Deck the halls or something like that.

(in media res)...and then Wacky Wild Woman disappeared into the Christmas Abyss, never to be heard from again.

Ha! Since I was invited to be a guest blogger for MrTeacher whilst he was away sunning himself on some high-falutin' vacation, I feel compelled to offer up an explanation for my slackitude at my blogging duties.

Yes, I looked into the Holiday Void, and yes the Void stared back, but I! Have Emerged! Relatively! Unscathed! You have heard of man vs. nature, man vs. man, man vs. society, but my narrative conflict lately has all been in the realm of waif vs. endless rounds of holiday cheer, and I am proud to say it has mostly turned out in my favor. And in this corner, in the black trunks, we have me, having just delivered the biggest roundhouse punch ever to the holiday season. Red and green, black and blue, take that, YULE!

But you care not to hear me whine incessantly about my holiday social life and the many reasons why I have not posted as a good little guest blogger should have. You come here for the naked pictures of MrTeacher. So here is a short, mixed-up summary of a few of the holiday warm fuzzies that have kept me negligent.

IN WHICH I RECEIVE MYSTIFYING ARTIFACTS

Then hey ho what the fuck it was Christmas. Did everyone survive the holidays okay? No holiday suicides? No mortifying mistletoe incidents? No injuries when your mom or your grandmother or whoever is the Food Enforcer around your house came after you with yet another plate of cookies? I had three different Christmas things with three different family sections, and although I am never against day-long wine drinking and hanging out, I sure am glad it's over. I gave good presents. My 11-year-old nephew is a Packers fan, because he is the twisted middle child who has to be an iconoclast, and where do you think you can get a child-sized foam rubber cheesehead? At Cheesehead.com, of course. It was a big hit.

My stepfather is famous for giving strange gifts, but even he did pretty well this year. There were only two confusing items. First was a hollow crocheted snowman, covered in some sort of glitter paint. Why is this for me? The other gift proved conclusively to me that my family huffs a bunch of nitrous before doing their holiday shopping: I received an Elmo Bounce Around Ball. I wish I could find this product online to show you people exactly how strange this is, but basically an Elmo Bounce Around Ball is a round soft red ball, about 20 inches in diameter, with a somewhat Cubist rendering of Elmo's face on it. When you press the ball the whole thing vibrates rather strongly and the Voice of Elmo giggles and says "Whee! Look at Elmo go!" Why am I picturing entire preschools full of toddlers humping away on the vibrating Elmo ball? Hell, I would do it myself if I wasn't a little creeped out by the whole sitting-on-Elmo’s-face aspect. Maybe one of these days, after a lot of wine.

Okay, immediately after typing this I managed to bang the bony part of my wrist on a metal door handle, which hurt like a motherfuck and it is even starting to swell a little bit. I'm signing off now. Do you think I could sue MrTeacher for workman's compensation for being injured "on the job" while guest blogging? Just kidding MrT!

That's it for me. Hope everyone's remaining 2004 is wonderfully alluring and 2005 brings even more happy moments.

Melissa (wacky wild woman)

My Wild Words Blog