This is the second time now that I have missed the mark on my holiday gift guide.  For the record, it’s also another year where I have not been able to send my annual holiday newsletter or even Christmas and thank you cards. This is very disappointing, but I’m feeling like this coming December is really going to be the one where I do it right.  Everyone I know will receive those fat envelopes filled with stories about the feelings I had all year long.

Now, I know it’s hard to shop for the holidays when they are already over, but maybe you want to save this for a few months down the line or MAYBE you want to pick up a Valentine’s Day gift for that special person you love.  Well, no matter the occasion. I’m sure you’ll find something here that you can’t resist.  So, here we go!  Let’s buy some shit!

★★★★★

 I don’t know why this exists and it saddens me that someone else got hold of it before I did, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to get into embroidery after I finish with my homemade Christmas crafts SHUT UP THEY ARE AWESOME.   I heard a commercial on the radio recently and it mentioned how something was terrible, even worse than “your Aunt Diane’s homemade reindeer oven mitts” and I immediately thought – I AM AUNT DIANE.  I AM MAKING HOMEMADE GIFTS.  But listen.  Those two nephews of mine won’t be getting reindeer oven mitts from THIS aunt.  No way.  Using this store as my inspiration, they’ll be getting inappropriately nude embroidery wall hangings which I will expect to see on their dorm room walls or, better yet, at the office where clients can ask WHO IS THE WONDERFUL PERSON WHO EMBROIDERED YOU A NAKED MAN HOLDING A BLOODY AXE?

Auntie Linsey did.  And she is the BEST.

 ★★★★★

Sometimes people are in relationships with other people who love Twilight and despite that, I love Valerie very much.  If you’re in one of these relationships, one where you had to go see Twilight: Breaking Dawn part II the night it came out, then you might want to consider a Twitlight-themed real doll.  I’m thinking about spending the $650 because it kills two birds with one stone.  It crosses Valerie off my gift list and it gives me a baby.  I’m going to love that vampire baby so much, even though I’m terrified of vampires. I’m so desperate.  Help me.

★★★★★

Last year I really wanted to make a good impression with Valerie’s family, so I carefully chose Christmas gifts for each of them.  For her brother and his wife, I really went all out and bought them a 10 pound sack of elephant poop from the local zoo.  “Holidoo” is what they packaged it as, but let’s not fancy it up.  I got her brother’s family a bag of shit for Christmas.  I’m SO CHARMING.  So, how do I top that?  Well, I’m not sure I can.  But I can try…with a swirl of shit made out of glass (or, as their website markets it: “Crystal Excrement Poop Fortune Charm.”)   Some poor Chinese toddler had to make a thousand glass turds before lunch yesterday.  And today.  And for a thousand tomorrows.

Get it for whoever.  

But especially your in-laws.

Because you care.

 ★★★★★

When Valerie has to take her long jaunt back to Portland at the end of a weekend, I like to pack her some snacks to make the drive less sucky.  That’s a term we road-warriors use for things that are awful.  I usually try to include a caffeinated drink so she doesn’t fall asleep and crash into a tree, a sweet snack like cookies or candy and something of substance in case she gets trapped in a snow drift and can’t get help for several days.  That something of substance is, more often than not, a sandwich.  I love making Valerie a sandwich because a) they are delicious and b) she tells me she loves my sandwiches and I DO enjoy a compliment every once and again.

One of my very least favorite things about sandwiches, are that they have a tendency to become soggy.  I greatly dislike soggy breadstuffs, so this is the leading reason why I do not ever bring a sandwich to work (see also: very lazy).  Well, here is something that has come along to save the day.  The United States Army has gifted the world with a sandwich that is intentionally designed not ever to be soggy.  Also, it lasts two years.  So it’s like I can give Valerie a sandwich and say – I want to feed you for up to two years from now and this sandwich is how I will do it.  This sandwich is two years of love packed into an air-tight, dry, moisture-less container that looks an awfully lot like a Hot Pocket.

So, if you want to give someone a piece of your culinary heart, I would like to recommend the military’s M.R.E – two-year sandwich.

 ★★★★★

It was last year that I recommended these fine squirrel paw earrings, from CustomCreature on Etsy.  Well, I thought it might be hard to improve upon what seemed like perfection, but upon further research, CustomCreature has really done it.  I present to you, the Pet Pine Boogey.  Made entirely from the scrotum of a squirrel and some plastic googley eyes.  Oh, friends.  This treasure is exactly what you need to brighten up someone’s day.

As a matter of fact, I’m going to purchase one for myself and I’ll keep it on my desk, in its box, and I’ll name it Harry.  Harry Bawles.  I’ll introduce all my guests to him.  ”Hi!  Welcome to my home.  Let me introduce you to my Harry Bawles.”

God, you guys.  That will never get old.  NEVER.

★★★★★

Sometimes people do things that are natural, biological functions.  Like poop.  And pee.  Also, sometimes people fart.  Which is like a ghost poop coming from you b-hole.  I’m sorry to be so frank, but you know how science is – raw and real.  So,  we all know that farts can be, well, odorous.  And sometimes farts can be like evil escaping from the bowels (HA! GET IT!?) of hell.  And when that happens, the first thing you have to do is yell HOT FART.  True story:  Once Valerie and I recorded an auto-tune rap song called Hot Fart.  And by Valerie and I recording an auto-tune rap song, I mean Valerie recorded it while I held the speaker up to her mouth.  We’re a good team.

HOT FARTS can become problematic if they’re not kept in check.  Like, maybe you fart so much during a nap it creates a fart fog in your bedroom which you cannot believe you caused in that 30 minutes since you fell asleep but YOU DID.  SHAME ON YOU . Well, if you  know someone who has farts so stinky the neighbors are forced to call the cops because surely there’s a dead thing somewhere nearby, this is the product for them.  Introducing Flat-d flatulence odor products.

★★★★★

Well, it looks like we have reached the end of the old gift guide.  My final product is a special one, just for the ladies.

I’d like to talk to you about vaginas.

Designer vaginas.

Yeah.  You heard me.  DESIGNER.  VAGINA.

There are several companies offering vaginal rejuvenation.  Surgeries to “perfect” your scraggily old vagina, those folds just flapping in the wind.  You know how it is…your vagina gets so loose and wrinkled as you grow older that you just can’t get it freshened up properly by beating it against a rock anymore.  Thankfully, we have some amazing  clinics that will take care of our problem vaginas.  Are your labia too long?  Do they hang to your knees and slap around when you’re running? NEVER FEAR.  Go right on in and have those things trimmed down to a respectable size.  You don’t want your partner to leave you because your lady curtain is a dangler.  And now you don’t have to worry.  Also, they do it with lasers.  Maybe you were afraid of a knife near your delicates but fear no more…now it’s just a hot, fiery laser honing right in on the most sensitive parts of the female form.  Whee! That’s the first thing I think when I hear about how they will sew up a hymen so you can become a virgin, again and again.  You’ll be in and out in hours, before your parents or husband to be will even know you were gone.  Skip that yoga class and REJUVENATE then REJOICE.  Your baggy old vag is sparkling and new.  No one will be any the wiser.

Oh!  Hey!  And while you’re there getting a tune up to save your sex life – why not go one step further and get a boob job or liposuction while you’re at it. Because, just maybe, no one will love you if your vagina and the rest of your stupid old body isn’t what it used to be.

You’re welcome.

I love when Gus drinks water.  He always takes a long drink, pauses, and then takes another short drink before walking away.  Without fail, whenever he drinks, he comes away with a fat droplet stuck on his lower lip.  It often lingers for several minutes, until he rubs on something that soaks it up.  It’s one of the many things about this little boy that I adore.

You can see how productive this has made me.

I have enjoyed our conversation because it has offered a sort of connection that I need.  It’s a relationship with a fellow writer, to talk about process or feeling stuck or breaking open to spill our words all over.  Rejoicing and offering advice to one another.  I’ve had a long progression of harping on how I feel so stuck, supposing it could be this reason or that. It has been so nice to have someone who can understand the difficulty in that.

I have written blog posts quite often, later deleted because I didn’t like what I was reading.   I’ve only recently started to realize how the depression has lingered in strange ways.  While my mood is quite good and stable – I’m feeling all the feelings without being overwhelmed! – there are some things that haven’t quite been ironed out.  I have some issues with my short-term memory.  Occasional bouts with lack of motivation.  A certain kind of stupidity that I can’t quite put into words – which is a part of that stupidity – an inability to use words in the ways I used to be able to.  I do , however, feel this gently floating back into my life.  Taking it’s sweet fucking time, sure, but arriving bit by bit.  The words are filtering back in, and I’m finding myself better able to express myself in words that aren’t fuck, shit, stupid, good, bad and whore.  In therapy this week my counselor told me he had noticed these changes, too.  He didn’t say I was stupid, but he did say he notices a significant uptick in my cognitive abilities – I’m responding without taking as much of a pause, my thoughts flow more easily, I make better eye contact, I speak more clearly and concisely.

I find that certain routines or pleasures that depression took away from me – the ability to read a book and take in the words, the chance to hear music and let it take me to a different place – are returning.  As I write I’m listening to Yo-Yo  Ma and as it blasts through my headphones I can feel the notes vibrating through my body, as if they’re bouncing off of my bones  – crashing through my ribcage.  I’m transported to a place that doesn’t feel like the coffee shop on whose uncomfortable wooden bench I was sitting on only a few moments before.  This is not new to me, but has been absent so long it almost feels unfamiliar.  A pleasant and wonderful surprise that leaves me wanting to explode in the same ways the music does.  I’m not there yet – but the wanting is filtering back in and that’s something important.  It’s a notable occurrence that will, in time, lead me to that well of creativity that I’ve shut myself off from.

I have to say, 2012 was hard but it was also one of the best years I’ve ever had.  Valerie and I really made the most out of it, especially considering we continue our weekly jaunts up and down the freeway between Portland and Seattle.  We played at the ocean, camped, went fishing, enjoyed Oregon’s high desert, spent time with our families and friends, floated in lakes, relaxed along rivers and crafted like maniacs.

It seems as if, little by little, things are settling down and falling into place.  There are still some big things up in the air, but it’s getting easier to trust the way life happens.  This settling is a big deal for my psyche, because chaos is a difficult way for me to live and that’s part of why these last few years have been, off and on, so difficult.

As much as having this distance in a relationship is a challenge, it has also given me a unique benefit in learning how to be involved with someone, but not enmeshed with them; to have clear individual boundaries while still managing to build a healthy and satisfying partnership.  It is hard to go from one long-term relationship to another without some episodes of comparison and in those moments I find myself most always surprised, pleasantly so, at the differences – sometimes in those between my ex and Valerie and sometimes in those that lie within me, in the changes I have made..  I always love to see the ways I have grown.

2013 will be another year of growth for me, as my life and relationships progress and become more enriched.  I’m going to work on building up my friendships, family relationships and my partnership with Valerie.  I’m working on looking outward more than I have allowed myself these last few years.

I sincerely hope that 2013 will be a year filled with inspiration for writing and being otherwise creative.  I’ve missed spilling my voice all over the page, and hope the work I will continue can foster whatever it is I need to be more productive.  No doubt, having Valerie in Seattle will be a large part of that, so there will also be much focus on how we can make that happen.

I hope everyone has had a pleasant holiday season and that 2013 has started with a bang!  But not the kind we had where Valerie spent that last days of 2012 and the first of 2013 debilitatingly sick and, at one point, in the ER.

And just in case  you think I have somehow managed to become completely sane, I want you to know that a couple weeks ago while we were shopping at the WinCo in the middle of the night, I couldn’t find Valerie for 15 minutes and had convinced myself she had been kidnapped.  When I finally found her in the dairy section, I burst into tears.  I CONTINUE TO HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS.

Some things never change.

Here’s hoping we all kick the shit out of 2013.