both of their circles of friends expressed grave concerns, but Rosebud and Garfled ignored them all and were quickly wed.

Which brings us to their wedding night.

Rosebud later sometimes compared sex with Garfled to climbing up and down an especially tall and wide tree several hundred times and then trying to sit on top of that tree at a precise moment. Other times she likened it to trying to surf naked on a geyser. Specifically, the process was fraught with danger for her and almost never satisfying.

Her husband had always had trouble pleasing women his own size due to his inability to find a certain especially sensitive female part. To say that the problem was significantly compounded with a partner the size of his pinkie is an understatement. Try though he might, Garfled lacked both the aptitude and the dexterity to please her in any measurable way. Indeed, after his first attempt resulted in Rosebud dislocating both her hips, she suggested they go back to the web-cams so she could at least have a chance of being satisfied without mortal injury.

One night, after a particularly messy attempt at coitus (that had left Rosebud half drowned and stuck to the wall), the fairy had a nightmare that doomed the relationship forever. Specifically, she dreamed she was giving birth to Garfled's child. I don't think I need to describe the details of this as I'm sure you can imagine them for yourself.

She left the next morning, pausing only to paint the words "I'm sorry" on the wall of Garfled's apartment. She requested (and was granted) an annulment. The reason for the annulment, which she wrote on the forms, was a simple, understated "incompatible."

Garfled was heartbroken, but soon found comfort in the arms of a rather buxom troll - the bridge kind, not the forum kind.

As for Rosebud, despite her epic failure of a marriage, she continues to prowl the Internet looking for the ideal man of any species.

In a sense, she has to. After all, there are hardly any fairy men, and the fairy men that do exist have no genitalia.

...I totally wasn't ready this year. Our decorations were actually at Matt's parents' house, since we forgot to bring them back after the flood early last year. Snow prevented us from putting up our lights, and there always seemed to be something that we needed to do first, and it would rarely ever get done (including thi comic). Oh well. We will be travelling to see relatives and relax this week. Comics resume on January 4th of 2010. May your New Year's be a happy, fun, and safe one!

December 21, 2009

TO: Ralph "Cutta Ho" Vargas
[Address Redacted]

FROM: Lionel Cannon
A&R Director
Thin Phat Beats Records

Dear Mr. Vargas,

First, the bad news. We're not interested in your music. Not in the slightest. We will not be signing you now or at any time in the future. In fact, I can say with certainty that even if every employee of our company was replaced with somebody else, your newly forged reputation at Thin Phat Beats Records would lead all the new employees to agree not to sign you. I just want to make this perfectly clear right from the start so that there are no misunderstandings.

Now, the good news. Well, good after a fashion.

I have been A&R Director for TPB Records for twenty five years now and I have never once been compelled to write a personal letter to an artist we're rejecting before now. Your case is unique and deserves my personal attention.

To be frank, you are the worst rapper I've ever heard. You have no obvious sense of rhythm. You almost never rhyme your lyrics - and when you do, its seems just as likely that the rhyme was accidental. The content of your lyrics tends to be either so vague as to be nonsensical or way, way, way too specific (as for example, your twelve minute magnum opus, "My Vas Defrens").

When Harry Rodgers, the man who received your demo CD, first listened to your unsolicited submission, his first reaction was that you had accidentally burned a phone call to your gas company to the CD instead of a music track. It was only upon listening to all of your tracks that he realized that you actually intended this as music. Furthermore, it was only after reading your manifesto that he realized that you weren't joking.

That's when he started circulating your CD around the office. It quickly became the low water mark by which we praised all dreadful recordings.

"Well, that guy is bad, but he's no 'Cutta Ho.'"

Speaking of your "rap name," we also found it disturbingly ironic that your manifesto contained such strongly worded statements against mysogyny in most moden music in light of the "Cutta Ho" business. I'm not sure what you think your name might mean, but most of us in the rap community find it to be an ugly term that suggests you're willing to harm a prostitute with a knife.

Last weekend, we decided we had to go see you perform live. Most of us were somewhat drunk at the time and had been debating whether you were "for real." We were very pleased to learn that you were not only for real, but scheduled to perform that very evening. You were everything we imagined you might be and less. The less, in this case, referring to your stage presence.

You were a veritable black hole of entertainment - a performer so densely talentless that you actually made the people on the bill before and after you less enjoyable by your very presence. Indeed, we rather liked the act that performed right before you, but after your set, they seemed kind of dreadful. You managed to make their good set seem bad through your remarkably inept performance. The whole office agreed that you were considerably better on CD when we didn't have to look at you.

"How is this good news," I imagine you are asking.

Well, while we firmly believe that your style of "music" (and I hate to call it that) is the polar opposite of rap (Anti-rap? Non-rap? Un-rap?), we're of the firm belief that there is a market out there for rhythmless, inept musicians. It isn't the rap market that you so desperately want to be a part of. No, I'm afraid that path is closed to you forever.

TGB Records has a sister label, though, called Smooth Groove Records. They specialize in adult contemporary recordings - specifically the innocuous music played in grocery stores and on AM radio. We've forwarded your CD to them with our highest recomendation.

All of the things about you that make you a horrible rapper make you perfect for th Adult Contemporary market - especially your pronounced lack of charisma. You could be - dare I say it? - the next Christopher Cross. You're probably too young to remember him, but google the song "sailing" by christopher cross and you'll get an idea of what I mean.

We hope you're not too disappointed at your complete inability to become a successful rapper, but look forward to hearing you in the dentist's office waiting room someday.

Oh, since I imagine your connected to your rap name, let me suggest you change your stage name to "Cutter Vargas." It sounds like you might be a mighty 19th century ship - again, perfect when your songs will be played on the stations that feature tunes like "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitsgerald."

Sincerely,

Lionel Cannon

Kids sometimes don't have an especially good perception of time. When I say "kids," please understand that I mean "me as a kid," but plural so that I don't have to change any of the rest of that sentance.

To elaborate, I don't recall my first year or so of life at all. I know I lived in Virginia and Texas during that year but my first conscious memories are of living in Fairfield, Connecticut. Now, I know I was younger than three while living there because I remember my brother being born while we lived there and he's two years younger than me.

At the time, I recall feeling like I had always lived in Fairfield, had always played with the things I played with, had always known the people (mostly adults) that I knew. From my three year old perspective, everyone in my life had always existed and always would exist.

Well, except for that damn interloper, my brother.

My first memory of Christmas probably comes from the basement of my grandparent's house. Or whichever house they were living in at that time. There is photographic evidence of me at three with my cousins opening gifts, but I also remember it and remember being a little baffled by the whole unwrapping business. I was not baffled by the "oh shit, new toys" business. I got that.

When I think back on it, I feel like I had a thousand Christmases as a small child. I don't mean this figuratively. I mean I feel like Christmas happened a thousand times. During my single digit years, Christmas was such an important holiday that most of my memories of my extended family center around it. We saw each other on a bunch of other days during the year, but the Christmases always stand out.

Mostly because of the fighting between my aunts, but I suppose that's a subject for another entry.

No, what I ponder is that my 42 Christmases force me to ponder change and mortality. People vanish. New people arrive.

The thousand shadow Christmases of my youth center around a specific group of people:

My Parents
My Brother
My Paternal Grandparents
My Aunt June, whomever her husband or boyfriend was that particular year, and her son, my cousin Steve
My Crazy Aunt May, whomever her husband or boyfriend was that particular year, and her children - my cousin Eileen, my cousin Jay and my cousin Arnold
Santa Claus

The first person who left this group was Santa Claus. I figured out the truth about him in pre-school and felt like I'd joined the big people club, so I didn't miss him. I still had to eat at the kid's table though. Damn!

After that, the group was pretty stable for many, many years. Oh, sure, Aunt June and Aunt May had a series of husbands/boyfriends who'd join us for Christmas, but they generally did the same things and said the same things and drank the same amount. I'm not saying all of us men are interchangable, but we sort of are.

No, the first major change - much more major than Santa Claus - was the addition of the girlfriends and boyfriends of the cousins, including myself. This was generally a positive - if inevitably uncomfortable - event.

Then the deaths began. Aunt June of breast cancer. Paternal Grandmother of Skin Cancer.

Then the banishment - Aunt May was more or less forbidden to come to our house after she was emotionally abusive to my grandfather.

Then my Grandfather died.

Then the marriages and births.

Tomorrow, Christmas will consist of:

My parents
My brother, his wife, and his four kids
My cousin Steve, his wife and adopted daughter
My cousin Eileen and her in vitrio daughter
My wife and I

I look at my brother's oldest son (Joseph, age 7, named after my grandfather and father and his mom's father, all Josephs like me) and think that he's about where I was when this whole perception of Christmas thing started for me. That list of people will be his list in 35 years.

In 35 years, though, I'll be 77. My parents will almost certainly be dead. I suspect that cousin Steve and cousin Eileen will be long out of the picture. Hopefully, I'll have some kids and will still be having Christmas with my brother and his family. Chances are, nephew Jospeh will have a wife and kids of his own.

And then I have this great picture of my grandfather, age 5 with his parents. At one point, they had Christmas gatherings that I never heard about. Probably the attendees at those events morphed and changed over time - though at some point, my paternal grandparents pushed all of this own siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles completely out of their own lives.

I had an infinite number of Christmases when I was a kid. At 42, I feel the finite-ness of the Christmases to come. I don't get sad about it - its the inevitable march of time - but it does remind me that things change constantly and relentlessly.

And maybe, for an agnostic such as myself, that's the best thing about Christmas. It reminds me that I really need to spend time valuing the people who eat dinner with me tomorrow - at the adult table and the kids table. None of us are going to be here forever and its kind of wonderful that we get to be together at all.