2010. Damn. Can I get off now? 2010 was a roller coaster ride to hell, fun for a moment, and then the person in the car ahead of me puked. At the very least, I wasn't alone.

2011...be kind.

Just for today, I'm happy to bring in the New Year.

I played around with some application on Facebook and the next thing I knew my blog was appearing on the FB newsfeed. I decided this was a mysterious act of nature, and accepted the ensuing Writer's Block. It's one thing to write a blog for the silent mass of spammers, my mom, and about five good friends, and quite another to advertise my mental minutia to people I sort of know.

The problem with Writer's Block is it turns into Everything's Block. Then I don't know if I should do laundry or clean out my spice cabinet. My day becomes increasingly less inspired until I'm a Facebook drone. The only way to get out of it is to write the most boring blog possible, and then take a nap. That would be this one.

Just for today, I have Writer's Block.

If there's one thing Christmas (I know it's completely outdated to say the word "Christmas," but I just don't celebrate "Holidays") teaches me each passing year it's this: I need kids.

There are a few reasons:

1) Unconditional Selfless Love (sure, why not).
2) Egocentric Need to Impose My Idea of How People Should Live On A Blank Slate (just admit it).
3) Perfect Excuse For Extricating Myself From Obligatory Social Engagements and Long Work Nights (definitely).
4) (And most importantly) Give Mom An Age Appropriate Person To Discuss Santa's Comings and Goings With (very bad grammar here).

It's not that I don't love being the object of Santa Claus' attention. (Ok, that sounded dirty). Let me try again. It's not that I don't love my stocking. I love that Santa shops at Long's and always gives me a pack of almonds and a tangerine (although, I just realized a horrible thing...I didn't get a tangerine this year). I even love the tradition of "you may not like it, but you will take it home with you and keep it in a drawer for six months" culture of presents that my family embraces. But let's face it, my relationship with Santa passed weird ten years ago. Ok, twenty. In the absence of grandkids or my younger sister, my mom is showering her Xmas love on me.

If I don't have my own kids by next year, I'm going to find me some. In fact, I may start a program of placing orphan poor children with people suffering from a lack of grandparentism. It just doesn't make sense to have so much spirit showered on a single middle-aged woman overidentified with her inner-child.

Just for today, I need kids.

The other day a recruiter called to ask if she could send my resume to a company in Orange County.

"You can send it to Tijuana, too, while you're at it."

The Orange Curtain seems about as far from my reality as border patrol.

The next day she called to tell me that I would get a phone interview in five minutes. Five minutes later a woman called me and this is how it went:

"Hello. How are you?"

"I'm good. Thank you."

"Can you start tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"Ok, I'll send you a confirmation email. See you tomorrow at 10:00."

The recruiter later called and told me that said company had approved my rate.

"Are you sure they don't want to meet me in person first?"

"No, we trust that you're fabulous."

This is true. But these people have no proof. I could walk into the office barefoot with a pet ferret on my shoulder.

However, by the end of the day, I still hadn't receive any instructions, and had become convinced that the whole thing was a scam. I worried that if I drove to said location I would find nothing more than an empty warehouse in the middle of a desert, with tumbleweeds blowing around, and two bouncer looking guys carrying rope and a cloth sack, ready to abduct me and into a life as a human subject for illegal medical experiments. So, I called the recruiter again.

"Are you sure this is a real job? I still haven't gotten an email..."

"Oh, yes, it is. I swear. I'll send you the address."

Against my better judgement, I got up this morning and drove in the rain into the nether region behind orange curtain. Every time I go to the OC (which has been about twice in my life) I expect to run into the one person I know who lives there who I dated five years ago for three weeks. So, in addition to worrying about driving in the rain and my possible abduction, I had the added stress of how to react to guy weirdness.

However, I arrived at the building and was amazed to find a Real Office with hardwood floors, creative directors walking around, and a receptionist waiting to validate. Everybody seemed grateful to see me, as if I were Santa Claus, and some were actually smiling. At lunch time, I walked outside to get something to eat. No ex in sight. However, there is a Forever XX1 at the corner...a danger I hadn't foreseen.

Just for today, I'm working in the OC.

Unless you're making homemade wreaths and white floral displays with Gwyneth Paltrow, I don't think I'm alone in saying that I've been having some difficulty getting excited about Ghetto Holiday 2010. Between Obama's codependency issues, the sounds of Kenny G's Holiday Muzack collection at Peete's (not a bad reason to go to Starbucks) and the fears of job search rejection, I was ready to boycott any and all eggnog lattes until Santa Claus brings me job, a Baby Daddy and an exterminator for my apartment building. Not to feel sorry for myself, as my heart goes out to families struggling just to pay bills, let alone buy gifts...but it's been a rough year for a lot of people, myself included.

However, after pulling out my collection of $.99 Store ornaments I started to crave the sight of lights reflected on shiny magenta tin on top of a green bushy plant-like object. I figured at the very least can support the people who work in the Christmas Tree Lot industry. So, I drove my ass to an Xmas Tree Lot, stood in the rain, and tried to commune with the spirits of a dozen eviscerated trees.

"You can save $5 if you don't get the stand," said Xmas Tree Lot Guy.

"But won't it will dry out...?"

"It's going to die anyway.."

Gee, way to sell your product. Can't you just pretend that we're not standing in the midst of tree genocide? I got so depressed I left.

I woke up the next day still wanting a tree. So I drank a really strong cup of coffee, got possessed by the ghost of Christmas Better Economy, and bought a tree from a stoned 19-year-old who had a breakdown when he failed to use the cash register correctly.

I came home and put up my tree. It looks awesome.

Just for today, I feel the Holiday spirit.

Last night, while driving home from salsa at 2:00 am, I found myself sitting at a Punishment Light (an endlessly long red light) next to a beige Kia in which sat a White Male giving me the Full Serial Killer Stare Off. He looked like a cuter Ted Bundy with more method acting training. I tried fidgeting with my phone, but every time I glanced over he was still at it.

"Roll down your window," he yelled.

"You're making me very uncomfortable," I told him.

"Where are you going?"

To a police station?

"Home."

"Where's that?"

"I'm not telling you."

"Why not?"

Because you're scary.

"Do you have any wine at home?"

Best case scenario: he's a sociopath who picks up women at 2:00 am on Sunday mornings and then takes him to his house where he keeps them in a hole in the basement. Worst case scenario: dating in Los Angeles has devolved to this state of affairs, and Ted Bundy's twin picks up women at Punishment Lights because IT'S WORKED IN THE PAST. I can't believe I'd be happier to know that he was a Serial Killer.

Whatever he is, he turned left and I turned down a street that doesn't lead home, while I worked on better one liners for turning down his offer.

"I'd love to open that Malbec and hear about your escape from the penitentiary, but I do have to work tomorrow." (Work? Total lie.).

"I don't think wine and lithium mix very well..."

"Have you studied Meisner or Stanislavski?"

Just for today, I'm scared of single white males.

So disappointed...How could Obama sell his party down the river? Is Michelle going to rip him a new one? (Or, rather, after the GOP, another one?)

I didn't vote for Obama, I voted for the Green Party guy (forgot his name). My mom still won't forgive me, but there are several reasons.

1) You shouldn't vote for someone because he's black, articulate and smart. That's inverse racism.

2) I campaigned for Hilary. She inspired me. However, I'm glad she lost because the idea of her taking it in the rear by the GOP would make this moment in time all the more depressing.

3) I never drank the Obama Kool-aid (sorry, again, Mom). From the beginning, I smelled a softie, a prep school kid, an idealist with good oratory skills, but lacking the boot-legging father and mafia connections. I credit my ghetto public education with teaching me that anyone who uses expressions like "working together" never got his ass kicked in junior high by a future heroin dealer and lifetime convict. (He didn't kick my ass, personally, but I did make-out with him a few times). I did get my own butt kicked, too. When you take a beating at a young age in a school bathroom with no toilet paper you might say to yourself, "I just got my ass kicked in a nasty bathroom?! What the hell do I do to avoid this in the future?! How about I accept that the human world is not unlike the animal kingdom, and that there are sharks, snakes, and lions happy to feed off my blood, misery and pain...."

Sure, thugs are fun to make-out with when you're 13, rebellious, and have no parental supervision, and Republicans are fun when you want to go to a party where there's guaranteed expensive liquor, and free food (but not too much, because WASPS aren't into the whole oversupply of food and appetizers), but when you want to keep young poor kids from going to Afghanistan, or keep middle-class people in their homes, Republicans are the unreasonable bathroom butt-kicking future convicts (although, as anyone can see, this metaphor is not working at all...).

Bottom Line: sending Obama into negotiations with the Republicans is like putting Snow White in a room with Tony Soprano. He'll sleep with her, and steal her cocaine.

I'm sorry, if I'm offending anyone who loves Obama. This is love, it's tough love.

Just for today, I'm really pissed.

In this tanking economy, job interviews seem to be getting longer, and longer. They used to be a half hour or hour, tops. You met with your direct supervisor and if he or she liked you, that was it. Now they are two to three hours long and you meet with every single person who might graze your cubicle on the way to the restroom.

It's the marathon that kills me. I can sound great for thirty to forty-five minutes, but by the second hour, without any commercial breaks, or enough caffeine, my game face starts to crack. It's just too much pressure. Eventually, my diarrhea-of-the-mouth disease makes itself known, and before I know it, I am letting on that I have interests in other things besides working. [POTENTIAL EMPLOYERS PLEASE NOTE: I am a kick-ass employee!...and, no, I don't use words like "kick=ass" in client meetings or documentation]. So, although, I am a kick-ass worker bee, my extracurricular interests (salsa, blogs, play) can appear like creative energy flowing out of the office. But it's really not...in reality it ricochets back into the office.

Besides, do we want a job force made of steely worker-bots, who bill time in two minute increments and can stare down the Terminator with their laser like focus? Do we want to fill our vocabulary with enough Corporate Speak ("off-line" "bandwidth" "deliverables", etc.) that the old "think outside of the box," sound like rap lyrics?

Until the economy recovers, I think we do. Giant sigh.

Just for today, I believe I am a valuable asset to any company.

Right before Thanksgiving I created a Facebook Fan page for my blog. Three weeks later, the number of people who "Like" it remains two (me and my mom).

I'm still not sure how this whole marketing thing works.

Just for today, I am grateful for my mom.

P.S. I did put the "Like" button on my page and am proud that 8 people (including myself) "Like" this blog.

I've been "Over 35" for three whole years and, yet, when Older Dudes smile at me, I get a little uncomfortable. And by "Older Dudes" I mean men who are ten years older than myself (by most accounts, I've been an Older Woman for at least five years) I can't help but think...he could have been my father twenty years ago?! I know Demi and Ashton and Michael and Catherine, and Older Successful Man, and Young Cute Thing make it work all the time...or do they? I'll never know...I'm holding out for someone who understands what it meant to wake up at 6:00 am on Saturday morning in 1978 (Superheroes).

Bottom Line: I'm in a new age bracket for dating.

If men over 45 ever hit on me when I was in my twenties, I never noticed. I thought they were being fatherly...my mistake.

Just for today, I'm becoming "mature." (Saying "getting old" is too much reality).