1.  The Marcel Mini Sofa

I know what you’re thinking!   (Because there is a 12% chance that I’m psychic!)   You’re thinking, ‘That’s just a plain little sofa, Karen.”   Indeed it is.  But it’s part of a larger covet.   The Larger Covet ™ involves the following:

1.  Refinishing the basement so that the Stepson can move down to a Teen Cave of sorts involving two rooms (bedroom, rec room) and a new bathroom.

2.  Knocking down all walls between our room, the existing bathroom, and the Stepson’s room.

3.   Turning Stepson’s existing room into luxurious bathroom for Yours Truly, replete with a tub large enough to LIE DOWN IN.   Yes, that’s what I want.   A normal-person sized tub.   The tub we have now was apparently built for Oompa Loompas and leads to such tragedies as “running a lovely bath only to get in and realize that the water does not cover your legs and/or belly, causing your lovely bath to instead be an awkward look at your partially submerged body and lumpy belly rolls”.   Not good.

4.   Turn the existing bathroom into an extension of the master bedroom.

5.   Turn the space in between the old bathroom and new bathroom into a closet.   A closet!  In the master bedroom!  CAN YOU IMAGINE?   NO?   Well, I can.

So to make a long story short, the mini couch would go at the end of the bed and face the fireplace.   The FIREPLACE.   ha ha ha.    Well, a girl can dream, right?   It all starts with a couch.

2.   And  a pretty rug:

3.   And all-white/off-white bedding (to make the couch and curtains come together, plus TOO MUCH ANTHRO PATTERN CAN CAUSE MIGRAINES) highlighted with fun, funky pillows and curtains!   Good idea, right?   I also have this idea of getting the covers of my favourite books ever blown up and framed in different sizes and funky old frames*** and why don’t I just go ahead and overuse the word “funky”?   OK, I WILL.

4.  And why hang out on anthropologie.com without shopping for boots, right?   LOVE.

Leaftop Booties

Although I must tell you that the word ‘booties’ makes me want to stab cats.****

5.   Authentic Fleece Blazer

Although it’s suddenly gone from too warm for outerwear at all to Too Cold For Anything That Isn’t Fully Winterized.   Still, I think this would be cute with my new favourite scarf from Roots which I’m too lazy to link to but which is NOT wool and therefore is not ITCHY.   Hate wool.   Hate being itchy.

* This is a blatant lie.

** By “us all”, I mean “me”.  But you can sign up to covet these things, too.  Just don’t buy them.  Because if they are all sold out if/when I suddenly have a windfall, I’m going to be some cross with you.

*** Am sure Mr. Spuddle would be thrilled and delighted to be surrounded by ALL THINGS BOOKS even while sleeping!

**** Not YOUR cat.   Actually, I would never stab a cat.  It just sounded funny in my head.   Thought now that I think it over and overthink it, I’m worried you’ll think I’m an animal hater when really I quite like animals, especially when they belong to other people.

OK, so we’re off.

1.   In May, I’m speaking at Pecha Kucha.    No, I have no idea what I’m going to say.   Yes, I love public speaking.   Like I really love it, in the way that some people like mountain climbing and others like long walks on the beach and pina coladas.   And, you know, getting caught in the rain.   But!  In this case, I don’t really entirely know what it’s going to be that I say.   Usually, I talk about my books (OK, fine, about my hair) and maybe this time I will speak of something different and mysterious.   SO, to make a long story even longer than necessary, I will say that I was looking at the list of other speakers, deciding how intimidated I should be EXACTLY, and the first click took me to here and I immediately started coveting this:

Good gravy, I WANT.    However!   V. expensive.   Too expensive for me.   But!  But!  But!   Want.   I used to row, a long time ago before I had kids when getting up at 4 in the morning and doing something athletic seemed like a good idea.   Now sleep seems like a good idea, but also a nice little row around the bay in the mid-afternoon seems like a GREAT, FANTASTIC idea.   Mr. Spuddle likes kayaking and I also like kayaking but I find it uncomfortable, generally speaking, on my back and arms and my entire body.   Rowing is my natural fit, it’s approximately the only exercise that feels right to me when I do it.   I WAS MEANT TO OWN THIS BOAT.    Which, of course, also means I was meant to regularly have massive amounts of disposable income and also an excess of spare time.

2.  I AM a bit intimidated by the list.  Some of these people are professional photographers!   I am more intimidated by their photography skillz than their speaking skillz because I don’t know if they have speaking skillz at all, or, for that matter, if I have speaking skillz at all.   Which is really an elaborate way of saying that number 2 thing I covet on my list is MY OWN CAMERA BACK FROM THE SHOP SO I CAN START TAKING MILLIONS OF PICTURES IN ORDER TO HAVE 20 DECENT SHOTS FOR THIS EVENT.    Also!  I just bought a LensBaby 2.0 and I cannot … wait… to try it.

3.  I also want a weekend away with the kids, as a weekend away WITHOUT the kids seems about as likely as having God reach down from heaven and hand me the keys to a new Mercedes.   I don’t even want a Mercedes.   I feel totally ambivalent about cars.   I have no idea why I picked a Mercedes.   Apparently, even my fantasy life in which God is handing me stuff from the sky involves cliches.    Sorry, God.   So what I think is that we should take the kids to a fancy resort up Island to a place such as Parksville, which is their idea of heaven, such as this one, which is located on the beach and within a half-block of a fantastic park and has a pool and, you know, a SPA AND FANCY RESTAURANT.    Yes, I would rather go to the Caribbean, but I’m trying to be realistic here, people, obviously.

4.  Of course, if I got the boat, I’d need to have instant access to low-bank waterfront, so I’d like to add to the list MY DREAM WATERFRONT HOUSE ON A SANDY BEACH.   I looked all through MLS for an example but came up dry.   Apparently there’s been a run on low-bank waterfront lately.   Who knew?   And what do these people do that they can afford these houses?   My guess is that they do not write children’s books.   Alas.   I will change this covet to “enough money to fix our bathroom before the tub falls through the rotten floor”.    Oh, the dream.

5.  I’m running out of stuff and I have to get to work!  What do you people want from me?   FIVE things?   That’s too many!   I will give you four things.   Four things.   And that’s that.   I can’t summon up the desire for any clothes right now because I’m having a Fat Thin Crisis, which means that although I still weigh the same amount that I always do, I recently saw myself in a full length mirror (see: Birdy’s ballet class) and in this instance, I happened to be SKIPPING which may be a horribly unflattering thing to do, but I swear my entire flesh was moving in a wave that had nothing to do with what I was doing, like without ANY MUSCLE TONE WHATSOEVER your body can look like you’re wearing a suit made entirely from skin-coloured Jell-o that’s covered up with clothing.   I mean, I don’t want you to think I was skipping naked throughout my two-year-old’s ballet class.   That would be creepy.    I assure you I was dressed, although not in a full-body Spanx, which perhaps I ought to have been.

The End.  Back to work!

True story:  Before I start writing every day, I look at house listings and drool over floor plans.   It’s a fact.  I do not know why I do this.   I love the house that we currently own.   I.  Just.  Can’t.   Stop.   SOMETIMES ON WEEKENDS I GO TO OPEN HOUSES.   I do.   I confess.   I’m sorry, house, but I am always looking for something better.   And then I find stuff that is OBVIOUSLY better because it’s millions of dollars and then I look at it for ages and sigh sadly and convince myself that if I finish THIS book then I will become rich like J.K. Rowling and I will have the house!  And the dress!  And the shoes!  And a reason to own the dress and the shoes!   And weird hippie vest!  Because!  Rich!   Except I’m not really insane enough to believe that I will ever be rich, I just like to pretend because it makes me happy.   Then, happy, I set off to write, full of delusions of grandeur and other symptoms of severe paranoid schizophrenia.

Here, then, are five things I covet.   Enjoy!

1.   Traced Twhirls Dress.

Pretty!  And flattering on everyone who I’ve seen it on (i.e. one person).   In any event, I want it.   I HAVE NO OCCASION EVER TO WEAR THIS DRESS.   But who cares, right?

2.  Cydwoq Traction.

When I have sore feet (always), I crave flat funky shoes.   Cute!   But actually there are a lot of other shoes I covet MORE than these shoes but they all have heels and heels = pain.    Reminder to self:  Covet only unrealistically expensive FLAT shoes.   DONE.

3.   This House.

Ha ha ha.  I put a house on my covet list!   I am so wacky.   But I love this house.   And also, mostly, the beach where it is located is my favourite beach ever.   The water is SO WARM in the summer and it is full of sea life and interesting explorable nooks and crannies.

ONE POINT FOUR MILLION DOLLARS, PEEPS.   Who wants to buy it for me for my birthday?   Oh, I kid.

Unless you really want to.   Then you should go for it.  Who am I to tell you not to do something so insane?

4.  Alecia suede platform peep toes.

I would never wear these shoes.  But they are pretty.   So I want to look at them and say, “Oooh, nice shoes.”

Oooh, nice shoes.

Now I’m done.

5.    Strata Vest

It speaks to my inner hippie.   It does.  Is that how you spell hippie?  Hippy?   Hippo?   Whippy?   Does it matter?  No.   I would wear this RIDICULOUSLY OVERPRICED KNITTED THING with jeans, a tank top, and my Frye Carson boots that I’m never going to earn because at this rate I’m going to spend ALL my writing time fantasy shopping on the internet and NONE of it writing the books that would earn me the money to maybe buy one of these items if it went on a really good sale and by that I mean, “NOT THE HOUSE.”

Back to work!   STAT.

But wait!  I AM ADDING A SIXTH THING.   A bonus thing, which I want and YOU will want to when you see it.   It’s a camera bag, and it is prettylicious.   It is!   And yes, I made up that word.   I am writing a book right now (well, not RIGHT now because this is the procrastination part of the program) with many many made up words suitable for 12 year old girls.   Prettylicious, FTW.

6.  Epiphanie Camera Bags

It’s a flash site so I am too lame to figure out how to cut and paste a pic of the bags over here.   But I likey.   I do.   Now to stare at them for a while and figure out exactly which one to put on my covet list.   This bag would make my poor abused camera so happy.   One day, little camera, one day. ALSO! Currently on their blog, they have a kick-ass contest in which YOU can win a fantastic Canon 5D Mark II. Holy moly. Go there!

OK, NOW back to work.

1.  The Perfect Fit Scoopneck Tee.

This tee has the perfect length sleeve if you are me and a) hate the sun and b) have wrinkly armpits.   It’s long enough to cover your middle and does not leave a gap between your jeans and the bottom of your shirt.   Trust me.   Go to your closet RIGHT NOW and throw out every single shirt that does this.   It is not a good look on anyone.   NO ONE needs to see that particular fold of skin.   No one.   This tee is ideal.   I bought four.   Exactly the same.    For $9.09 each.    It’s a hella good deal.    Also, the description suggests that all the fashionistas in Paris are wearing this tee this season, which is hysterically inaccurate but also makes me feel like eating crusty French bread and drinking red wine whenever I wear it, which could conceivably be every day because I have four.   Don’t blame me if I get fat.

2.  Gathered Tie Front Top

There is no real reason why I love this, I just do.   I have it in two colours.   And marked down to $24.50, it’s currently a steal.   The fabric of this is just nicely drapey and it says, “I’m CASUAL and yet also a stylista girl!”   I did make up the word “stylista” and now that I’ve typed it, I realize it sounds like a stylish barrista, but still, this is a cute shirt.

3.  Silk Tricotine Robin long dress

This is not my wedding dress although I did buy my wedding dress at JCrew about five years ago and am actually going to WEAR it this coming July, and you know, actually get married.    However, I also love this one.   If you are going to get married in a casual barefoot on the beach kind of way, this is a great gown for it and a fabulous deal for $175.    THEN you can get your bridesmaids to wear these, which are adorable but I have no idea where you would wear them except to a summer, outdoor wedding.   So they get to be in the same category as the dress because I also have two other things I think you should buy.   So without further ado, the Berry Ink Silk Dress, for $62.99 (regular price $198):

4.  Nottingham High Tall Leather High Heel Boots in Mushroom

Oh, I love these.  BUT they are not available in my size and my feet are such havens of disaster and pain that I doubt I could comfortably wear them anyway.  But for the love of god, if they fit you, BUY THEM.   $160.99.   Marked down from $325.

5.  Saturday Pant (for $13.99)

I have two pairs of these awaiting hemming, which I may never get around to doing, which is too bad because they are the perfect pants for summer.   Like a lightweight chino, they are cut nicely so that they fall straight from the hip — really flattering and so comfortable.    You can even wear them on other days of the week except for Saturday, especially if you are me and on Saturdays you actually stay in your pyjamas all day because Saturdays (and thank GOD for this) are writing-all-day-days where children are whisked away by their daddy to leave mummy in peace in the hopes that she finishes the book (and thus earns her Frye Carson boots) and regains some of her lost sanity.   Ha ha.   Well, THAT’S unlikely, but needless to say, I’m not wearing nice pants on Saturday, or really any pants at all.

2.  I really really like music from the 70s.   When I’m alone, the music channel is set to schmaltzy seventies hits.   If you like me at all, you’ll have to accept that I can get really excited when I hear Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi when I’m at the coffee shop and will hush the children if they are so loud I can’t hear it properly.

3.  I spend a lot of time before I start a new book finding The Thing on line that I’m going to reward myself with when I’ve finished writing it and have SOLD it.   Yes, I have to sell the book to earn the reward.   Which is why I’m terminally depressed about how the Frye For The Ages boots at anthropologie sold out before I could sell (OK, and finish) (in the other order, obviously) WHAT YOU DON’T EXPECT.    Which I’m working on right now.   Or would be if I didn’t have to spend so much time finding a comparably lovely boot to focus the sunshiny rays of my love upon.   I am thinking that the Frye Carson is going to win the day for me, but SO MANY COLOURS TO CHOOSE FROM, it will take several more days/weeks of staring at them thoughtfully to decide.   Which is good because it’s going to take several more days/weeks for me to finish this book.    So you see how it all works out for the best in the end.

4.  I have a weird weakness for digestive biscuits.   I’d forgotten this until someone gave me a giant tin of assorted biscuits for Christmas and I meticulously cut through all the layers to pick out all the digestives.   They TASTE healthy, but they are not.    I may as well have a weakness for fudge that has been fried in fat.    On a related note, I’ve started weighing myself every day again, a sure sign that either I’m about to go nuts about my weight and/or I’ve become my mother, and also a good way of knowing this scientifically-proven fact:   Eating twelve digestive biscuits in one day can lead to weight gain of a full pound.

5.   I am not psychic, yet I know what happens at the end of The Bachelor because I read spoilers as though they are the next testament.   But I will not spoil it for you, my pretty peoplez.   (Also, I find it amusing to randomly end words with the letter ‘z’ instead of ‘s’.   Even though if other people did it, I would probably find it annoying.)   (I am trying to be a more tolerant person though in 2010, so maybe the New Me will not be bothered by other people doing something as irritating as ending all their pluralz with z!   It’s a new day!    It’s a whole new me!    Or, you know, some facsimile of the old me with slightly different hair and a really nice pink coat.)

Today’s Five Thing Friday is in honour of my face, my poor red blotchy face, plagued as it is by rosacea, a horrible thing that makes you look like you are always three sheets to the wind or forgot to apply sunscreen before you went spring skiing in the Alps.   For whatever reason, my rosacea also makes my skin around my eyes vaguely yellow, which adds entirely to the illusion that I wear goggles a great deal more than is normal.   What can I do?    Well, I COULD use the heavily medicated skin stuff given to me by my dermatologist, which does work but also makes me feel weird.   You may think that’s insane, because it’s a SKIN CREAM, but trust me, this stuff is absorbed through your skin and when you are as crazy as me, you KNOW that transdermal narcotics are just as effective as the ones you eat and there is stuff in this cream that I would not eat and as a result, when I use it, my skin clears up and then I get slightly nuts believing that the cream is eating my brain.   Remember that commercial?  With the eggs?  This is your brain, this is your brain on drugs?   Yeah, like that.

But enough of the crazy.   Here is my list of five things that YOU need to know about how to take care of your rosacea without the heavily drugged cream.   I sound like a hippie, don’t I?   TRUST ME, I am not.   I am just a fearful little kitten who is unreasonably afraid of becoming addicted to her skin cream and ultimately living under a bridge, hot-knifing crack, or whatever you do with it.

1.   Wash your face with water.   That’s right, water.   Just water.   All soap will make your skin go ape-crazy, in a poop-throwing way.   Do not use soap on your inflamed face.   Water.   Twice a day.

2.  A night time moisturizer.   You know, I almost NEVER do this, but like drinking 8 glasses of water a day, I think it is something YOU should do.   I don’t do it because mostly I fall asleep with the kids and only regain consciousness enough to brush my teeth and collapse into my own bed, frequently walking into walls on the way.   Moisturizing at night is about as close to my reality as moon-walking.  (Not the dance, which I’ll have you know I’m really really good at, but actually walking.   On the moon.)    If you do this, and you should or else your skin will look as dry and fragile as mine, try Verite, which is an Estee Lauder product and I am their pimp, as you will see further along in this post when I rhapsodize about Idealist.

3.  But first, you need a daytime product called Rosaliac, by La Roche Posay.   I may be spelling all these things wrong.  If you need anything verified, try Google.   I never claimed to know how to spell anything and am far to lazy to go to the bathroom and read labels.   FAR too lazy.   I love you and care about your skin, but not that much.    This stuff is pretty pale green and it makes your red look slightly less red and does not cause your skin to come up in raised and horrific bumps.

4.  When your Rosaliac has absorbed, apply a layer of Idealist (Estee Lauder) (who should be paying me) (in products) (that I use).   THEN put your foundation on over the top.   If you find a foundation that you like for more than six seconds, let me know what it is because I have never found one.   Each time I think I’ve found the PERFECT FOUNDATION, it stops working or my skin starts reacting to it within two weeks.   As a result, I own four thousand, eight hundred and two different kinds of foundation.    I’d like to try the new mineral one that comes with the spinning brush because FANCY but also EXPENSIVE and dangerously close to something that sands off the top layer of your skin in addition to the Idealist and Rosaliac you’ve already layered up.   If you’ve tried it, let me know if it works.

5.   Exercise.   Drink water.   Etc.    You know, all that other crap that you already know.   I HAVE STARTED EXERCISING AGAIN and damn it, I feel pretty good.   I do.   The problem is that I have the tiniest tendency towards OCD (shocking, I know) and so I have to add a small amount of intensity or time every day so it’s slightly more difficult with each work out or else I go insane, but then it eats up so much time I grow panicked about the amount of work I could be doing instead.   Anywho, enough about me.

So much for this being a quickie.   It’s almost 1000 words and I’m sure I have more to say.   Like take your vitamins!    Get eight hours of sleep!   Lay off the red wine!   For heaven’s sake, what am I, your mother?    Not that *I* do any of these things.   But you totally should.

Trust me.

Important update!  Since writing this post and experimenting a bit with different routines, I’ve come to the shocking conclusion that the Idealist works better if applied BEFORE the Rosaliac.   I am here for you, my red blotchy peeps, experimenting on my own face with abandon.

You’re welcome.

But what was I talking about? Christmas, that’s what. I was talking about Christmas. I would like you to know that I am COMPLETELY FINISHED my Christmas shopping and now have to stay away from stores to stop myself from buying a thousand more things that the kids would love. The trouble with my kids is that they are equal-opportunity fans of … EVERYTHING. If nothing else is available, The Bun will beg on his knees for the chance to own a grey sock or a tire gauge. The Birdy will scream in outrage when told that she may not actually have a lingerie laundry bag or a bottle of spray cleaner. They really really DO like everything. And if you were to give them ANYTHING, they’d be thrilled and the fact that they are equally excited about a dollar store stretchy dinosaur with a scary face as they are about a $100 dollhouse with REAL LIGHTS makes me want to buy them more and more things (um, of the dollar store variety) because sooner or later they are going to get savvy to VALUE and then the gig will be up.

But your problem is not my kids. YOUR problem is your wife and just now you’ve looked at the calendar and realized that HOLY SHITMAS, IT’S ALMOST CHRISTMAS! I love how Christmas sneaks up on menfolk every year. I swear that my dad wakes up from his long winter slumber on December 24th, scratches his head and says, “Well, any ideas for your mum this year?” I cannot count the number of years that I fought crowds and snowstorms in the mall, not to do my OWN shopping, but for my dad’s last minute hoopla. Don’t let that happen to you!

Here you go, five things that your wife would LOVE for Christmas, but only if your wife is exactly like me. If she’s not, I’ve no idea why you’d come to me for advice. How would I know what your wife would like?

1. A cardigan sweater. That’s right, that’s what I said. A cardigan sweater is what EVERY SINGLE WOMAN IN THE WORLD* puts on when she gets home and puts on her comfortable clothes. A nice cardigan sweater says, “You deserve to wear a nice cardigan sweater when you are at home because I love you.” A cardigan sweater is a HUG, god damn it. Because I say so. Here are some of my choices for CARDIGAN SWEATER GIFTS. Buy one for your wife. In her size. Do NOT buy an extra large if your wife wears a size 6 because she will not feel kindly towards you. Go to her closet, check the labels in her clothes, and buy the sweater in that size. Seriously. This isn’t rocket science, people. These sweaters are all from anthropologie.com, who don’t sponsor me, although they should. Free advertising for them! Courtesy of me.

The Small Packages Cardi

All Wrapped Up Cardi — this one looks like crap on the mannequin, but trust me when I say it’s adorable in person.   Or it is on the person of the model in the catalogue.   Looking at it on the mannequin makes me wonder why I liked it in the first place, but I did, so it makes the list.

Hues Unfolding Cardi — Again, this looks like crap on the mannequin, but over this frilly pretty blouse?   Awesome.

Enough of the sweaters.

2.   A Roots Leather Bag.

Here’s the thing.   Roots leather bags last forever.   Long after you are sick to death of this bag, you will still have it.   And guess what?   You probably won’t get sick of it.   If you are Canadian, you can buy Roots at both, well, roots.com and at sears.ca.    I know what you are thinking!   You are thinking, “But how can something awesome, in terms of leather, come from Sears?”   It’s a mystery.   I do not know.   But lo, a bag that I covet.   From Sears.   The advantage to buying at Sears is that there are coupons to be found all over the place.   Roots often has coupons, too, so do not buy before you’ve searched for those.   Just a tip.   I am NOTHING if not a HELPFUL SHOPPING SERVICE.

Roots Venetian Leather Bag in Black (Sears) — Oh, and FYI, these are made to be worn across the body, not perched merrily on the shoulder of your awful puffed sleeve wool coat, as shown in the picture on the Sears website.   Way to take a nice bag and make it look like crap, Sears!

Village Bag in Rustler Leather

3.   I do not know a single woman in the universe who does not love this movie**.    I do not know exactly why that is the case, but it is.   AND it’s on sale right now at chapters.ca.    Very few women would actively HATE this movie.     It’s just a good movie.   Period.    Note, the Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice = good.   The Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice = Bad.

4.  Lately, and I have no idea why, I’ve been craving letterpress business cards.   There is NO REASON why I want these, nor is there a reason why the fact that they are often called “calling cards” makes me want them more.   But I do.   Maybe if I had these, I would start giving them out to people in my business and they would begin calling me, although I hate answering the phone and hardly ever do it.   Probably if they actually want to talk to me, they should e-mail me.   Phones make me anxious.   So if one were to get me CALLING CARDS, one should also get me XANAX to counteract the stress induced by the ringing telephone.

These fancy ones with two colours and rounded edges are so pretty.

And these ones are classic and also witty if you’re a writer.   Or an editor.

5.   Which brings us to the LAST CATEGORY, which is a big category and basically a grab bag of a category that fits the list of everything I might ever want for any gift-giving occasion.   The category is:   PRETTY.

That’s right.   PRETTY.    Here are some things that fall into the category of PRETTY just to give you some ideas because I am like Santa’s little elves, all balled up into one big slightly-hairy-armed package.

The Pink Coat.   This coat is sold out so you cannot buy one for your wife, but I know SOMEONE who bought one for his wife and that wife is very happy about the Pink Coat even if her mother did say, “Gosh, won’t that shade of pink make you look even more sallow?”   As though ANYONE WANTS TO EVER BE DESCRIBED AS SALLOW.    The wife in question is going to feel pretty in the coat regardless of how SALLOW it makes her appear because she loves the Pink Coat and wants to be generally a happy person who does not run around obsessing about how SALLOW she may or may not appear to be in pink.

This necklace is just flat-out pretty.   I defy anyone to not like this necklace.   Search “bookends” on anthropologie.com.  I don’t know why their links never work, but they don’t.   In that, you can’t link to a specific anthro page, just the main page.    Why?  WHY?

Does your wife need reading glasses?   I actually don’t, not yet, but am sure it’s just a matter of time.   When I DO, I will get something pretty.   Like these Dash of Sparkle readers:

That about exhausts my list of  FIVE THINGS TO BUY FOR YOUR WIFE FOR CHRISTMAS.   And it was WAY more than five, so consider the extras just a bonus.   I could have come up with a lot more, trust me.   Fantasy shopping is actually my sharpest, most honed skill.    I’m not sure that will every translate into anything revenue generating, but that’s OK because I’m a writer and you KNOW how well-paid we are.   Ha.   Ha ha.   HA HA HA HA HA.   HO HO.   HO.   HO HO HO.    MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!   ***

*  i.e. Me.

**  Based on a survey of 1.  i.e. Me.

*** And I don’t actually care if you don’t believe in Christmas or not because you are Buddhist or whatever, just think of it as a day per year when you can buy pretty things for other people and feel good about it, and if you don’t want to do that, there are thousands of worthy charities that you can donate to in lieu of buying gifts and no one would fault you for that.   In fact, this year, I made the kids come with me to ToysRUs where we carefully selected gifts for a four year old boy and a two year old girl who were from families who are down on their luck and I totally recommend, all kidding aside, that if you can, you do the same.   It’s part of what Christmas is all about, whether or not you believe in characters like Jesus or Santa or the pope or whomever.

Speaking of which, I’ve been having this horrible problem with leg itch. Just my lower legs and only if I lie down. It is SO FRUSTRATING because SLEEPING involves LYING DOWN and the ITCH is so over-the-top that I lie in bed and dream about SCRAPING OFF ALL MY LEG SKIN WITH STEEL WOOL. I went to the doctor and without even so much as a sideways glance at my legs, he diagnosed me with Degenerative Disc Disease, which I have, yes, but wait, what? Itch from my back? The hell? So I spent some hours spelunking the internet and found a grand total of 0 references to itchy lower legs resulting from irritated discs. But what I did find was 10,560 references to leg itch and lymphoma, which I’m now only 7% convinced that I have and will die from. I’m 93% convinced that my problem actually has to do with the fact that I have almost no blood pressure and maybe from shaving I have folliculitis or something that is exacerbated when I’m lying down because that’s the only time my blood actually circulates that far. Someday someone may actually LOOK at my legs and diagnose them with, you know, actual information, instead of standing across the room and shouting, “YOU HAVE A BAD BACK! OBVIOUSLY YOUR LEGS ITCH!” Because, after all, not entirely obvious, is it?

Anywho, who cares? I do, but only when I’m lying down. The rest of the time, I don’t think that much about the itch. That’s how my brain works. If it isn’t occurring in that EXACT SECOND, I’m blissfully unaware of any potentially fatal cancers I may be harboring. Such is life.

But none of that has anything to do with NaNoWriMo, which I am doing and you should, too. Why not? Every person who has ever said, “I’m going to write a book one day when I have time!” should do it because you are never going to have time. It’s like waiting to have kids until you have time and money. When will that happen? Never. Life slips by. Your legs itch, you get older, you’re busy, the kids are shouting at you, and then BAM it’s TOO LATE. Don’t let it be too late for you! Write it! Then you will see exactly what it is like to write a book and all the GOOD PARTS of book writing as well as the sloggy, middle-of-the-book part where the plot gets away from you and the characters all fall into a blue funk and you realize that it’s all a disaster and you may as well go back to your day job, or in my case GET a day job, which is the part where many people probably just go, “Enh, screw it!” because it is hard BUT also it’s amazing if/when you get to the end and if/when it comes out the way you want it to. It’s like what I imagine running a marathon would be like if at the end of a marathon you then had something that you had to sell, which is like a whole other marathon or maybe like a triathalon, with the idea being the swimming, the writing being the bike, and the actual marathon being the whole after-work of it. What am I talking about? I am the opposite of an athlete and I’m currently wearing yoga clothes from head to toe (well, am barefoot, but you get the idea) which are making me feel like an imposter because I have taken exactly zero yoga classes in my life. Why am I outfitted for yoga? No effing idea. It’s comfortable? I like to play pretend?

I can’t stay on topic?

All those things.

As promised by the title, I wind up this post with five components of my NaNoWriMo book-to-be. Components. DO NOT STEAL THEM. I’M WATCHING YOU. Actually the funny part of this is that I never tell people anything about what I’m writing because I think that, for example, you’ll hear the word “octopus” and go, “YES! That is what MY book will be about!” And somehow, through some cosmic fluke, you will write the EXACT SAME BOOK as me and sell yours first. I only fear this because it happened to me once, after two years of research for an adult literary novel about the notorious Brother Twelve written from the perspective of one of his female partner/followers, someone else released the EXACT SAME BOOK. Even in a similar voice to mine, which made me crazy. Well, crazier.

Regardless, undaunted, I give you five components of my soon-to-be massively successful YA endeavour. I have no title yet, so you can’t steal that. But the book will have:

1. A ghost.
2. Hall and Oates.
3. Love’s Baby Soft.
4. A crow.
5. Oliver Peoples eyeglass frame names.

AND IT WILL BE FUNNY.

Write on, dudes.

1.   When I was a kid, which was a long time ago, but I still remember it in that way that we remember being kids, which is to say that we’ve made up half the stuff and edited our entire childhoods such that they make better anecdotes at cocktail parties, not that any of us go to cocktail parties, but we’re all old enough (at least I am) to go to one if I feel like it and/or if I am invited to one, which never happens.   Are you with me so far?   No?   Oh well, I’m doing the best I can.   My point is that I wanted a rabbit when I was a kid.  I wanted a rabbit with the obsessive fervor that other kids focused on wanting to become rockstars or to get a date with John Stamos, except I was really a kid and too young to want to date anyone.    On my bedroom walls, I had floor to ceiling posters of rabbits and framed art prints of rabbits.  I had shelves full of rabbit figurines, stuffed rabbits, small china rabbits, little wooden rabbits, ONE MILLION RABBITS.   I read Watership Down when I was eight.  MORE THAN ONCE.   I even had a book about How To Care for Your Pet Rabbit, which when I think about it now, was kind of cruel because obviously at that age everything I had was a gift from my parents and why would they give me such a book WHEN THEY WOULD NOT LET ME HAVE A RABBIT?   Yes, that’s right, I was not allowed.  This is because my sisters had guinea pigs.   One each.   The guinea pigs were named Boris and Annabelle and they were kept in our depressing, unfinished basement in side by side cages, where they squeaked pitifully and hoped to have their woodchips changed.   And who changed the wood chips?   I DID.   Yes, my sisters paid me, but still, I did it.   Because we were all afraid of the basement.   And worse, we were afraid that the guinea pigs would be dead (morbid much?) when we went down there, so we didn’t want to look.   I don’t know why we were so terrified of the guinea pigs mortality, but we were.   Later, they died of paint fume inhalation while being looked after by our cousins, so all that worry was for naught.   Regardless, my sisters’ poor caretaking of their pets meant that I had to do the work AND I was not allowed to have a pet of my own.   SPOT THE IRONY.    One day, I’ll have to write my autobiography and I will call it, “I NEVER GOT TO OWN A PET RABBIT AND THAT IS NOT FAIR.”   Or something like that.   You know, I’d polish the actual title before publication.

2.   On the weekend, we took the kids up to UVic to hunt rabbits.  NO, NOT FOR EATING.   For fun!  Because nothing says “fun” like running around on rabbit-poop encrusted lawns trying to force feed celery to unwilling, long-eared rodents.    I don’t know if you’ve ever been to UVic, I did, but it was twenty years ago and back then the “rabbit problem” meant that there were a few dozen rabbits romping around on campus and eating the decorative plants.    Holy hellcats, times have changed.   NOW if you go to UVic on, say, a holiday Monday when there are very few people around, you will find that there are no less than FIVE MILLION RABBITS on campus.   They have taken over.   I’m not going to say that I think they’ve eaten all the students, but it’s a possibility.   There were very few students around.    What’s even more worrying is that the rabbits really DO stay on the UVic campus, which if you don’t know, is located in a lovely suburban neighbourhood of lawns and lush gardens.   The rabbits DO cross the road but remain on UVic property.   YOU NEVER SEE A RABBIT ON A NEIGHBOURING LAWN.    What is WITH the rabbits — all FIVE MILLION OF THEM — that they willingly confine themselves to UVic property?   I know what you’re thinking, and I’m thinking the very same thing:   They are not actually rabbits.   Rather, they are some kind of bizarre UVic experiment gone awry.   I KNOW, RIGHT?

The kids had a lot of fun.   No, I don’t know why the pictures came out so yellow but I kind of like them.  It’s SEPIA, people.   Work with me here.

3.  If I was  UVic student, (which I’m not, and never will be again, not because I have anything against UVic but because I am too old to be a student and when I look at the actual students at UVic, I get the anxious realization that I am actually old even though I feel exactly the same age as I was when I went there, which was 18/19/etc.    I can remember what I wore, who my professors were, who my friends were, what we talked about, what we ate, where we went in lieu of going to class, EVERYTHING, with a clarity that shocks me because I can’t remember a) what day it is and b) why I came downstairs) I would TOTALLY make a horror movie called The Rabbits, spoofing the Hitchcock classic The Birds and not starring Tippi Hedron because she’s probably dead, but starring someone wearing a Tippi Hedron-style wig which are always available around Halloween because dressing up as Tippi Hedron with a bunch of birds attacking you is nothing but all kinds of awesome and may be my favourite Halloween costume ever.    In my movie, obviously, it would be rabbits and not birds because I’m not exaggerating the number of frightening, blank-looking rabbits on that campus.   Really.   MILLIONS.   And they all LOOK at you with these creepy eyes that look like the eyes of a really bored, vacant human, and those eyes say, “I really want to be an extra in a low-budget horror movie featuring man-eating rabbits.”   They do.    I’m serious. Rabbits are the new vampires. In about a year or maybe ten or maybe not even in your lifetime but at some point in the distant future, I’ll bet the shelves will be flooded with Twilight-style books about sexy, killer rabbits. You heard it here first.

4.   I know all these stories are basically the same story but what can I tell you?   It’s hard to come up with rabbit anecdotes once I get past the moral outrage that I feel that I was never allowed to own my own rabbit even though I knew more about how to care for rabbits than any other seven year old on the planet.   I did not mention that I slept with a stuffed rabbit named Bunny for my entire life, well obviously not my ENTIRE life, like I’m not sleeping with Bunny right now mostly because it would fall apart if I accidentally rolled over on it, and it’s hard for me to even call Bunny an “it” but I don’t want to say “him” and make you all think that I’m insane.   Anyway, as an adult, I renamed Bunny “Nub” because that sounded more mature and also a more accurate depiction of what he looked like.   Therefore, it was only reasonable that I call my son Bunny (as the name was freed up by the renaming of Bunny), which I didn’t do.  I mean, we gave him a regular name, but right from the minute he popped out (and I’m using the words “popped” and “out” here to gloss over the horrific nature of how he actually entered the world), I called him my little Bunny which gradually got shortened to Bun and then we added “The” in front so it was more like a title than an actual name.    I realize that all sounds crazy, and it is, so that’s a justified judgement on your part.   In any event, The Bun was at a playdate last week and the boy who was hosting the playdate (hosting?  What the hell am I saying?) had a rabbit and that rabbit was hilarious, by the way, it was huge and had a tiny head and sat up on the couch like a human, looking around as if to say, “Well, hello, my people, bring me food on trays and dance and sing for my entertainment”, and that rabbit’s name was BUNBUN.   So The Bun said, “Hey, that’s my name!”  Which was confusing to the host-kid because he was like, “No, it’s not.”  And The Bun said, “Well, it’s my MIDDLE name.”   Later, in the car, I said, “Honey, do you know what your middle name is?”  And he said, “The Bun.”  And I said, “Actually, that’s a nickname.   Your middle name is not The Bun.”  And he was quite cross, and said, “Yes, it is.”  So I said, “IS NOT.”  And he said, “IS SO.”   Etc.    So there’s that.

5.   One of the major reasons why we went to UVic to feed the bunnies was because The Stepson wanted to catch one.   He was convinced that he’d caught one before but when we discussed it later, we realized that he was not with me when he’d caught one, nor was he with his dad, and in fact, odds were good that he hadn’t caught one before but he’d wanted to catch one and liked the idea of it so was supporting his belief that they were easy to catch with a false memory of actually catching one in the past.   Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond his control, The Stepson is not terribly good at sneaking up on small wild animals and plucking them from the ground.   This is at least partly to do with the fact that he doesn’t actually want to TOUCH a rabbit, especially one that’s been hopping around on a big field of rabbit feces for his/her entire life.   Regardless, he was determined to catch one and the stress of the situation was only escalated by a three year old toddling up and plucking up one of the bunnies and clutching it until his dad saw and made him drop the filthy, disgusting, mangy, and possibly diseased creature.    The Stepson was not successful in his quest to pick one up, but I maintain that it would certainly be possible, if you wanted one, but you would, in fact, have to touch it.    Which brings me to another point that I may have made already but am making again here:   I think the bunnies at UVic are all clones.   If you look at the picture above, you’ll see what I mean.   THE RABBITS ARE ALL EXACTLY THE SAME.    Terrifying.    This last point is actually a mish-mash of every other thing I was going to say about the rabbits.    One of those things is, “Who exactly cleans up after these animals?”   And another is, “Does UVic intentionally breed these creatures in order to save on lawn mowing expenses?”  And one more is, “Don’t rabbits carry some kind of awful disease that affects pregnant women and the elderly?  Or is that cats?  Or am I making it up?”   No, I’m not pregnant.   Give your head a shake.    I’m just wondering about the overall environmental impact of the TWENTY MILLION RABBITS* on the UVic campus.   On the plus side, the rabbit population gives student journalists a lot of things to write about, as the debate about whether or not cross-bow hunting should be allowed rages on.

*Rabbits breed so quickly that they’ve surely multiplied 4x since I started writing this post.

FIVE LISTS OF FIVE THINGS:

Thing One:   Five Pictures of The Bun, Dancing.   No, he is not one of the girls in pink tutus.   Give your head a shake.

Picture 1:

Picture 2:

Picture 3:

Picture 4:

Picture 5 (I call this one “Guess Who Isn’t Paying Attention?”   Guess why!)

Thing Two:   The Five Books I Am Reading Right Now, But Not This Minute Because I’m Currently Blogging.

1.  Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan

2.  Something to Tell You by Hanif Kereishi

3.  Trouble by Kate Christensen

4.  Mary Modern by Camille De Angelis

5.  The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

I don’t have much to say yet about these books because I’m not very far into any of them, they are scattered around the house and I’m not yet gripped enough by any individual one to abandon the rest, actually I’ve only started #4 and #5, so that comment really only applies to these two books.   J. Courtney Sullivan is a friend-of-a-friend so I’m most excited about that one.   I’ll admit that #5 so far is not keeping me awake, I’ve been told by SO MANY PEOPLE to read it and I’m nothing if not TOTALLY COMPLIANT TO THE WISHES OF OTHERS but really I need more … I don’t know.  Plot?   Heh.   Do not stone me.   I am rife for the stoning lately because I admitted on Twitter that vampire books/movies/TV shows/crap make me torn between wanting to jab myself in the right eye with a sharpened chopstick and/or dying slowly from the knowledge that my own brilliant tome about the undead is now NEVER GOING TO SELL because the VAMPIRE CHICKS BEAT ME TO THE PUNCH.   Ergo, I’m over VAMPIRES and I WILL NEVER SEE/READ/CARE ABOUT TWILIGHT.   Random caps alert!   HOLD ME.

Thing Three:   Five Random THINGS That I Feel Like Sharing Because I Care About You Enough To Thrust Personal Details Of My Mundane Life Into Your Face While You Are Trying To Find Out More About German Shepherds Or The Relative Safety Of Uncooked Bacon.

1.   The top search term to hit this site is no longer:  IS IT SAFE TO EAT RAW BACON?  (No.)  It is now GERMAN SHEPHERD DOG.   No, I don’t know why either.   When I was a kid, we owned a German Shepherd named Heidi.   She was lovely.   When she died, we got another German Shepherd named Jodi.   She was also lovely, but neurotic.   Neither of those dog names are my secret passwords for anything, FYI.

2.  Every once in a while, I’ll be driving along or walking or whatever with The Birdy and I’ll be thinking about something completely random, like whether or not there is life on the moon of Jupiter named Titan, or how octopuses fornicate, and she’ll suddenly shout “MOON!” or “OCTOPUS!” and I’ll think, “Wow, she’s probably psychic.”

3.  When I’m not thinking that The Birdy is probably psychic, I’m often thinking, “Um, can she read?”  For example, today we were at the park with my nephews and one of them was wearing a t-shirt that said BASKETBALL on it.   You know, the word.  And she looked at him and said “BASKETBALL”.   She is currently reading out loud from Commencement but I don’t think it features Wall-E or Evaaaaaaaah so I think she’s making that part up.

4.  It always makes me happy when I check my web stats and find that people are still landing here by typing the words “Wes is a douche”.   (It doesn’t take much to make me happy.   Project Runway is on tonight AND we have a new supply of ice cream?   HOO + RAY = YAY.)

5.   The Birdy just moved from her couch to my couch, slapped Commencement on my lap and said, “I CAN read it!”   But how did she know I was just typing about that?   See?   PSYCHIC.   If you want advice from The Birdy, please send $50 to me via Paypal and I will have her answer your questions.   I cannot promise the answer will not be “NEMO’S DADDY” though or, more likely, “No!  MY TURN!”

Thing Four:  Five Things I May Not Have Mentioned That Maybe I Would Have Told You If You Were My Best Friend And We Were Chatting On The Phone.

1.   The Birdy has a broken wrist.   Actually, it’s a “greenstick fracture”.  I had never once thought about what this term referred to until it happened to my wee little love, and now that I know, I force everyone else to listen to the description, too.   It’s like when you try to break a green stick, right?  But it doesn’t break, it just kind of bends and frays.   HOLY HELL, IT HURTS MY WRIST SYPMATHETICALLY TO EVEN TYPE THAT.

2.  The Birdy’s broken wrist doesn’t bother her at all, in fact I’d think I made up the whole thing if I hadn’t seen the X-ray.

3.  I bought new boots!  Yes, again!  Yes, I have a problem!   Yes, this is a cry for help!  But do you want to see a picture?  You do?   I DON’T HAVE ONE.   So, sorry.   Can’t post one.   They are Born knee-high grey-suede that I thought was olive green in the store.    Winners has bad lighting.

4.  The mere sight of mouldy bread makes me so violently nauseated that I can feel sick thinking about it for up to 27 days after seeing it.

5.  People who cut the mould off bread and then COMMENCE TO EAT IT need psychiatric attention.

Thing Five:   THE CONCLUSION TO THIS LONG POST.

1.   It was harder than I thought to come up with twenty five things, even though five of them were pictures so don’t really count.    It was like — gasp!  — homework or something equally dreadful.

2.  I like tea.   We have no tea bags left.

3.  That one was more of a reminder to me to buy more next time I’m out.

4.  You remember things you write down more than things you just think in passing.

5.  I’m hungry.

That’s all for now!   Tune in again next Saturday or some other equally surprising day of the week for another episode of FIVE THING FRIDAY brought to you in part NOT BY NESTLE, who I am still boycotting, or any of the other places that I’ve boycotted:   Walmart, Starbucks, Canadian Tire, Shell.   Hey, that’s five more things!   HOLY CRAP, SIX LISTS OF FIVE THINGS.   I’m now going to nap because I’ve earned it.   Whew.