Houston, relax, 'cause for once we don't have a problem

T minus ten and counting . . . to the ball drop on Times Square and the symbolic official beginning of the New Year, at least for those of us in the Eastern Time Zone in the U.S., who pay even scant attention to what goes on in New York that doesn't involve someone running for president.

For the rest of you (us? me?), there's always the giant wrench that is dropped from the top of the fire station tower in Mechanicsburg, Pa., or the giant sardine that is dropped from a tall structure in an obscure village in Maine, one my Mom, Vivien Leigh, heard about earlier today. I don't know if there's anything in particular that is dropped from a high place in Pittsburgh on New Year's Eve. The price of domestic steel circa 1983 perhaps?

Lest the North Carolinians among us forget, there is also the giant acorn that hurtles toward earth from the top of some nondescript office tower in downtown Raleigh. Really, Raleigh, an acorn, of all things. I know you pride yourself on being the City of the Oaks and all, but kicking a giant representation of the byproduct of oak tree fertilization over the ledge of the [insert corporate banking entity here] tower while thousands of (sadly) sober North Carolinians scream themselves silly (no doubt to ward off the 20F weather and wind chill that was in abundance the last time I was among the throng) just isn't my idea of fitting tribute to the old and a warm embrace of the new. But I'm like that.

So what is my idea of a good way to spend New Year's Eve? Right now, writing one more blog entry before the year ends. As a couple of you told me, I owed you one, being that I had only written one other entry for the month.

I owe you more than one, actually, as I had a number of events and thoughts, both happy/sad and bitter/sweet, to relate this month. You may read about some of them yet. I think I also owe the Spice Girls at least one full blog posting, rather than merely some vague allusions in my previous entry. In addition, my take on Rudolph the Pink-Nosed, Tinsel-Donning, Personal Friend of Dorothy should see the light of day at some point, even if I retroactively date the post to December 25th, a belated Christmas present for you all. (You're so welcome! And it's just the right size!)

Thus, this blog entry = payback for all of you who think that I've abandoned Blogtucky to play online Scrabulous via Facebook. I have a little but not completely. So fear not--it's just that during the frenzied holiday season, it's easier for me to come up with single words like "qat," "taiga," "guano," and "orzo" over the course of several days than it is for me to pull together 500+ of them at one time, strung together with ornament hooks and popcorn garland into a reasonably coherent and desperately funny 'tis the season presentation. And perhaps after two years of blogging and more than 100 entries, I may just pull off that feat one of these days. Just don't expect it this go 'round.

Surely I have more going on than liveblogging the New Year, though, right? Well, maybe, maybe not. I have an invitation from my friend Fouchat to join him for a holiday outing or inning, depending on our mood, and there are always a few public celebrations I could glom onto, if need be. However, given previous New Year's (ref. giant wrench, giant acorn above), little sounds more appealing to me this year than staying home, fixing a nice dinner, and watching back-to-back episodes of season 1 of Kids in the Hall and SCTV Network 90, both of which I purchased this afternoon at a still have-a-happy-holidays-or-else-dammit! Monroeville Mall.

After a few turns around the living room with the Chicken Lady, Edith Prickley, and Lola Heatherton, I'd like to continue the good start to the year, perhaps with a little midnight yoga and meditation, which should go well as long as my neighbors bypass their usual clogging practice or riverdancing or high-impact aerobics with weights or whatever it is they do upstairs by night. Then I would sleep peacefully while a goodly portion of the rest of North America tries to get in one more sexually transmitted disease or naked, drunken photo shoot for their MySpace page before the year is over. Yes, I am middle-aged; hear me go gently into that good night.

Despite the cynicism and sarcasm (they are as natural to me as air and water, as Earth, Wind, & Fire, as Donny & Marie), I have had good New Year's Eves before. I remember one particularly lovely one spent with my parents and sister at the beach in North Carolina, watching fireworks explode over the Atlantic. I remember another spent with friends at Candlelight Coffee House in San Antonio, listening to a strong band, noshing on excellent food, laughing it up with (and, it must be said, at) friends, then toasting with champagne (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) at midnight.

But this New Year's Eve will be different, and I'm fine with that. For you see, if there has been one overriding theme for the year, it has been exhaustion. Exhaustion from work and from life, from death and grief and moves and fresh starts and trips and packing and unpacking and happiness and regrets and dreams of the future. I'm tired, folks, and I'm ready for some downtime, however minuscule between Christmas last week and the trek back to work this coming Wednesday.

Exhaustion has been part of the year's mood, but so has another feeling: Thankfulness. I haven't ever really said this, and now is as good a time as any, especially if I want to start off the New Year on the right karmic foot (no doubt bent behind my head in yet another failed yogic moment): Thank you for reading. Thank you for being my friends and my family, the two major groups in my life for whom I write and upon whom I rely, perhaps more than you'll ever know, which is unfortunate, because you really are very important to me. If I had another idea on how to spend New Year's Eve, it would be this: thanking each and everyone of you for your friendship, kindness, and love this past year with a hug and a wish that we all might move forward together in the next and the new.

So no big finish, funny or otherwise. That's it. A quiet New Year's Eve and a tender word.

Blogtucky will return in 2008, the gods willing, and I hope you'll be there right along with me.

Happy new year.

"Hermey doesn't like to make toys" is just code

Editor's note: As promised long ago, a totally inappropriate piece of holiday tale. You've been warned.

* * *

You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen. But do you recall the most fabulous reindeer of all?

While visiting my Mom, Vivien Leigh, and my Sis, the Number 1 Beatles Fan of All Time, in Kansas over Thanksgiving, the conversation took an interesting turn. We had blown a little too hastily through our standard entertainment choices--the DVD sets of That Girl! my sister owns and the several weeks' worth of Dark Shadows episodes on loan from Netflix. Thus, we were in desperate need of something, anything, to enjoy while we convalesced from the overindulgence in turkey and trimmings.

Not one to click too much from channel to channel, I used Sunflower Cable's on-screen guide to review the holiday weekend's TV offerings. "Hey, there's a Meerkat Manor marathon on the Discovery Channel. Have you seen this? You guys might like it," I suggested. "Although bad stuff does happen to the animals, and I know how you feel about that." The latter comment was directed toward my sister, who has the world's biggest heart when it comes to mammals, especially of the hirsute, cold nose, and lick-themselves-silly variety.

"No," Vivien said, "Your sister doesn't like that one."

"Oh," I said and chalked it up to the occasional animal death.

Beatles, who does a lot of theorizing in her career as an academic, explained: "It's because the show is so sexist," she said.

"Sexist?" I ventured timidly.

"Tell him your interpretation," my Mom encouraged her.

"Well," she began, "All the female animals, whenever they are out in the open, are 'vulnerable' and can't make it on their own without a man [male animal, that is] being present. The women 'abandon' their children, then are 'punished' for their foolishness by being killed by a predator. Who says that's what's going on? Maybe the females just want to be on their own away from the kids. Maybe it has nothing to do at all with that very sexist interpretation," she said.

"Hmmm," I said, genuinely intrigued. "Sounds like something you could get an article out of."

The conversation turned to other theories, notbably queer theory and the concept of the "gay vague," as my sister put it.

"The gay what?" I said.

"The gay vague--the concept that there is a gay subtext, an indication of gayness in the text, the scene, but it is not explicit. For example, two men are seen together in a scene, and there is an intimate interaction between the two of them--maybe one lights a cigarette for another--something symbolic, but it's not explicit, it's left open-ended so that you don't know for sure whether they are gay or not. Yet it appeals to a variety of audiences, both gay and straight."

"Oh, you mean, like, in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," I ventured.

"What?" my Sis asked, now herself genuinely intrigued.

I took a deep breath and began extolling a theory I'd had in my head for a number of years.

"Well, Rudolph is an outsider. He is rejected by his family and friends, not allowed to join in with the others because he's different. His father in particular rejects him for his difference--his very obvious difference--and Rudolph runs away to the Island of Misfit Toys, which if that isn't a stand-in for San Francisco or Fire Island or Mykonos, I don't know what is. Along the way he picks up two other misfits--a blond twink with ambitions (that would be Hermey or Herman or, better still, "Her-Man") and a 'bear,' in the gay sense, in the form of Yukon Cornelius."

I continued . . .

"Finally, Rudolph heads home because his family needs his help. Thus, he becomes socially acceptable and part of the community once they discover the benefits of his uniqueness, his 'flaming' red nose and its ability to light the way for Santa and keep Christmas on track for everyone. Despite being an 'outsider' and, thus, to some, an enemy of the family and tradition, Rudolph ends up supporting both structures. The classic 'gay helper' role, I think you would call it. Just like those queens on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

"I mean," I stuttered, feeling that maybe I'd gone a bit OTT with this analysis, "it's not necessarily a gay story, but you could interpret it that way.

"Oh, and Clarice is just a beard," I added.

"Exactly!" she said. "That's the gay vague!"

And to all a good night.

Shhhh . . . don't tell anyone

Editor's note: Sometimes you just gotta get the garbage out of your brainage system with a throwaway post. Too many trips to the mall. Too many reruns of Miracle on 34th Street. Too much holiday *hiccup* cheer. So here I go tossing some lean scraps of humor upon the town dump of Blogopolis. Please do forgive.

* * *

I need to write something, don't I? So how'd it be if I wrote about Victoria's Secret?

Not a natural fit for me, you say? I have to agree: Satin short-shorts tend to chafe me, and I have a sporadic fear of heights, so the angel wings are definitely out. And, oh yeah, almost forgot, the sight of scantily clad women with larger breasts than brains makes me frown, then yawn, then suddenly crave a snack of overripened cantaloupe. Do go figure.

Nonetheless, my sleepiness and oral fixations aside, ads for Victoria's Secret are ubiquitous this holiday season, 'cause don't you know, nothing celebrates the birth of the Christ like too-thin, top-heavy models strapped into shiny shiny, skimpy skimpy undergarments probably crafted in a South Asian sweatshop by women burkha-ed from head to toe. Victoria's Secret simply can't and shouldn't be ignored. And my goodness! The Spice Girls new greatest hits album is currently available only from Victoria's Secret outlets in the U.S. until January. And, hey, you know me, Old Spice can't live without his Holiday Spice. Zigazig ha.

So, like many a lame stand-up comic before me, I present you with what I think Victoria's secret actually is. Inquiring minds and all that.

• She doesn't understand the phrase "sanitized for your protection."
• She thinks Britney needs a hug. Just not from her.
• She really liked that season on Dallas when SueEllen formed her own lingerie company, hired J.R.'s mistress Mandy Winger as the lead model, then after she'd pulled the rug out from under Mandy, screamed at her, "I'm cutting you off, you viper!" That was hot--and, come to think of it, exactly how her own business got started.
• She has a hard time reconciling her Ph.D. in gender studies from Wellesley where she completed her dissertation on lesbian iconography in the womyn's music movement with her corporate imperative to get bored, horny men to shower their wives and/or girlfriends with size zero silk panties, thongs, and underwire bras. But goodness knows she's trying.
• She can see Posh, Sexy/Ginger, and Baby as Victoria's Secret Spice models, but Scary tends to favor too much leopard print (no, really) for the corporate board's tastes, and Sporty, well, Sporty needs to stay away from the tattoo parlors. Not a good look when paired with hot pink, fur-trimmed teddies.
• Who knew? While she likes to think of herself as a free spirit and had one or two "experiences" while attending one of the Seven Sisters back in the day, she finds all that girl-on-girl action in her ads to be a little icky.
• She is, like, so over Heidi Klum's 15 minutes of fame already. What, is there no work on German TV anymore? Maybe as hostess of a new season of Bowling for Euros with Celebrities? I hear ex-Chancellor of Germany Gerhard Schröder is really good at nailing the 7-10 split.
• Even she thinks that David's a little thick in the noggin and has a too-high voice to be taken seriously, but staying married to him keeps her in Jimmy Choos and Manolo Blahniks (applies to Victoria Beckham only).
• If it was up to her, she'd wear nothing but granny-styled flannel nighties and bunny slippers from October until April.
• Really, a new mixer, a bread machine, or a Roomba would be fine for Christmas, thanks all the same. Don't go to too much trouble, though.

Thanks, ladies and germs. My name is Schecky Licious, and--to your neverending regret--I'll be here all week.