When I walked into my building tonight, I spied today's still rubberbanded New York Times lying on the lobby ledge. I was stealthily walking toward it when I noticed a shadowy figure standing in the stairwell. I shrank back into my doorway, quickly working my keys into the lock.

"Oh no, miss! Don't worry!" The stranger stepped into the light. "It's okay. I was just fixing my hair." He smiled and gestured toward his ponytail.

Poor guy. He thought I thought he was a lurking predator, but really I just didn't want to get caught snatching my neighbor's newspaper.

*My main studio apartment light is out again. The ceilings are higher than Amy Winehouse on her honeymoon. I looked for a lamp at Bed Bath and Beyond and I guess they were all hidden in the beyond.


But soft! What light leaves
this abode black, jeopardous?
Bulb's burnt out again?!

*

My building super
begrudges his steel ladder
and doing his job.

*

I shall make a threat.
These management companies
will ignore all else.

*

Writing haikus tends
to calm me down, but still,
I'm here in the dark.

I know Christmas is over and not a moment too soon, but I have to share a picture of an ornament I saw over my Texas vacation. I think it is the only piece of Christmas paraphernalia throughout time that has indicated that Santa Claus has a buttcrack. A very jolly buttcrack.

This is the Christmas present I'm still waiting for, the prettier of the last two to arrive. It's coming all the way from Scotland.

One of my big life events of 2007 was deciding to stop being a chemically dependent blonde. What? We can't all live in an ashram and find inner peace. Mind you, I'd lived la vida rubia since my freshman year of college. It had its perks. Blondes do have more fun. Sometimes.

But the people where I hair model constantly chastised me about how I was damaging my hair, how I should get to the root (pun intended) of the problem and put the peroxide down. Just step away from the peroxide, ma'am! One day I had enough. Though I was afraid I would lose more than half my sex appeal, I joined the dark side. Well, darker.

I don't think about it much now. No one ever asks personal questions about matching follicles, which is nice. The hair professionals love it and coo how healthy it is, blah blah. Cade has a harder time identifying the back of my head out of a sea of them at H&M. That's a tad annoying. It was liberating to learn that having a more natural hair color doesn't make me feel ugly, because as stupid as it sounds, that's why I maintained a grueling relationship with blondeness for so long. I thought being blonde made me more attractive and effervescent. Or could enable me to play one of those types on TV.

Today my sister and I walked around a housing development under construction to document my hair. I've taken nary a photo since Decision 2007, that day I decided to rethink my roots and buy a hair color of a very different integer. Let freedom ring.

Does your family have any traditional dishes for the holidays?

Because my mom's a nurse, she's always had to decide whether to work Thanksgiving or Christmas. She usually takes Turkey Day off, since our family opens Christmas presents early anyway. My sister, dad, and I have long practiced the Jewish Christmas tradition of seeing a movie, only minus the Chinese food.

My parents always have a ham for Christmas. The pineapple rings on it are the only fruit my dad eats the entire year. The sides are standard - macaroni and cheese, biscuits or toast, and some vegetable no one eats. Last night, I had macaroni and cheese for the first time since...my last visit. I grew up eating it with every meal. Seriously, I thought it was a vegetable until I took that required health class in eighth grade.

For the last few years, my mom and sister have prepared elaborate tins of holiday baked goods for people whom they are close enough to give gifts, but not to really shop for. Extra cookies from sugar to thumbprint lie on the counter for days, and that's when I feel how filling, err fulfilling it is to give.

*from a list of Christmas blogging ideas I found online

I'm at the overpriced grocery store closest to my apartment, looking for some snacks for my plane trip. Aisle by aisle, I unsuccessfully look for the treat that will hit the spot. A store employee pops into sight and I rush to her.

Me: Excuse me. Do you have any Pirate's Booty chips?

Grocery Girl: [giggling] Booty chips?

Me: Yeah. I know. Weird name. They're chips. With a pirate on the front.

Grocery Girl: Let me ask my manager. [yelling into the distance] Hey, do we have any BOOTY chips?!

I'm headed to Texas tomorrow morning. I can't think of a better early Christmas present than not having to wear my down coat for at least five days. Well, that and seeing my family.

Happy holidays!

Last Thursday night was my company's holiday party. It was actually my first company party ever. I've previously worked in schools where a holiday party was a half-assed potluck heavy on high fructose corn syrup and low on morale. At the charter school where I worked last year, a whopping seven people got together at a bar and called it the holiday bash. By then, it was late January, and the blessing of time off had become a distant memory.

My company is really laid back, and divided between sales people and the production people who actually write, design, and conduct research. Sales people are snappier dressers out of necessity, so they were all gussied up. A few fashionistas in production dressed up, while the rest stayed in sneakers and jeans.

Per Head Honcho/Life Coach's advice and my shallow cranial pool of common sense, I treated the event like a work function and didn't milk the open bar. Instead, I ate a lot of fresh fruit and many pink cubes in a pile of prosciutto and other fancy Italian variety meats. Somehow, I missed the pasta and moved right on to tiramisu. I dodged the huge, headed sardines and fish and mushroom smeared crackers offered between those courses. When one co-worker's significant other munched on a sardine as we chatted, I fought the urge to back away from his horrid breath. It helped that the venue was so packed.

Once Cade arrived, I introduced him to everyone with whom I work closely. His company is one of my company's clients, so if there was nothing interesting to say, we would point that out. I am proud to say that the guy I'm dating wouldn't dare wear a pair of jeans within twenty feet of any company party. He's also good at the small talk.

At the end of the night, the CEO gave me a smooch and told Cade to keep being funny. He'd joined our table at one point in the evening interested in knowing how we met. I gave the version that retains the charm of the true story while making us sound pretty much normal, which is a real feat. We left shortly after I earned my Brownie points and just before one reveler, a co-worker related, "became completely boneless."

I wish he could have said the same for the appetizers.

Some of Cade's friends and I are discussing male body hair.

Me: What about butt hair?

They stare blankly.

Me: Like on the cheeks? Or in the crack? Or just above the crack, like a happy trail?

Jim: I wouldn't call that a happy trail.

Me: How about an unhappy trail? Or the Trail of Tears?

Jim laughs appreciatively. Alex lifts his head after deep thought.

Alex: I don't think girls would be too interested in a trail down to Brown Town.

We grow silent. I suddenly get the urge to sing.

Me: "She'll be comin' round to Brown Town when she comes!"

This blustery blasé morning I found myself over the snow. Walking over it, yes. But also over it - out of love and even like. It started with the icy trail I trekked down, perilously sliding at times. I concentrated on taking short, slow steps and imagined the dark green my skirt would become if it got soaked in a slippery spill.

After making it to the wider expanse of scraped and salted sidewalk, I watched a kid in front of me attempt to kick the huge glaciers that had taken residence on the periphery. Fresh powder, these weren't. The kid winced loudly when the "snow" refused to give way. Hello, it was ice in sheep's clothing! The fluff flew, the ice stayed. Nonetheless, the boy kept kicking the glaciers. A good excuse for some new Jordans, maybe?

I made it to the subway station right before my entire face scabbed off in the wind. I kept pushing down my hat, shoving my hands in my pockets, and zipping my coat higher. Still cold. The AM New York guys were huddled together for warmth, so I decided to get my own paper from the stand. Upon acquisition, it came to life, flying out of my arms and into the air, skidding to a stop way across the street. I shrieked and grabbed another paper, burrowed into the station, and didn't even mind being cramped next to mouth breathing strangers all the way to Wall Street. It was that much cozier.

My yoga class isn't this funny or clothed.

They want a list before I get home. Since the last time I walked out the front door, my parents imagine I've been wasting away, barely sustaining myself on overpriced food void of any nutritional Crisco breading. The fanfare of my arrival commences with food. At the baggage carousel, my dad drops names - apricots, peaches, sour straws - of the goodies he's procured just for me. The first question I'm asked, usually right in the middle of a hug, is, "Are you hungry?"

And I always am, even when I'm not. My mom has the ground beef, which she calls "hamburger meat," in the refrigerator. It goes in the spaghetti, the first meal at home. Since I was in college, that's my first meal. As a kid, it was always on the top of the list when my mom asked my sister and me what we wanted for dinner. I never really considered that it's an easy, inexpensive meal. Nothing tastes as rich and loaded with love as a bowl of my mom's spaghetti.

The guy at a deli near my office makes a very similar version of the dish. In anticipation of my visit home, I've been eating it for lunch everyday for the last week. I slurp it up in my plastic chair among a few Wall Street regulars and tourists. "My first meal," I think to myself. "I wouldn't mind if it were my last." This trip home is so close I can taste it.

It was two whiskers past 5 a.m. and I was walking to the subway. Oh, the things women will do to keep their thighs from jiggling! I've ridden the subway at weird hours for the single journey to JFK Airport and for a semester of weekend classes towards a graduate degree I never earned. But I hadn't braved the Central Park North lines in the wee hours to take an exercise class. The media, including Jodie Foster's latest film, would have you believe that the city's backyard transforms into its largest crack den overnight.

I'm skeptical. In winter, I think most riff raff are finding more comfortable places in which to practice their aberrations. Even in the summer, I don't see how Central Park can be that dangerous. It's the equivalent of what Harlem real estate used to be. It was once dilapidated and thought an area too dangerous for most to settle. Now everyone is scrambling for the last bits of affordable housing there. What I guess I'm trying to say is that everyone, including the unsavory among us, is told not to even conjure images of Central Park after dusk for their safety. Thus, the park is an untapped resource.

Not that I'm dragging a sleeping bag across the street tonight or anything, but I walked by yesterday morning and didn't feel menaced. The thought of the spin class instructor standing up the few masochistic anti-jigglites getting up so early - that's what scared me. I wouldn't stand for being condemned to harping at my own tired self to keep up the pace.

I wasn't the sole straphanger on the express train, if you were wondering. I sat with a few people, mostly dressed in dark-hued work uniforms, all dead tired. One man kept announcing the face with robust yawns. "Man! Am I TIRED!" The proclamation proved quite rousing.

In my fatigue, I forget to bring water to the spin class. Big mistake. As I was climbing imaginary hills to Avril Lavigne music, I could feel my saliva whipping itself into some kind of dessert frosting. Always bring water to classes where you are subjected to Top 40, guys! My thighs burned with the fire of a Ron Paul rally, even though I was fudging the gear shifting a little. Gear 9? Hell to the no! I needed to walk the rest of the day.

How do I feel after my first spin class? Unconverted. I think I need more inspiring music and a later start time. The fact that I couldn't zip my boots over my bulging calves hours later didn't win me over, either.

But I might try it again. I love the concept of pretending to go somewhere, but not, in the name of firm, shapely loveliness, so long as good music is involved. Maybe I'll go back when my butt bones heal. Lemme tell ya, sometimes riding a bike is not like riding a bike.

I've watched all of the Star Wars movies with the exception of the last two. I once dated a boy who had a screenname based on one of the characters. I thought his being cute might redeem him, but yeah, it didn't. I enjoy being exposed to new things by significant others, as long as these things are actually cool. Watching the Star Wars movies wasn't a total waste of my life. (And yes, I know many people think it's blasphemous to not love them).

I did fall in love with R2D2, though in a completely cursory way. Sometimes I ask Cade to refresh my memory. "Who's that cute, little guy that hangs out with the robot man who's gold or silver? He talks in beeps?" Cade shakes his head, disbelieving. "The trashcan? That's R2D2."

Well, that little trashcan is adorable. Listen to how he says "Amanda's MsAdventures."

1) This is my third holiday season in NYC, and you know what? It's the first where I didn't feel depressed. I attribute this to staying very busy, leaving little time to feel low. And also not visiting that big-ass Christmas tree. That must have helped.

2) I walk along Central Park each work day. At one stretch, I encounter the crushed remains of berries from one of the trees. The stench is godawful. Being a former biology student, I wonder if the berries evolved to smell like dogshit or if dogshit evolved to smell like the berries. No one's too eager to clean up those stinky berries, so I imagine they have a good chance of longevity. Or maybe it's the opposite? Maybe nothing will eat them, save for the occasional desperate animal, and they have difficulty thriving. I hope that's the case. I'd like to see that tree with those berries go extinct as soon as possible.

3) Speaking of smells, I have this Bath & Body Works pink grapefruit-scented handsoap I bought impulsively in one of those sales where you seemingly get a lot for a little, unless you consider what you could get at Costco or Sam's club. It made economic sense, and there's no way I'm seeing the inside of a bulk goods store any time soon. I used about a third of the handsoap before scratching my nose one day after some handwashing and realizing, "Whoa. My hands smell like pot!" This is a cautionary tale on my part, but if you're into that smell, then I urge you to visit yonder Bath & Body Works. I'm sure there are sales right now.

*I've decided to enter some photography in a love-themed art show. I'm going to use some old photos and get a friend to pose for some new shots around the city. To inspire some fresh ideas, I've been looking for some interesting quotes about love. (The show's theme refers to love of all types and at all stages). Do you have any favorite quotes about love? Here are some I like:

Friendship often ends in love; but love in friendship -- never.
--Charles Caleb Colton

Love: Two minds without a single thought.
--Philip Barry

Love is also like a coconut which is good while it is fresh, but you have to spit it out when the juice is gone, what's left tastes bitter.
--Bertolt Brecht

True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear
bells, get your ears checked.
--Erich Segal

Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.
--H. L. Mencken

No one has ever loved anyone the way everyone wants to be loved.
--Mignon McLaughlin

The prerequisite for making love is to like someone enormously.
--Helen Gurley Brown

It is better to break one's heart than to do nothing with it.
--Margaret Kennedy

Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without
and know we cannot live within.
--James Baldwin

There's nothing in this world so sweet as love,
and next to love the sweetest thing is hate.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Provided you get out of your apartment, New York City never feels lonely. Wherever your destination, people will be there when you arrive and hot on your heels as you leave. The only time I'm ever on the subway alone, which happens about twice a week, is when I'm taking the C back to my apartment from where I tutor in Washington Heights. Service on that subway line terminates where I begin my journey home, so unless it's been a particularly busy day for hospital visitors and employees (the stop is where all of Columbia's medical facilities lie), there are few riders.

The first time I had a subway car all to myself, I called out in the silence. "Hey!" No one was there to ignore me, sneaking glances quickly averted if eyes met. The next times, I sang. This only lasted two stops before other commuters joined the car. Strangely enough, I felt relieved by the company. I'm accustomed to being alone with strangers most of my waking hours. My voice never even grew to its potential, unencumbered by self-consciousness in those few minutes alone, because I knew I really wasn't. Not here with these millions of people aboveground, and the handful in subway cars on either side of mine.

When people get on my subway car after the brief solo ride, they often sit near me. Not beside me, but on the same stretch of seating or across from me. This comes as no surprise. Those people at the movie theater who sit right in front or behind you, despite an abundance of unoccupied seats, aren't just trying to annoy you or get the second best seat.

There's something about being alone together with strangers who really aren't so different, who are doing the same thing you're doing. There's a comfort and camaraderie in not getting to be completely comfortable and doing whatever it is you do when completely, ostensibly alone in this crowded city where people live above, below, and alongside you. In my case, that would be singing, but maybe not for long. I gave up on keeping my humming, writing, grooming, and napping private a long time ago.

When we're not working, people at my company have inane conversations with very quotable lines.

Co-worker: Some people think grapefruit is too bitter, but I love it. It's like eating an old man's personality!

I'm going to call it an early night, I think. I'm feeling antsy about the things I want to do this weekend. The days sneak away from me. I want to get them in my grip somehow. "Stay put!" I'd order them. "There's so much I want to do!" I've been thinking about that a lot lately - what I want to do and how I can try to do it.

I want to:

*Learn how to rock climb.

*Shadow Cade's dad on his landlording duties in Philadelphia.

*Be a part of next year's cranberry harvest and stand in a sea of berries.

*See Persepolis.

*Go on a really cool vacation.

*Take a trapeze class.

I have a nice little feature published in City Pet Guide, now available at pet stores, veterinarians' offices, and animal-friendly sites all over New York City. Get it while you can!

*There's yet another damn typo I know I didn't make in the final copy! Grrr!

Co-worker #1: I think most food allergies are psychosomatic, as evidenced by Temple of Doom.

Co-worker #2: Right. Because that's factual.

On Sunday, NYC got its first blanket of snow this winter. It quieted the city for all of one day. Everything's thawed now. Horns seem to blare louder, echoing through the snowless streets. I'm waiting for more.