I took the day off Wednesday for a day of relaxation with TBID at a Korean bathhouse. We'd read about it months ago and were prepared for saunas and hot tubs. The day before Thanksgiving seemed perfect, as people were still at work and school, and no one would have recently gorged themselves with turkey and sweet potatoes. (Not pretty, especially in the single-sex nude areas).

TBID and I arrived, changed into these crazy uniforms, and met up on the sauna floor. The buck naked woman with the locker next to mine had gladly given me directions. I'd call her a stranger, but I now know her a little more intimately than I do any of my female friends.

Though it was in the thirties outside, we splashed around in a hot tub with jets powerful enough to rip off my swimsuit bottoms. Then we dried off in the sauna, sat on indoor water massage chairs, and walked through more saunas. Being from Texas, I could withstand all of them with nary a pant - and without wearing pants. TBID, a native New Yorker, preferred the freezer room that was just a wee bit colder than outside.

I felt like I was just getting started with all the steaming and soaking after my romp in the nude area. Being naked with a bunch of old Asian women? Not so bad. Anyone who says that once you get comfortable, you don't even notice people are in the buff is lying. You notice. You compare. But it's completely benign, like, "That lady's eyes are brown. Mine are blue. Ahh, this jet is perfect!"

Post-skinny dip, TBID and I reunited. I ate a fruit plate and asked how he was feeling. "I'm very relaxed," he said. "So now what?"

I thought about that. "Well, you relax more," I replied.

"Relax more?"

The boy didn't know how to. I took him to the chaise lounges under the infrared lights. I think they prevent pregnancy or improve mood or something. I was ready to doze; he felt blinded. "Close your eyes!" I hissed. "I'm trying to relax!"

I ended up hanging out in the saunas again while TBID read the newspaper. Who needs a massage when you can get tranquility from the world news section?

We left before anyone unwound too much. That's kind of how I feel about this holiday, too. Going back to work tomorrow is a bit of a relief. Call me shackled, but I don't know what to do with so many days off.

Maybe productivity at work is therapeutic enough for me.

There aren't as many naked people, though.

I'm preparing a list of things to do over the Christmas holiday, besides live for free and wear pajama pants all day. It looks like I may need a separate list for the time off I have in New York before I go back to Texas, too.

Here are my holiday goals so far:

1) Learn how to apply eye makeup in such a way that I don't look like a tranny caught in a rainstorm.

2) Find old family photos to use for my apartment hallway gallery project, especially the ones of my parents looking like Urban Outfitters models.

3) Bake these cheese muffins. Consider them a vegetable to go with dinner.

4) Ride in the back seat and sidecar of my dad's Vespa.

5) Get through at least five chapters of The Power Broker, the longer-than-long book that TBID gave me.

6) Go thrift store shopping with my sister Megan. Covet her finds, convince her not to get them, and then snatch them up for myself.

7) Eat Whataburger taquitos.

8) Make caramel. Possibly use it for some other endeavor beyond eating it straight from the pan.

9) Attempt to get back in touch with an old friend.

10) Try to take a beautiful candid portrait of each of my family members.

I just BookBinged Banksy's Wall and Piece. You may want to check it out.

There was this wooden scaffolding monstrosity that went up on campus in my first year of college. It was an unsightly structure with tons of foot traffic each day. I went out there one night with my roommate and vandalized it. She stood guard; I wrote poems off of a printout I'd prepared.

For days, I watched passersby stop and slow down to read my graffiti. I felt so good about it. Then the walls were painted over in sterile white. Disappointing.

Someone later scribbled, "What happened to the poems?" Then that was painted over, too.

Dear Amanda,

While exploring potential angles for an article, your editor at work recently asked, "Are people having babies instead of buying homes in these tough economic times?" You replied, "Too bad you can't flip a baby."

Say what you will about independence and stretch marks, someday you might have a child. And squeezing that sack of potatoes-sized infant out of your tiny lady orifice is going to be the easy part.

Let's say you grow up and choose fertilization, because you're in love or crazy or the usual, both. What should you remember to do now that you might forget when you're busy wiping dependent, squalling ass or kissing every digit on a plump hand or foot? These are the things you can start with, from the gleam in your eye that may someday be your child:

1) If there's one thing your parents gave you, it was attention. Your dad has asked how your day was everyday as long as you can remember, and the answers generally range from "Meh" to "Fine." I hope your child is a better phone conversationalist than you, and you will continue the legacy of concerned talking and listening.

2) Let your child be different. Would you know what to do with normal offspring? I don't think so.

3) Talk to your child straight-forwardly about sex, relationships, politics, and general life stuff. You are amazed at the candor with which you and your tutees speak. They respect you as an authority, but there's no dumbing down or coddling or "because I said so." Maybe this won't work between a parent and child, but you can certainly try.

4) Understand that children move closer to independence each day. A close, healthy relationship as adults depends on respecting the right of a child to make his or her own mistakes on his or her own path. Just like you're doing now.

5) Surround your child with people of different races, ethnicities, classes, and sexual orientations. There is no one way to be.

6) Do not wheel around one of those obnoxiously large strollers or change a diaper within 30 yards of an outdoor cafe. You currently want to sterilize those people, and it's totally justified.

7) To the best of your ability, be the first example of who you want your child to be. I don't mean this narcissistically. If you want your child to say "please" and "thank you" and be open-minded, model these behaviors. The advice that the best thing a parent can do is love his or her spouse is simplified, but in the same vein. Your child is watching, and children's mimickry precedes mocking. You should probably start eating your vegetables.

8) Kid, you better work it. Household chores, volunteering, summer jobs, and internships are extremely valuable. Though you aspire to pay for the college education of your progeny - if they don't get full college scholarships, being the brilliant product of you and whomever you mate with - you want your kids to know the value of hard work. Basically, that it sucks if you don't enjoy what you're doing.

9) Lay down the law. Your kid will only watch x numbers of TV per week. No video games, especially handheld ones that fit perfectly in a backpack. There will be no soda or Ann Coulter in the house. Because you're the mom, and you know best.

10) Give your child opportunities you didn't have, like extensive travel, summer camp, and the best possible schooling. Find a way to provide this with no guilt tripping. Okay, with guilt trips that come with a window seat and complimentary beverage. (Not soda).

Sincerely,
Amanda

This Thanksgiving, I'm grateful for...my family, sliders, the healing powers of time, TBID, spell-check, humorous co-workers, colorful leaves, good photos, laugh lines, early mornings, cackling, democracy, gel ink, and Stevie Wonder.

There are roaming charges on my soul.

Jing cracks me up yet again with her portrayal of yellow fever.

*

Tonight I helped Borun flesh out details for an admissions essay about what a magical day would be like. It included him in VIP seats at a Yankees game saving Barack Obama from a foul ball.

*

I believe these children are our future.

Fashionista or not, please help me out here.

Is this too weird to wear to work?

I'm not a zany art teacher, but I do write for an Internet company. It's a vintage scarf tied around a navy long-sleeved tee. The bottoms are corduroys and the shoes will be navy pointy flats.

A few months ago, I would have just worn the scarf like this, because my company is like that. Or was like that. (Note: A guy wore swim trunks to work over the summer. Various people wear Crocs, including those awful ones with the built-in fleece lining. A senior person at the company rocks short shorts with black tights and boots).

Should I wear it or just lay off the look?

Get it? Lay off? So not funny in today's economy.

I work downtown and constantly run into people carrying these large paper bags with "EDUCATED CONSUMER" printed on them.

The carriers are so disparate that I can't tell if it's a bag from a store or market research group or what.

Are they part of some sort of shopping cult? If so, how does one join?

I guess I should just ask someone, but that would be too easy.

I'm waiting for a B or C train on the subway platform at 125th Street with a crowd of restless, cold people. There's no light at the end of any tunnel. The silence of such a large group makes me anxious.

An insistent squeak rings out. It seems like a din in such silence, though it is high-pitched and animal. Even cute, you might say, if you didn't see it coming from a big-ass rat on the tracks below.

Like a bath toy or stuffed animal, the rodent squeaks and chases after another that squeaks back. They bat their front paws at each other and loop the loop under and over each tie and rail.

Collectively, we move closer to the edge and watch. Our urban National Geographic moment is mesmerizing.

A teenage boy tries to hock a loogie on one of the rats and misses. A kooky old woman start making her own squeaky noises at the vermin.

Collectively, we all move a little farther away from her.

The train comes too soon. The rats never did agree if they should be together or apart.

We make our way through the car. There is so much no one has to say.

I consider these guys my pets. The little one is named Ike; the bigger one is Big Sister. I know I'm insane.

I originally planned to cut them - or at least Big Sister - up in search of seeds I could roast once they weren't timely seasonal decorations. But now I don't know if I want to do that or keep the pumpkins in my kitchen until they rot. They're just so cute.

November has flown by! It's pitch black outside at 5:00 these days, and the leaves have shivered themselves off most trees. The remaining skeletons aren't eery in the moonlight so much as they are reminders of how everything starts. TBID and I are back in the coats we wore when we first met.

After a day of playing hooky from life and a half-day of still feeling achy, I think I'm back in business. Despite having spent most of Saturday trying to keep water down and watching TV on the computer, I feel totally satisfied with my weekend. TBID stayed by my side and got food, found good Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes, and even cleaned up after a leaking bag of vomit.

Say it with me now: "Awwww..."

I have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving week.

Last night confirmed that TBID is sick. Like, the good way.

But today I'm sick. The bad way. I've been vomiting anything I consume, even a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode. (It was awkward and involved excessive gesturing). I loved it.

Instead of my usual wild and crazy tutoring session with Jing, I just got back from hearing TBID play a gig. So tonight I'm with the band.

Mo' bloggin' tomorrow.

The other day I asked one boy for my stuff back and talked to another about a big milestone, flying to Texas over the holidays to meet my family. It makes me a little nervous for a few reasons, all stupid ones that show how neurotic I am.

He can't expect going to Texas to be wildly amusing or interesting. If it were, perhaps I'd still live there. Maybe he and I would have never met. But I worry he'll be bored and secretly feel like he wasted a lot of money. When he steps off the plane and doesn't see a tumbleweed or cowboy, he might feel cheated. And he doesn't celebrate Christmas. What are we supposed to do with him when we're unwrapping gifts and emptying stockings? Loan him the car or have him collect all the bows we're saving for next year? Isn't that kind of awkward?

He says I really underestimate him and that he wants to meet the loved ones of the one he loves. (That's me, apparently). It all sounds a little hippy dippy.

Am I crazy?

He'll be the first guy I've dated as a full-fledged adult who I'm bringing home. And he's such a tall loudmouth New York foodie. I think my family will love him, actually.

Best of all, I'll be able to point from relative to relative, county road to county road and say, "This? This? This is where all the crazy comes from."

Maybe he should visit.

I was inspired by these cross-stitched text messages to tell my own text message love story with TBID.

Here are some of the texts I'd want stitched into posterity:

"Lying here wondering what you mean. Not as in what you convey, but what you are to me."

"I knew you were special when you made my bed."

"Forgot to tell you: At the thrift store, I found a menorah shaped like a stegasaurus."

"Sleep with the window open. You will like."

"Ah hope she be showin up in a, lest you freeze your honkytonk bedonkadonk off."

"Really cold, bundle up love"

*If you can embroider and are interested in helping me out with this for a tidy sum, please email me at the address on the lefthand side of this site.

Two of the breaks that renting New Yorkers get are free heat and water. These are considered life necessities, plus the word "free" looks really good when you consider the outrageous amounts we pay to borrow a few square feet from our landlords each month. "Sure, the wind roars through my lace-thin windows out of which my view is a trash-filled alley. But the heat is free!"

There are limits to this generosity, though. The free heat doesn't legally have to come on unless the temperatures reach a painful nadir by a certain time of day. If it's not something like -5 degrees at 2 pm, you're bound to shiver yourself to sleep. But don't worry - I hear it's good for the abdominals.

In the last two weeks, I have woken up cold 97% of the time. A hypothermal alarm clock, the heat has been on 0%. You don't need to be any good at math to imagine how ashy my hands are from clutching my comforter and sheets, frozen as Jack in Titanic.

I'd never let go, if I could help it. The worst part of my day has to be when I step out of bed and the floor sends icy spasms from foot to brain in about three seconds. No. Taking my pajamas - a sweatshirt, tee shirt, and sweatpants - off to put on regular clothes is worse. My entire torso erupts into goosebumps befitting The Guiness Book of World Records.

There are things I could do. I've considered getting rugs and cats. Electric blankets worry me, as I sometimes go to bed with damp hair and have seen a lot of public service announcements about the dangers of electricity. My friend Mike says I should sleep with a hot water bottle, but I'm pretty sure that only works with orphaned puppies. What's next? A ticking clock?

I'm not at the worst point. I've known people who've resorted to sleeping in hats, gloves, or scarves. Or worse, with live-in significant others.

I'm not that desperate. Yet.

Adventures in Signage, Pt. 11

A city of Nutter's.

Would you like regular or premium terror, boss?

There was a sale on white sheets at KKK-Mart downtown. Really.

Because cats are known to crave ice cream?

"I beg you, please let Mary-Lou free! She has so much to mount and tumble!"

When I went to the Toni Morrison reading at The New York Public Library last week, I didn’t have high hopes for the conversation part of the event. I’ve been to countless readings over the years, and the moderated discussion is never very thought-provoking.

To my delight, Toni Morrison’s conversation with Fran Lebowitz was just that, a conversation. Both women had interesting things to say and very different personalities. Toni Morrison has this calm, Earth Mother kind of vibe, whereas Fran Lebowitz peppers her speech with one-liners and bemused grins. I read that some people call her “a modern Dorothy Parker,” and I can see what they mean. (I love me some Dorothy Parker, though, and I resist the idea that she can - or should - be replicated).

I’ve often heard people say that they just can’t get into Toni Morrison’s books, that they’re too metaphorical or inaccessible or slow-moving. Personally, I think that page upon page of her writing is gorgeous. I don’t mind letting something marinate.

In the conversation, Fran Lebowitz said that the problem with too many readers - the kind who may reject Toni Morrison’s work - is that they seem to think literature should be a mirror, instead of a door. It’s easier to digest a book that looks like your life with characters who look like you and the people you know.

I think Lebowitz was right on. Books are meant to challenge us and make us see things in a new way, perhaps even see things we never knew of. Not every read should be difficult, and comfort ones can be great once in awhile, but books give us chances to be someone else somewhere else. A relatable book is not necessarily the most relevant or helpful.

Next time you pick out a book, go for the door. Maybe it’s uncomfortable or heavy, so slowly go inside. Go somewhere you do not call home.

Jing's book reviews really capture her unique voice. I'd like to, but I just don't think I can take credit.

I have to keep telling myself I'm nearly halfway there. Unlike a marathon, NaBloPoMo hasn't chafed my skin or made my feet swell. At one point in the past, I blogged nearly every weekday without a fun abbreviated name to justify it, so I should be in shape. I enjoy blogging when I have something to say, but this thing is killing me.

Fact #1: I am now a professional writer. That's what I do for work. It struck me last week. I pay my bills doing what I studied in college. How many liberal arts graduates can say that? This is a big fat "I told you so" to my parents, that's for sure.

Fact #2: When you sit in front of the computer and write all day, you don't really want to do it when you leave work.

Fact #3: But during NaBloPoMo, you pretty much have to.

Fact #4: I'm not giving up on this goal, but I have to be lazy sometimes. I need to leave my apartment and spend time with a human who's not a co-worker or a bold name in my in-box.

This is what I'm wearing to do that:

The stripes and reds and blues of this outfit give it a nautical look. I randomly remembered wearing the navy striped tee on Valentine's Day 2002 when I went out for heart-shaped pizza with this guy I dated for five minutes. He was ahead of my time. I think I'd date the college-version of him now, but maybe he's not as cool as I remember. He's married, after all, and has been for awhile. I don't think anyone so young should get married unless there's a threat of being stoned. The bad way, I mean. With stones. The hard, jagged kind.

No, nine is not my lucky number. Yes, I have to say that a lot when I wear this vintage brass nine necklace. My mentor Kelly gave it to me. She made it. I got to choose from a few different numbers, and one and eight were taken. I like that nine is ambiguous sometimes, like at a shoe store. When I wear this necklace, little kids on the subway often point and identify it - always proudly, usually correctly. Their parents look at me like they can't decide if I think I'm a fashionista or Flava Flav.

The red sweater is a staple that's long enough not to show how high-waisted my denim skirt is. I know it's en vogue to dress at Camel Toe Orange Alert, but I just can't go there. I have hips, so I think I'd look chunky. Plus I don't want to have this phantom penis fabric bulge when I sit down.

Come to think of it, this pleated front skirt is perfect for any guy who needs to pass as a woman. Extra bits can swim around undetected. It's deeply, darkly, dudely demure.

You cannot have a bad day in red tights, unless you work at a theme park or department store Christmas promotion. I like how they peek out window-like from the space between my shoe and its strap. The navy flats are a librarian's fantasy in leather and rubber soles. I like the homespun hip button and that they are one of my few pairs of shoes that doesn't click or clunk. I should wear them more often. My new blister is as much as indication of that as it is a deterrent.

Weekend Agenda:

Go to the library

Make cranberry sauce (regular and orange-flavored)

Juice

Watch A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

Beat TBID at Scrabble

Install bathroom shelf

Stop time

The man got on the subway with a guitar at Chambers Street. He sat and began the introduction. But he didn't say anything about his situation. There was no preface of, "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry to bother you..."

Instead, he said, "This song is for the fine woman in the big hat." He began to sing "My Girl." He wasn't the best singer, but he was hamming it up and his guitar kept up with his mouth. "Yeah, this song is for the lady in the tan coat with the big hat. She talkin' like she don't hear me, but I know she do. She's my girl."

Everyone looked for the one serenaded. She was standing by the door, trying to appear stern. The women she was with couldn't help smiling. They were about the man's age. Maybe they all knew each other.

"My next song is dedicated to the girl next to the lady with all the hair," he explained. I immediately knew who he meant, or knew the woman sitting next to her. Everyone's eyes moved from the cloud of hair to the slim young girl next to her.

The man began to sing, "Nobody wanna see us to-geeeth-er... And that's cause she younger than eighteen."

Laughter rang off the metal bars and poles.

"C'mon, everybody sing! Even the white people," he encouraged us.

Then the man sang "Let's Get it On," but changed the words to "There's nothin' wrong with givin' me money, no no no no no." His words faded into some background information. "Ladies and gentlemen, anything you can spare. I accept food stamps, checks, cash, college credits, and iPods. Anything to help me out, 'cause I lost my job at Lehman Brothers."

Everyone chuckled and shook their heads.

"Seriously, though, I got three kids and they all need Timberlands. Hey! I'll give five dollars to anyone who can tell me who I'm actin' like."

The man paused dramatically, everyone watched and listened. He closed his eyes and began singing "Georgia..."

"Ray Charles!" An elderly woman yelled suddenly.

"Actually, ma'am," the man winked. "That was me actin' like Jamie Foxx actin' like Ray Charles."

The train stopped at Penn Station, and he left with about half the audience. He may have made $5.

He made my night.

Tonight I'm seeing Toni Morrison, a writer I've wanted to adopt me for a very long time. I'm planning to sit on her foot and refuse to get up. I will tell her that this is a metaphor, though not one anywhere near as brilliant as one she could craft.

Me: I'm going to see Toni Morrison.

Mike: Oh? The r&b singer?

Me: Uh. Are you kidding?

Mike: Huh? You said Toni Morrison, right?

Me: Right. The writer.

Mike: Oh.

Me: I think you're thinking Toni Braxton.

Mike: Maybe.

Me: Toni Morrison, r&b singer with the #1 single "Unbreak My Slave Heart." Or "Unbreak The Heart Of My Dead Child."

Mike: You've said too much.

Clayton Patterson has been documenting life on the Lower East Side in videos and photographs for more than 25 years. His subjects have evolved over the years from skinheads, druggies, and drag queens to yuppies, Thug Lite (not to be confused with Thug Life), and longtime residents who've watched the neighborhood change along with him.

Saturday night, TBID and I went downtown to the Millennium for a screening of Captured, a documentary that compiles Patterson's footage, climaxing at the Tompkins Square Park police riot in 1988.

The film is as much a celebration as it is a cry of anguish. What happened to New York City? I moved here in 2005, so the most vivid version of this city for me equates to mostly clean sidewalks that are safe almost any hour of the day. Subways are generally drowsy places. Downtown tenements the size of a bar bathroom rent for over $2,000 a month.

But when I set my eyes on New York City at thirteen, it was different. Times Square hadn't yet been plastered with MTV, Disney, and Hershey signage. It was a collection of peep shows and adult content, loose women and cigarettes. As I grew up in Texas, my beloved cesspool got cleaned up. Guiliani gave New York every cosmetic procedure possible, save a tummy tuck.

Things aren't dull now, but it's less vibrant. The melting pot is available in pre-packaged neighborhoods and various portion sizes. The thing about Captured is that I realize it indicts me. Here I am working 9-to-5 in corporate America, doing my part to gentrify a lower-income neighborhood. I can appreciate the flava and raw energy of city life, but I very much enjoy walking down the sidewalks unafraid of being accosted. Well, except by those Jehovah's Witnesses that hang out on Central Park North.

Two weeks ago, I was in my old neighborhood. TBID and I wanted to rent a movie - something I hadn't done in a long time, since before Britney Spears was exorcised - and Kim's Video was closed. Permanently. The independent video store has been replaced by yet another Ricky's.

The situation had me lookin' sad and feelin' angry. How could the first place I ever belonged to in New York just shut down? I didn't even get to say goodbye, nor do I have a place to get my film on. Blockbuster doesn't really carry movies older than me, and Netflix seems so impersonal. I like going to video stores and getting heckled or high-fived by a pretentious minimum wage worker. Some chain beauty and accessories store is not going to do that for me. I don't care if they have cheap Halloween costumes.

What's next to go? That hole in the wall pub I like where there are still ugly, middle-aged guys at the bar? (No doubt, one of the few of its kind left). The people selling churros in the winter?

The tiny piece of Manhattan that I've made my home looks more and more like a strip mall. I don't like it. It's not the stuff of Clayton Patterson footage, but I do feel like less of a yuppie.

If the economy gets so bad that I get laid off, I hope people will pay me to follow them around like a paparazzo. I think I might be good at it.

Case of the Mondays:
Neither desire to write
nor to shelve blog goals.

*

My feet shouldn't ache,
because it's not like I walk
while chained to the chair.

*

So I'll stand for this,
but must it always be that
they are next to me?

*

The 2 train pulls up.
A crushing rush to the doors.
Fighting to sit more.

1) Before I went out last night, I was blaring soulful music as per usual. I think it started with some Amy Winehouse and Nina Simone. Soon, I heard the neighbor next door turn the volume up on her stereo. John Legend, Al Green, Joss Stone. Every song she played was one I either own or have heard. They were some of my favorite tunes.

Does she realize how much she and I might have in common if she could just get over the sound of my footsteps?

2) On Friday, I saw Amanda from America's Next Top Model. Remember the one many seasons back who was going blind (but not really) and consulted healing crystals and had the long dyed blonde hair? She's a brunette now. I didn't see any crystals on her, but she looked blissed out.

Why is it that modeling competition losers are the only people I ever recognize? I could pass Heidi Klum on the street and all I'd think is, "Wow. She looks like someone I've seen before. And such a perky lilt in her voice."

3) My parents send me incredible care packages every few months. There's always something surprising, like soups in a receptacle you use for heating and eating. Or Fruit Roll-Ups that cure constipation and brush your teeth for you.

I resort to the grocery store only for milk, cereal, frozen food, and produce. It worries my mom. I know she still loves me, though, because she sent me gummy vitamins. Gummy vitamins! Where have these been all my life? If anyone has any intelligence on any gummy pharmaceuticals coming out, do let me know. I think gummy Viagra would be like a Swedish Fish.

Oops. In the time in took me to type this, I just ate a week's worth of vitamin C, zinc, and echinacea.

It seems to have become fall in the last week here in the city.

The leaves have reverted to their original colors from before all that pesky chlorophyll kicked in. I was explaining how that whole thing works to TBID last night and how it's really a great metaphor for authentic selves and real love.

Sounds a little Carrie Bradshaw, I know.

It's raining now, and I'm spending the day wrapped up in documentaries and lots of lounging. I love Saturdays that force me to slow down and step carefully over puddles and slippery jewel-toned foliage.

It's becoming clearer and clearer by the things I am privy to, that Jing has made me a kind of confidante. I try to be a good role model, but I'm still me.

Jing: My friend wants me to ask you this: What do you do if a bi girl asks you out?

Me: If a bisexual girls asks me out?

Jing: No, my friend.

Me: Oh. Is she interested?

The color drains from her face.

Jing: No!

Me: Then she should say she's not interested.

Jing: Not only is she a girl who likes another girl. She also has a boyfriend.

Me: So?

Jing: So that's cheating!

Me: Meh.

Bucket List Goal #4: Be part of a cranberry harvest.

On my second Thanksgiving in New York, which was actually celebrated in Pennsylvania, I discovered whole berry cranberry sauce. It rocked my world. I'd previously abstained from the tart treat, because people in the South - and sadly, most of the country - think it suffices to serve the canned kind. It doesn't. Trust me.

So first I fell in love with cranberries, whether in a sauce or muffin or supplement, and then I saw Ocean Spray commercials like this:

Well, loan me some waders and call me Bob! I wanna do what these guys are pretending to do.

This was my dream deferred, and while drying up like a raisin - nay, a cranberry - in the sun sounds pretty good, I decided this should be the year. TBID enjoys exploring and missions. Plus, he always up for singing TV show theme songs with me in the car. There's no better road trip partner.

Apparently, the place to go for a cranberry harvest is Nantucket, but the big cranberry shenanigans had already petered out. I settled on Whitesbog, New Jersey, a town that's made cranberries and blueberries its claim to fame.

One another thing that's special about Whitesbog: It's pretty obscure. I couldn't find very much information about it online. Where are the user-generated reviews by cranberry enthusiasts? I hoped the town wasn't part of some fan fiction ring.

Whitesbog is part of the Pine Barrens, which I thought was pretty impressive until I found out that they're really extensive and rife with pines no taller than the average high school basketball player. I told my friend Mike about my plans.

"Damn," he said. "What are you trying to do - dispose of a body?"

That's when I learned that talking about the glory of the Pine Barrens to some people from the Northeast is a little like gushing, "I found this amazing boutique with the chicest clothes. It's called Old Navy!"

I printed out what information I could find about Whitesbog, including the contact information for some alpaca farm and a canoe rental place. Never mind maps! I have information concerning the whereabouts of some woolly mammals we'll never be able to find anyway!

The weather forecast predicted a 99.3% chance of rainlikewhoa (official meteorological term). I assumed it would change. It always changes, right? Especially when you've already packed a backpack and rented a car?

No.

When TBID and I left early Saturday morning, everything was clear. We had a quick and dirty McDonald's breakfast and stopped at a gas station. Things were looking gray. Hours later, we were surrounded by pine trees and not much else. Pulling off the main road, we decided to drive our rugged Volkswagen sedan down the long sand trails through the short evergreen thicket.

No corpses to be found. We parked and started walking down some foot trails that wound around infinitely linked, like those US Weekly diagrams of which celebrities have been romantically involved.

"If you run off to try to scare me," I warned TBID. "We have a long ride back home. It's a loooong time to give you the cold shoulder. But I will do it."

We walked around five minutes and it started to rain. This is where things started to fall apart. There's this well-known farm I wanted to stop by, but TBID turned onto a road marked "Authorized Personnel Only" and ended up on Fort Dix.

Surrounded by Hummers and signs about firearms, I started feeling a little conspicuous. TBID, the anti-war, left-leaning New York Jew, played it cool.

"Should I wave?" he asked. A camouflage wearing, gun-toting posse scowled at us from bivouac #75.

We eventually got out of army territory and found Joseph J. White Farm. I thought there'd be a bog tour or some guys wading through cranberries, but alas. They don't do that in rain apparently. Stealthily, TBID and I drove up to the bogs and took pictures. We found a frog in one of them. If you look carefully at the close-up berry picture, you can see him. I wonder how many amphibians end up in cranberry juice.

The berries came in reds, purples, and yellows and really stood out against the dense gray clouds. I can't think of a fruit that grows more beautifully.

Post-bog, TBID and I were starving and cranky. Excluding the possibilities of breaking into a mess hall or someone's house, we weren't sure where we'd find lunch nearby. So we decided, "Why not just go to another state for lunch?" As a native Texan, that idea is always so weird to me. We settled on Pennsylvania. TBID hadn't pulled any Blair Witch crap out in the boonies. He'd earned himself a cheesesteak.

It rained. It stopped. It rained some more. We had mediocre lunch at two separate places. Then we drove around West Philadelphia and talked about whether The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme playground scene was filmed on a real Philly basketball court or on an urban set in Hollywood.

It rained until we got back to New York, so we couldn't really walk around much. Nonetheless, I considered it just a drop in the bucket list.

I spotted this graffiti at a subway exit in Washington Heights tonight. It made me smile.

Do you have a bucket list, those 10 or 20 or 100 things you want to accomplish before expiring? Most people don't. Not only is thinking about death something we don't like to do unless we're like totally emo, it's rather daunting.

Who ever really knows what they want out of life? Don't give me that, "Love and happiness and mad cash money" crap. I'm talking specific goals you can check off a list. And there's a big difference between what you really want to do and what you really want to do right now. You grow out of things. I, for one, no longer want to own a pet store or donate my younger sister to science.

In the last year or so, I was feeling unaccomplished and itchy to add a new list to my legion. This was back when I sometimes saw ads for The Bucket List on dvd or in comic book form or something. Hmmm...

It surprised me how much I had to think outside of my normal life. Banishing the banal, I pondered incredible things I saw on TV once or heard about other people doing. I'm just as good as them, give or take having my own show on the Discovery Channel. I can suck the marrow out of life, too!

I want to ride a camel and then squeeze its humps, maybe while singing, "I'ma g-g-g-get you drunk..."

See also: dress my own English bulldog up for the Halloween dog parade in Tompkins Square Park.

Another lifelong dream is setting up a college scholarship program for Odem High School students, especially the kind who will use my support to get the hell out of Odem for good.

I know I want to do these things. Having children, I'm not sure. Same with a spouse, though it would be cool to be legally bound to someone really smart and funny and cute who can assemble furniture. I'd be content to have several meaningful relationships that ultimately fail. In really smart and funny and cute ways.

A few weekends ago, I kinda marked something off my bucket list. I got closer to one particular goal than ever before, at least, and am ready to try again next year.

Ladies and gentlemen, I may have cured morning breath!

Well, no.

But it does involve cranberries, which are nature's answer to those pesky UTI's that sometimes hinder relationships and you know, peeing.

I'll tell you more tomorrow. That's my goal.

Welcome to the White House, President Obama!

Like many Americans, I lost a lot of faith in the democratic process during the 2000 election. The problem was, I had no voice. A senior in high school, I was six months shy of voting age. The closest I got to the polls was a mock-election at my small Texas school. You can guess how that turned out as easily as you could spot kids wearing Wranglers or crosses.

In 2004, I finally got to vote. When John Kerry conceded to George W. Bush - a man I am convinced never should have been in the White House in the first place - I was student teaching at a high school in East Austin. I was really feeling down about the political scene and felt worse when I went to the school and found the front entrance locked.

Surely the world hadn't ended? Austin is a liberal city, the only one in the Lone Star State. Had it ceased everything in protest? I knocked on the door when I saw a police officer walk by. He made eye contact and started walking toward me. The door cracked open a sliver.

"Do you have business here?" he barked

"I'm a student teacher," I said, presenting my id. "What's going on?"

He looked from my picture on the hard plastic card to me. "There's a guy here with a gun threatening to shoot," he said, as if he were giving me directions to the nearest bathroom. "You can go wait in the office."

With a tiny bit of concern that my guts might soon be heavy with bullets and disappointment in my nation, I walked a few feet into the office and sat in a chair. The secretary barely looked up. Some tardy students studied me with that expression that meant, "The new student is way too dressed up. Who does she think she is - a teacher?"

Then this woman in the back asked about the Kerry button on my backpack. Because I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, I assumed she was a Democrat.

"Yeah, too bad for John Kerry," she murmured. "He has no respect for family values." Then her head started to rotate. My stomach lurched, and I tried to think of the best way to express my opinions and keep my internship.

"What an ignorant and stereotypical thing to say," I replied. Then I started thinking about gun laws and the armed guy running about the halls. Once we were free to go back to the normal school routine, I asked around and discovered the judgmental biddy was the guidance counselor.

*In case you're wondering, the crazy gunman got away. He only wanted to shoot his knocked up girlfriend, anyway. Kids...

My second election experience is a chance for America to make it right by voting left. I went to the polls at 6:25 this morning and waited over an hour before flipping my switches and pulling the lever. It was hot, crowded, and slow-moving, and I waited it out with many others. Words cannot describe how much weight and levity simultaneously inhabited that room. My historically black neighborhood was pumped. Elderly people with wheelchairs and canes made it out. A few parents brought their children. No one got impatient or yelled or gave up.

I've never felt such a sense of community in my neighborhood or in this city.

A teary-eyed old man kept repeating, "I had to get up early. I never seen anything like this."

Everyone nodded in agreement.

The kids I tutor are awesome, as some of you know. Now they're part of Book Binge!

VOTE.

Stay in line. Bring a book, an iPod, and your idealism.

A friend of mine recently diagnosed with depression once told me, "It's such a relief. All this time I thought I was just lazy!"

That pretty much sums up my adult work experience. This week marks an entire year spent with my current employer. It's the longest I've ever stayed at one job since I was an RA in college. Let's face it, we all know that's not so much a job as it is a made-for-TV movie opportunity to stick your nose in everybody's business and play around with construction paper.

My work history makes me feel like a flake. But like my friend, there was this epiphany not so long ago in which the clouds parted and a soft voice like cotton candy whispered, "You don't suck. Those jobs did."

Boy, did they.

Ever wanna poison a child that's not your own? It's such a dangerous trip to take mentally. The schools I was in are not the place for me. I'd sooner be a spokesmodel/research subject at National Rectal Health Association meetings than go back to calmly explaining to kids why they shouldn't hit each other, masturbate in class, or steal my shit.

Between teaching and my current job, I also had a stint working in marketing for one of the worst bosses you could ever imagine. She'd make an IRS agent look not just generous, but personable, too.

It's been one year downtown in the Financial District, and my role has changed a lot. My company has changed a lot in the last 12 months, and I'm glad it pulled me along with it. Even when it was by the ear. I was hired to be an editor, poring over charts and footnotes all the live long day. Then I got a new position in another department as a writer. I interview "marketing leaders," the brains behind those ads you see online or the viral video everyone is linking on Facebook. Then I write up some stuff, edit it, and sometimes it becomes an awkward podcast.

Since I was a kid, I thought I'd be really great in advertising. It plays up insecure human conditions, treats people like morons, and is inherently evil. I know this. Plus, I like puns. I'm a shoo-in.

I don't think I'd really ever do it unless I was copywriting for a brand in line with my values, like Frito-Lay.

Last week, I interviewed the big enchilada of an ad agency that does campaigns for some well-known skincare products, including those blackhead-removing pore strips.

*Did you know there's a tummy-turning array of Youtube videos of people popping pimples, picking boils, and playing Pin the Tail on the Pustule? I could watch them all night long. It's a sebaceous trainwreck - my eyes cannot look away. I'd link them, but you might never forgive me. Do look them up yourself!

Back to my story: At the end of the conversation with the ad bigwig, I mention that I have an idea for a skincare campaign that's funny and human and maybe a little bit gross. I didn't really go into it. We joked a few more minutes. He followed up with some information for the interview and told me he'd love to talk about my campaign idea soon.

Opportunity sometimes knocks very softly, and in this case, I'm my freakin' neighbor. Whenever I have a spare minute, I'm practicing my pitch. And wondering if I should call them "zits" or "pimples."

One of these days, I'll ask her, "Won't you please not be my neighbor?" (Thanks for the inspiration, KK).

The girl who lives next door to me has been complaining about the outrageously loud footsteps I supposedly take in my apartment again. The first time she did it, the accusation was eased into as smoothly as a potholed gravel road.

"Hi, I'm ________," she said. "Welcome! Your footsteps are so heavy, I thought a three hundred pound farm animal and its morbidly obese caretaker had moved in. Nice meeting you!"

It was textbook passive-aggression.

The second time she visited, there was nothing sugary about it. "You non-stop stomp in your apartment. With every step, pictures rattle off my walls. I feel my floorboards quake beneath me, just like in that movie Tremors, which I watched at volume level 79, because that was the only way I could hear it above your T.rex strutting."

I did what I had to do - I validated her concern. "Interesting," I said skeptically. "I'll try to work on that." And I have. I've continued my normal schedule of pretty much only being home when I'm sleeping, a time when I know I do not gallop or skip or practice my tap routine to "Yankee Doodle."

Thursday, I got my first post-it communication. It read:

Please me more conscious when walking in your apt. You walk SO loudly and heavily it is still shaking my floors. I've asked you twice before. Thanks.

I'm pretty sure I heard someone besides me laugh, play music, and maybe sneeze a few minutes ago. What do you think? Does this call for a note? For real, it is seriously annoying that other people live in this building.

November first, the beginning of NaBloPoMo. A very loaded day.

Today's my mom's birthday. The story I remember being told was that her teenage mother (my mom was an unplanned pregnancy) wasn't due for another few weeks that Halloween in 1960. It was unusually cold that year, and when she waddled to the porch to give some trick-or-treaters candy, she slipped on a patch of ice. The next day, my mom was born.

She looked exactly like she does now. It's uncanny. As a kid, I remember looking at my own baby pictures with no recognition. But my mom's were different - I could clearly see her in that black and white infant face, looking authoritative even in diapers.

Today is also Cade's birthday. It's weird when someone goes from being a big part of your life to a part of your backstory. When it's been less than a year after you've stopped dating someone like that, there's this Emily Post kind of struggle. Am I obligated to point out via e-card that I remembered his birthday? What do I write in it now that I know so little about his life?

After I broke up with Sam, my college boyfriend of three years, I send birthday cards two years in a row. I couldn't let February third pass without some kind of communication. He never expressed thanks or anything, but I know he got them. I didn't send one last year, because the date passed before I realized what I'd done - I'd forgotten what used to be an important day.

It's just like how you forget how badly you were hurt when you fall in love with someone else. (It may be fleeting however, that romantic dementia). There's something liberating about it.

Chances are, though, I'll never forget November first. It holds sunlight and reddish leaves and wet smells for me. It is so much birth.