Suggestions please.

So, a really good activity is to come up with chewy adorable costumes to stuff a baby in.

What are your ideas?

Top ones of the evening so far:

A tube of tennis balls

a ham

a bowl of mashed potatoes

egg roll

a beer

Cogsworth.

a codpiece

a liver

Ruminate on that.

I expect to be tickled.

Grayscale!

Learned today:

1. Driving in the snow/ice is my new all-time favorite activity. Besides singing. And raising kittens.

2. It is irrational for bald people not to appreciate homemade hats.

3. When attending one's first therapy session it is interesting to have the first thing your therapist says to be: "Oh- you're that crazy little girl with the pigtails!" Yes. Yes I am. Enjoy.

Therapy is necessary I've decided.

Also buying kick-ass presents for very sweet roommates that you know they will get really REALLY excited about and then waiting jittering and shivering with excitement for them to come home and open said presents. Oh- I didn't finish that sentence. Is great.

My car was stuck this morning. Of course. After yesterday I was Jasmine Bond and amazingly revved my car out of it's pit to drive to Erin's Christmas party. Then got stuck on a hill going home and together with Matt and Brett shoved the car up the hill while Maggie drove (most fun I have had in YEARS).

But after this party, I made sure to find a nice parking spot that looked relatively easy to navigate.

No such luck. STUCK this morning.

Had to catch a ride to the North Pole with Hannah in her SUV complete with three dollish children named Petunias, Perfection, and Sausage Curls.

Arrived mere seconds after places.

Now will take a hopefully hot shower. And if it's not hot then sorry everyone I am going to see tonight cause I'm not taking it.

The birthday boy and I are attending "Billy-Christopher's Holiday Hoo-Ha" starring Margaret.

Then we are attending that fancy bar Balliceaux where Hannah worked for 17 minutes and is really down the rabbit hole.

I have to wash my hair. Because I bought a new yellow cap.

Arlene, Kristoff and Curtis.

Today was a good day overall.

I better make this a good post.

Already the person I want to make it good for will have read that first sentence and said to himself, "Who cares if you had a good day? Why should anyone else care? Why should I read this?"

Adam is in the kitchen storing the leftover tablespoon of chili in a tupperware and he just said, "I don't even like chili."

However, he sprang out of bed at 11:45 this morning and immediately set about making a detailed list of chili ingredients that we then were all assembled to trudge through the devastation to Ukrops to acquire. Because we had to make this chili. That he doesn't like.

I love how the snow looks at night especially. With the Christmas lights on and everything so still and quiet and everyone moving so slowly. I love it. I love that you can hear the snow falling. I sat in my car after I blindly and haphazardly parallel-parked with the engine turned off just to listen to the crackle and tiny sizzle of the snow.

Then this morning I received a phone call at pretty early o'clock from Tom telling me Drifty X for the day. To which my cantankerous crabby ill self replied something very cheerful.

Which was rude of me.

But I think I can't quite be held completely accountable for remarks I make while still in REM sleep mode with my throat swathed in drill bits and pink attic insulation.

Anyway, I go back to sleep for three and a half hours and then am awakened to the sounds of Frank Sinatra muttering about Christmas on the record player.

Margaret and Adam are doing the dishes. I sit on the couch.

We all ignore each other until Adam whips out the Good Crocker Keeping Cookbook from early feudal London. You know the one. It has red plaid on it.

We make a huge list of what we need to buy at the store. We have decided to devote our entire day off to cooking lots of food that none of us feel we need to eat.

I put on all of my clothes. All.

Maggie manages to look incredible for our snow jaunt. She has on sleek grey jeans, lovely stylish dark snow boots and a swinging, elegant cape-ish thingy. With a knit grey beret and her beautiful blond hair making her look very expensive.

Adam and I, on the other hand, are having quite the challenge just to fit through the doorways.

More so me.

I put on my father's old non-matching high school softball knee socks first. Followed by a pair of those white athletic socks that around the arch of your foot become a corset to promote good foot health or something. Then my blue jeans, then my pajama bottoms. Then my blue thermal shirt, my "life is good" shirt, my green hoodie, my giant red winter jacket, my pink scarf, and my festive blue and orange toboggan hat that my father hates for me to wear, but I love because it is funny and colorful and no one can tell if the creatures on it are supposed to be chess pawns or characters from Pac-Man.

Then I realize I have cleverly left the snow boots that my wonderful mother had the foresight to bring to me yesterday at the Mill in the trunk of my car. So I decide to stride out the door in my highly specialized rubber orthopedic shoes.

Which worked just fine.

Boring details. That particular person is not going to find this amusing.

We go to Ellwood Thompsons. I eat a nasty sample of banana bread.

We go to Blockbuster whereupon the heaven opened up and angels and love and small round porcupines in belly shirts rained down upon me. They had a display of those squeezy head pens that I love. And I have been in need of a fresh one. Bing Crabsby has yet to run out of ink, but due to the high altitude in the new Theatre IV rehearsal space, has lost all of his inflatability. So now he has a friend. A snowman named Curtis.

We all three got one. See title.

The man working the Blockbuster register was very puzzled by we three people who had obviously braved the WEATHER to come to Blockbuster and buy pop-eye pens.

Then we went home and made chili and cookies and cornbread and fielded extremely entertaining text messages, and laid in the floor and made hats.

Well just I made a hat.

I'm pretty sure that if we do Spelling Bee tomorrow, the entire audience will be onstage with us just to meet the quota of volunteers.

I have now bought 1 gift.

Well, I have twenty-five minutes to wait until I go pick up Jason Winebarger.

Today I did Drifty. Tom is pretty sure it is going to snow and all of Colonial Heights will be cancelled.

I kind of hope it snows. But I want to be somewhere I find most necessary if it does so that I can be stuckedly content.

Last year when it snowed for 45 seconds Maggie and I made a huge production out of traipsing through the slush and massive millimeters of snow to dig her car out of the trauma and drive to Krispy Kreme while Brett and Adam stayed safe and toasty in the house. By the time we got back from Krispy Kreme it was 75 degrees and daffodils were blooming on the porch.

I need to pick another job. One that will make me lots of money- well not lots. I don't need lots, but enough money.

So that my acting money can go towards things like razors and kitten clothes.

I don't think Lola has any thunder to steal, Adam.

It is funny to me that Ginny Weasley is now taller than Daniel Radcliffe. I bet the casting people said, "whoops."

Ok here goes Adam-

Sometimes snow is invisible after you pass through doorways.

Also, I might become a nurse for the shoes, and mom jeans are never ok for cowpokes.

Also- it was Professor Mullet in the water closet with the foam donut.

Well, I don't have anything else I want to say right now.

Hot water.

I haven't bought anyone anything.

Today a small boy strode up to Tom dressed as Cowboy Jim in the parking lot and said, "hello there......Farmer Jeff."

I liked that a lot.

Then Tom made like he was going to go inside because it was so cold, so I began to go with him. And then he stopped going inside so that I would have to stay outside too.

Which I respect.

I think maybe I'll stop plucking my mustache and errant chin hairs. If I could manage to grow a beard I might be warmer.

I saw Russell today. Which was nice. I handed him his intricately decorated envelope with his script and score inside. I hope he appreciates all the work I put in on that bunny and flower and rendering of him in large plaid bell bottoms as Pete.

We're going to see "Bus Stop" tonight. I hope there will be egg casserole and mint tea served in the lobby.

Casserole. Another good name for a cat.

It's time for Betty's surgery!

Everything gets a little awkward when the family pet is horny. Especially at Christmas time.

Well then. Fountains?

How much happiness is not enough?

I am not Carrie Bradshaw, nor do I write a column about sex and relationships, but that is a good title for one, no?

I want to write a column for some paper. Who wants me to write a column for their paper? How do I get that job.

However, I will steadfastly refuse to dye awful looking roots into my hair and run around looking tacky. Me? Never.

I ADORE the Christmas lights on Monument Ave. Always have. However, this year there seems to be an unsettling aquamarine theme going around.

I don't approve. I feel as though we should have had an avenue meeting and discussed/voted on a good color.

I like the white ones myself. Or the giant bursts for multi-colored lights that are artfully arranged to appear haplessly hurled over the balcony.

I just went out and bought a fleece for the cat.

Margaret is at play practice counting chairs with R. Cooper Timberline.

Adam is off listening to some actors read a play and seeping blood out of his thumb.

I have a frosty and am going to watch Dexter. Happy as a clam in a pig.

I cannot wait to watch the clip of Sam's tap performance at Lincoln Center last night on some computer that will actually load the clip and make it look like a movie instead of a lazy artist's flip book.

I CANNOT WAIT to humiliate Betty's soul into a pile of charred empty fragments of nothingness by making her wear this sweater.

Long fancy fingernails are just not me. Neither perhaps are stumpy chewed ones. Something nice and tidy and practical I think.

Um, well NOT mauve.

I'm awake.

My throat doesn't hurt at the moment, which makes me hopeful that the "energy work" Dee did to my head yesterday has been a success. I've never had anything like that done to me before, but am game for any new activity, so I stood still while she put her hands on my throat and back and thought healing thoughts at me.

I was pretty sure I had ruined the whole thing though, because she started out by telling me to envision a coiling tube of three different colored lights beaming into the top of my head. She instructed me as to what two of the colors were, and then told me to make the third color whatever color I find to be the most soothing.

So I say confidently, "Ok!."

She begins. I have lied with my confident "Ok" because I know that whenever anyone asks me to pick a favorite anything or dream role or pretty much any question in general, my mind goes into a tizzy and cannot come up with one answer, or any answer, and I seem to know nothing whatever about what my opinions are.

So I spend the whole time trying to decide on a color. I think of soothing gray aluminum first, because whenever I am sick or nauseous for some reason thinking of hard metal tables that are cool and hard and flat and shiny makes me feel better.

But then I think, no, maybe green.

Then, no- some sort of baby blue

Then, well f$*## it, Audra, I'm sure you've ruined the whole thing by now and instead of your throat feeling better it is going to start sprouting potatoes or something.

But it seems to have worked a bit. So we'll see.

Thanks, Dee.

Then I went home and found Adam and Maggie watching "Elf." I watch for a bit and realize that this is just a movie starring Matt Shofner as Leaf Coneybear.

Maggie is sprinkling organic powdered sugar on a fresh batch of those cookies I mentioned.

I tuck Betty's face into the crook of my elbow and wander around the house supporting her only from that point. I am curious to see how long she will put up with such ill treatment.

Indefinitely is apparently the answer.

Oh- there really is nothing you can't do with duct tape. I tried.

I begin telling Adam a story and then look up to catch him standing framed in the kitchen archway holding my loaf of wheat bread with a look of incredulous hurt and disappointment on his face. I wonder what have I done. This look says, "Audra. AUDRA. How could you ever think you could or should bring a loaf of wheat bread into this house and not be caught?"

I ask him what in the world is wrong.

He beckons me over. I see now that my loaf has grown a Christmas sweater. A lime green, mohair Christmas sweater.

Which is really too bad as I had two pieces of toast two days ago for breakfast and probably ate the sleeves. Cause it's dark in here in the mornings and who knew.

Today the big trip to Burlington Coat Factory is happening. For the most delightful tacky Christmas sweaters we can find. I'll keep you posted.

Also Joseph is coming to town to be in the math show at the Barksdale. Very excited.

There should never be crunching noises when cats bathe themselves down there.

Betty.