Boob Dress

I accidentally cleaned my whole apartment today.

It started innocently enough. I was looking for my boob dress for New Year's. My boob dress is the most ta-ta displaying outfit in my collection, and I haul it out for special occasions involving alcohol consumption and inappropriate behavior. (Like New Year's, for example.) Unfortunately, I couldn't find it.

I knew I hadn't left it at my folks', because I'd just left there and hadn't had it with me the whole time. It had to be somewhere in my apartment, but that somewhere wasn't in my bureau or in the top three strata of laundry on the floor of my closet. In desperation, I took EVERYTHING out of my closet, something I haven't done for ... well, let's just say there were dinosaur bones at the bottom. No boob dress, though.

Next I moved all my furniture. I found 73 cents, enough dust to fill a shoebox, a pair of underpants, and five novels. No boob dress.

I took all my clothes out of my drawer. In addition to the stuff I knew I had, I found my eight grade softball t-shirt, one bright pink fishnet stocking, an old embroidered hankie of my Grammy's, and about nine orphaned socks. Still no boob dress.

As I was cleaning out my drawers, though, I noticed that the bottom one had jumped its track. This happens a lot, because my bureau is a cheap wicker dealie from Target. It's a pain in the ass, but that's what you get for 80 bucks. Anyhoo, while I was fighting with it, I took it out for a minute entirely and found my boob dress in a drift of dust bunnies, alongside more pocket change and two t-shirts I forgot I owned.

In summary: Hubley 1, boob dress 0. Happy New Year everyone!

Dogs and Their People

I'm crazy about dogs.

Five minutes after meeting yours, I'll most likely be under the coffee table with it, demanding that he or she hand over that bone. For this reason, dogs love me. Isaac, one of my favorite dog owners, claims that it's because dogs are good judges of character, but I think we all really know that dogs love a fool.

I went to visit Isaac and Cathy and their amiable mutt Molly yesterday. Molly and I had a tussle over a cloth donut - "Give me that donut! Give that to me right now!" - and then we curled up on the rug for a snooze. Cathy looked over from the computer, where she and Isaac were looking something up, and found me and her dog in a ying and yang shape on the floor.

One thing I love about dogs: They really appreciate naps.

I didn't always love dogs. Growing up, we had some bad experiences. A large black lab lived next door to us and attacked my sister once. She wasn't hurt, but I'm still not sure she forgives me for running like hell when the dog burst through the hedge.

My parents weren't dog people either. My Dad had spent much of his childhood scooping up poop from his sister's dogs, because girls in the '50s weren't allowed to touch crap, and my Mom is just plain afraid of them.

Then my sister got Luke. Luke is, for want of a better word, ridiculous. He's a yorkipoo, which is basically a designer mutt, and he spends much of his life looking for comfortable places to nap. Most of these places are on his people, either their laps or, if couch cushions are conveniently placed to prop him up, their shoulders.

He's also crazy about cheese and never does what he's told without a struggle. Also, once he gets ahold of something, he's liable to shake it til the stuffing comes out.

I love this dog, which might be terrible vanity: It's been pointed out to me that we have the exact same personality.

Dream Interpretation: When Superman Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy

Last night, I had a dream that I was driving around in an El Camino with Superman, and he was mad at me for being mean to Matthew, my ex.

"I just think you could have been more sensitive," he said. He seemed really pissed off.

Yes, I Know

I'm the worst. And I'm on your side (both of you, at this point.) It's really irritating when bloggers disappear. Most of my faves are also in this weird sort of semi-retirement. Anyway! New Year's resolution: Write more for this.

In the meantime, here's how I know I am becoming a New Yorker: My only dream, on the bus from New York to Boston, is to be seated next to a person who doesn't talk to me. I got my wish yesterday, and it was lovely. She read, I read, no one talked. Bliss.

Someday, I'll publish a bus etiquette manual and let the rest of the world in on this.

Service Journalism

This is where you need to go to get all those last-minute gifts on your list. You're welcome.

In other news, I'm probably finally going to go to the cracker farm, because I've been cooped up in my apartment all weekend fighting with something that Ma Smash claims is the Norwalk virus. I thought that only happened to people on cruise ships. Anyway, it's been pretty ugly around here.

Although the Hanukkah mobile just went by my house, so that's cheerful. Have you seen this, fellow New Yorkers? It's pretty awesome. This white camper with a huge mural of a menorah on it drives around, blaring music from loudspeakers. I'm thinking of getting one of these myself, only instead of celebrating a holiday, it will just play whatever I'm listening to on my iPod right now.

Chicken Little

I don't want to alarm anyone, but I feel I should mention that it is now getting darker at an earlier hour than ever before. This is not hyperbole, but actual fact, observed by me, and confirmed by all of my friends and coworkers who wish I would shut up and leave them alone.

I know it's December and all, but I'm pretty sure that last year at this time, it did not start to get dark at 3:30 in the afternoon. I'm near a window at work, and I could easily have turned my lamp on at that hour today. This is not OK at all, and clearly means that the planet has become loosened from its orbit and is now winging off into the deepest, coldest reaches of space.

Upside? I can stop wearing 45 SPF sunblock. It's important to be positive.

The Naked Neighbor

My neighbor across the way doesn't believe in curtains, but she does believe in ginormous cotton underpants, and sitting in front of her window in the mostly-nude. So that's three things we have in common. My feeling about drapes has always been, well hell, if people are nice enough to do weird things in their window for my amusement, who am I to deny them similar?

I've seen a lot of naked people since I came to New York, and none of them probably shouldn't be naked. My favorite still is the guy who was sitting in his window, having a smoke at 6 a.m. when I was walking home from a party. I saw him and screamed; he saw me and waved. Ah, Crazy Naked Guy.

Speaking of neighborhood nuts, the Opera Guy is back. I heard him today while I was reclining upon my divan, recovering from NaNoWriMo and watching the murders on TV.

I finished that, by the way: NaNoWriMo, not the murders. I could now use about a month of sleep. Sadly, it's almost time to go back to work. Some day, I will figure out why Sunday night remains loathsome no matter how much you like your job. I suspect it's equal parts laziness and childhood trauma from having to go back to school Monday mornings.

There you go: All I need to do is figure out how to make that insight into a self-help book, and I'll never need to get up on Monday morning again.