I heart today’s Google page:

Two or so weeks after I started at the Office, I was no longer the new guy — because they hired a new new guy, a skinny Tawainese kid who loved cookies. He sat directly across from me, and eventually, I bought him a plush Cookie Monster. And in fact, I’ll call him Cookie for the rest of this post.

Skip forward several months, and the restroom on our floor was out of order. Most of the restrooms in the building are locked. Cookie told me and another colleague that the restroom on the fourth floor was unlocked. We made our way up a floor, only to find that it was, in fact, locked.

We weren’t all that upset — ‘specially since they fixed the restroom not long after — but my colleague and I decided to take Cookie Monster hostage, which leads us to:

The Proof of Life photograph from our ransom demand.

Oh, look. I had hair.*

When Cookie refused to pay a cookie ransom for the return of Cookie Monster, well, I was overcome by a case of the regrets, so I returned Cookie Monster. And Cookie promptly banned Cookie Monster to the bottom of his filing cabinet for several months.

Honestly, some times I don’t know if I work with really cool, really awesome people, or retards.

Well, since I work here, I’m leaning towards retards.

*(These days, I shave my head. I look weird with hair.)

** A Cookie Trifecta? Yes: 1. A guy named Cookie. 2. A cookie ransom. 3. Cookie Monster. And three = trifecta.

If you’re planning on buying only one Christmas album this year …

… even if you’re not planning on buying a Christmas album this year …

EVEN IF YOU HATE CHRISTMAS MUSIC, AND CHRISTMAS, AND BOB DYLAN, AND KITTENS.

… you should buy this one, anyway:

It’s so worth it, just for Must Be Santa, which The Daily Loaf describes as “a superfast, speed-polka romp through the old chestnut.” I’m trying not to crack up at my desk right now listening to the track on my iPod.

(Yes, I’ve put Christmas music on my iPod already. Fuck off. And Merry Thanksgiving. Grinch.)

(Okay, so maybe you shouldn’t order a Bob Dylan Christmas album if you hate both Bob Dylan and Christmas music, but at least think of the kittens and don’t masturbate tonight, okay?)

Tuesday night, after the poorly behaved children, and after dinner and alcohol, I was standing on New Hampshire Ave, just a few yards from Dupont Circle, shivering in the night’s cool, waiting for the L2 bus that my NextBus DC iPhone app told me was 4 minutes away. In my belly was a General Tso’s order from Meiwah, and a Stella and an obscure English cider from Brickskeller. It probably says enough about me* that those two drinks were enough to leave me a little fuzzy in the head and weak in the legs. In my bag, from my stop at Second Story, was a second hand edition of Thomas Harris’s Black Sunday and a DVD of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, perfectly priced at $3 and $5**, respectively.

I was a bit too intoxicated to make any sense out of my then current read, The Italian Stranger (finished it yesterday), so I was just people watching as folks jaywalked to the bar and swooshed past on bicycles.

I love people watching. It makes me feel connected, and part of something bigger, even if that’s just a figment of my imagination.

Anyway, so I’m standing there, and I see this lady biking up New Hampshire towards Dupont Circle. And as she gets closer, I become aware of two facts:

Fact 1: She’s wearing a miniskirt.

And, that just sort of strikes me as weird. Who bikes in a miniskirt? Especially on a cold fall night? I mean, am I right? Wouldn’t trousers*** be warmer? And as I’m contemplating these profound questions, somewhere in my brain, a neuron fires off an alert, and I realize:

Fact Two: She’s not wearing underwear.

Or, if she is, it’s like skin colored underwear, but, yeah, I’m pretty sure she’s not wearing underwear. Because, honestly, it doesn’t matter how intoxicated or buzzed I might be, female nudity sings out to me: “Loooook!” And since that’s pretty much been the extent of my sex life for way longer than I care to admit, I most certainly shall.

Look, I mean. As in: I most certainly shall look.

Hey, I’m not proud. (Just occasionally horny).

But, seriously folks, if you were going to wear a miniskirt and bike on a cold night … wouldn’t you at least put underwear on? Or maybe she’s having an affair with an office mate and he ripped her panties off as they were banging in the conference room, and this (well, technically I think back at the word “having”) is the point where I need to reign my imagination in. In! In, damn you!

And I’m thinking: yanno, it’s dark out. New Hampshire Avenue NW isn’t the brightest lit street in DC, even this close to Dupont. Clearly, somewhere in my mind, the alcohol has affected the neurons or whatever you sciencey-type folks say makes a brain function, and I had a total miscommunication with myself. Because, as was pointed out, if I don’t have a photo, it didn’t happen: and alas, I don’t have a photo.

*Because I’m a cheap date. Ladies?

**Because I love National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, such a great film. But, even though it’s been out on DVD for years and years, it never really finds its way into those $5 DVD bins at retailers, because every Christmas, a whole bunch of people realize they don’t have a copy and rush out to buy it, and that’s why you still have to shell out $15 bucks for it new. Aw, fuck that — I’m perfectly happy with a used copy. And it’s the Special Edition! I’m so looking forward to the audio commentary.

***Hah, hah. I used trousers in a sentence.