Merry Christmas, everyone. :)

Merry Christmas, 2009 from Cecily Kellogg on Vimeo.

Last night Charlie and I took our meager budget out to the store to buy Tori her presents. Tori is the only person we're buying presents for this year, a fact that was agreed upon by our whole family of folks we normally buy presents for. But I have to tell you the truth: IT IS KILLING ME.

I'm a big fan of Christmas. I love shopping for presents, I love picking the things that I think will make the person getting the gift the happiest. One of my favorite years was the time we all chipped in and got Sarah some lights for her photography. Or when we bought Charlie a good camera. Or that time we gave our friend Jim a gift certificate to a cigar shop that was big enough he almost swooned.

I love giving presents.

It's a very small thing, on a global scale. We are lucky; we are turning the financial corner at last, we are heading into the new year looking down a road to true financial stability. My career is well, finally, an actual CAREER. Life is basically pretty good.

But I really hate not giving presents. And fuck, I'll be honest, I hate not getting them either.

...

It's been a rough year. Charlie had the horrible gall bladder issue beginning in the spring, causing terrible pain and worry. While he was mostly healthy through the summer, he had to watch his diet carefully until he could get his gall bladder removed. The money issues started being incredibly stressful in early summer, and by this fall they were nearly unbearable. Then Hammer the Best Dog Ever died. Charlie has been generally looking forward to the end of 2009, feeling like it's been one of the worst years ever for him, and he could frankly let Christmas just slip away with the rest of a crappy year.

Not me. I'm hanging on to Christmas with tightly clenched fists and ripped fingernails.

This has led to some tension. Yeah, we'll call it that and not discuss last night's holiday shopping adventures that ended with Charlie and I pulled over at the side of the road, yelling at each other until our throats are hoarse (rest assured, Tori was home with my mom). We said bad things.

We're okay today, and Christmas will indeed go on. But now I'm kind of ready for 2009 to end as well.

2010 will be better, right?

...

I hate that horrible feeling, that feeling of being on the emotional knife's edge, that moment when I know -- just know -- that all the hard emotional work I've done on myself is going to count for nothing, that I'm going to lose my shit and behave like a spoiled child. I'm going to let go of all the pithy little slogans I have in my head like "Say what you mean, mean what you say, and don't say it mean" or "focus on just one point, don't bring up the entire marriage" or "don't be a total fucking asshole" and just plunge in, mean and dirty, tossing every single thing, every little slight, every bad moment of the last 17 years into the arena and make it UGLY.

It's almost a compulsion. I start, and then I can't stop, until it's too late. By the time the brakes can be applied, I've already gone over the cliff. It happens less often now than it used to, but that doesn't make it sting any less, it doesn't make the words-like-knives stab wounds any more shallow. It still leaves the two of us hunched in the cold, staring at the dashboard of the car, wondering if it can be salvaged. The day, the week, Christmas, the marriage.

We always come back, because the reality is that our core relationship is strong. But we limp for a while after. I feel especially bad because this is my fault, I made it worse with my self pity and my scorn. I did apologize first, and I'm sure we'll be fine, but that awful emotional hangover of badly spent anger, anger that had to manufactured in the first place, lingers.

...

Sometimes I wonder if my absolute insistence on LOVING CHRISTMAS makes me slightly insane. If someone called me up and offered me an airline ticket to a beach, I'd take it in a hot minute and trash the whole fucking holiday. But they'd have to give tickets to my whole family too. So I guess there would be no getting away from it, would there?

This Christmas I will be surrounded by the people I love, eating food that I enjoyed preparing, and we will all laugh and sing and generally have a wonderful time and feel great contentment. I feel sure of it.

But 2009? Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

That morning fourteen years ago started like most of them had since Sarah had moved out, gone to rehab, and stopped returning my calls. I woke up craving. It was dark in me, immense, and overwhelming. I could think of very little else other than finding the money, finding some way, calling that beeper and waiting for the call back.

It took all day. It was already dark by the time he answered my frantic and incessant pages, that bright young man in the white Toyota I could recognize six blocks away. For some reason we had a little money that day; I can't remember, now, if I'd managed to coax Charlie's credit cards into advancing a bit more cash or if we simply had gotten paid that day. But I do know I was able to buy a bigger bag, one that was just a little bit more full than usual, and I had a feeling of warm contentment knowing that I had hours, simply hours, of peace from the craving lying before me.

My dealer knew I was reaching the end of my financial capability to fund my addiction. He eyed me speculatively, apparently seeing something beyond my gray complexion and flat, dried out hair. My drug use had caused me to slim down some, and perhaps I looked better than I remember. He told me that day when I complained about how little money I had that there were "things I could do" that would keep the drugs coming my way. I smiled a brittle smile, knowing what he meant but choosing not to absorb that knowledge, or my reaction to it which was far more favorable than I'd like to admit.

We had some acquaintances drop by that night. I don't remember their names, but they brought a six-pack of some sort of fancy beer, and the hopeful faces that had become common around our house then as the drugs had become the standard instead of a rare treat. But I wasn't going to share; Charlie had no idea that I had started using the needles again after I'd detoxed from heroin a couple of months earlier. In order to share with these people, I'd have to let Charlie know I had some coke, so it was out of the question. Besides, at this point, I was completely beyond sharing. It was a good thing Sarah had gone away to rehab; we were both plummeting downward in our addiction so quickly that our ability to gracefully share our drugs was soon going to be a thing of the past.

I drank a beer that night, which had actually become unusual for me, the girl that drank every day without fail. The cocaine dancing in my veins had caused my stomach to be extra sensitive, and most food and fluid I ingested came right back up. I had worked out a system to keep the nausea mostly at bay; the first step was don't eat. Otherwise I'd shoot up, and then turn on a fan and take slow, deep breaths when the drug hit my nervous system, riding that all-too short wave up and then crashing down. The high was a bright, brief burst, causing me to load up the syringe over and over and over, not stopping unless I was interrupted and forced to pretend to behave normally, or worse, the drugs had run out. Each moment I was away, I craved it so badly I could not think of anything else. I nodded and smiled when Charlie spoke, I applied make-up to cover the crazy track marks that covered my entire arms from the elbows down. I was already sleeping in long sleeve shirts and putting dark, gauzy scarves over the bedroom lamps to keep Charlie in the dark. It was willful ignorance on his part; my arms were mottled black and blue, as were my wrists and the backs of my hands and the tops of my thighs and even the veins between my breasts.

But that night I drank a beer, and I kept it down. I disappeared upstairs often while our visitors were there, but they left eventually. Not long after they left, we heard the furnace make that funny choking sound it always made when the heating oil was gone, and there was nothing left to burn. Charlie went downstairs to try to find a space heater and start the pots of hot water boiling on the stove and turn the oven on; running out of heating oil had become common then, so we knew what to do.

While I was alone in our bedroom, I got out my implements and began my ritual. I loved the ritual of shooting up. It was a beautiful thing, pouring a bit of water into the spoon, tipping the bag carefully and tapping just the right amount out into the water, heating it with the lighter and then pulling it up into the syringe. I knew I didn't have a lot of time, so when a very large chunk of coke fell out into the spoon I thought, just for a second, Oh, that's too much, but I shrugged mentally and went ahead. As soon as I was done, and I'd pricked the vein and pulled that plume of bright red into the syringe and then depressed the plunger, before I'd even savored the rush fully, Charlie called up the stairs, asking for my help to find the space heater. I took a few deep breaths, put on my bright purple satin robe, and ran down the stairs.

I don't remember much after that; I vaguely remember bending down to look in a cabinet to see if the space heater was there. After that, nothing, until the paramedics were yelling at me, trying to get me to respond. I came to lying on my back, my robe undone, my nakedness visible to everyone there; the cops, the paramedics, Charlie, my neighbors.

I sat up, closed my robe, and answered some questions. Charlie told me I'd had a seizure, a long one that lasted over ten minutes, and then I'd lain face down on the floor for twenty minutes unconscious to the world. For the first few minutes after the seizure I kept trying to stop breathing, my body remembering only when Charlie would shake me. I listened to Charlie, saw the fear in his face, but my brain was not really functioning properly; somehow I agreed to go to the hospital. I put my coat on over my purple robe, slipped my bare feet into my black cowboy boots, and walked out of the house into the back of the ambulance. As I lay on the gurney, I remember seeing a small, glittery ornament above the back doors, bouncing as the ambulance drove the eight or so blocks to the hospital.

...

The rest of the story is history. The doctors examined me, I lied and told them I didn't do drugs, to which they responded with simple disbelief. For some reason I consented to the urine test; my brain was simply not working at all, and I remember feeling something in me ease as they read the list of things I tested positive for (marijuana, muscle relaxants, cocaine, valium), thinking finally, someone knows, I don't have to hide it anymore.

They checked my heart, and while I waited for the results, I had that moment that other recovering people talk about: I knew I could not go on as I had been, but I had no idea how to stop. Not long after that, I finally consented to let Charlie come back to see me (he had no idea if I was alive or dead). He'd found my drugs (yes, I put them in my purse and brought them to the hospital), and knew everything. He told me it was over, we were done, we were going to go to a recovery meeting the next day, and that thing inside me eased even more as I agreed, yes, yes, that was it, we were done.

...

It's hard to believe that all this happened fourteen years ago. That's over 5,000 days I've had clean and sober, each one earned singly, a day at a time. I would never have believed it if someone told me fourteen years ago today that it was going to be fine, that Charlie and I would marry, be sober, have a family, and that Sarah would become my very best friend. But as I watch others tread this same path I think to myself yes, you can do it, we all can. Today in a large group of those like me, I raised my hand and told everyone that it had been fourteen years, and I collected the most expensive small round coin that there is in the world. It's burning in my pocket right now, cool hard evidence of my hard-fought sobriety.

Thank God. I am so glad to be here. I have such a wonderful life. Thank God. Thank God. Thank God.

I began believing in the power of the internet when I first got sober and spent a lot of time in sober chat rooms and following a sober list serve. I fell in love with online communities since I was first doing one of those Major Diet Plans and found the incredible online support in their forums. Then when I was trying to get pregnant my sanity and my life was saved by the forums on a fertility site, and those very forums introduced me to blogs. Within months I was blogging myself, and now, nearly six years into my blogging life, it simply IS my life. And now it's even my job.

Yes, I know that my heart is here at home, in the face of my daughter and her unbridled giggles, in the place on my husband's chest where my head feels most comfortable, in the hugs from my mother, and in the snarky gossip sessions with my best friend. Yes, I do have a non-online life, with people I see and touch on a regular basis.

But as I've become immersed in my online life, my "online friends" have more and more often become "real life friends" because over the years I've managed to meet them in person, either at conferences or when we're traveling. And let me tell you, when you finally meet someone in person that you've been communicating with online for many years, it feels RIGHT. There is little awkwardness, little discomfort, and plenty of deep affection. Ask Julia; when we finally -- FINALLY -- met in person this summer at BlogHer, it felt like part of my heart had come home.

Many folks worry that those of us that live so publicly are over sharing. But hell, trust me on this one, I over share when you know me in person (you can ask the young woman we just interviewed to be a supplemental babysitter for Tori; more on that another day). I am exactly the way I am online in person, EVEN MORE SO. (Perhaps I'm a tad more snarky; it's easier and safer to tell in person from tone of voice, etc, when someone is being sarcastic or overly dramatic.) So when you meet me, I generally do not surprise you. In fact, folks often say upon meeting me that I sound in person just like I do on my blog. Yes, including the swearing.

My real life friends, so to speak, cross over into my online life. Sarah and I frequently tweet each other throughout the day, and we often forget whether or not we've told each other something because we assume if it's online the other person knows about it. (My mom, however, lives a bit outside the social media circle; although she does have a Facebook page, she finds it "intrusive", and feels like reading my blog is eavesdropping. Heh.) My friend Jo-Ann uses Twitter to schedule play dates with me. It's how we all communicate, now.

When Tori fell at the playground and hit her head on a pole and needed to go to the emergency room and get staples in her scalp, I tweeted about it from the waiting room of the hospital. I uploaded a photo of the injury while we waited for the numbing gel to set in. I must have updated a dozen times during that hectic day, and honestly? Reading everyone's responses on Facebook and on Twitter kept me from becoming hysterical. I know it was only a tiny cut (an inch! at most! they didn't even have to shave her head!) but I felt utter and complete panic and dread while I was alone in that waiting room before Charlie showed up, and having my online community gather me into its arms and calm me down, tut-tut sympathetically, and send me virtual hugs helped. IMMENSELY. I have chosen to life my life online, and therefore I reap the rewards, damn it.

I lean on my online friends, they lean on me, and we share our joys and our sorrows and our frustrations, by the page on the blog, by the paragraph on Facebook, and in 140 characters at a time on Twitter. This is what we do, how we have chosen to participate in our friendships.

So when a socially-media savvy mom lost her two-year old son in a swimming pool accident this week, I understood her impulse to tweet about it. I understood why she did it, even in her moment of horror and grief. If it had been me? Yeah. I would have probably done it too. Maybe not mid-event, maybe later, but honestly? I don't know. I hope I never have to find out.

While she was given much immediate support, there were a few who wondered out loud (you know, online) if it was true. Could this death be verified? Of course someone put up a donation page (not the mother of the little boy who died, but an online friend) -- and quickly, since that's pretty easy to do when you're as plugged in as we are -- so a few wondered if we should all wait a bit for verification before donating.

I also understand the impulse to question. We've been taken in -- more than once -- by scammers online. We've given our hearts and our money to people that talked about children who died, when it turned out those children had never existed. We've cried about marriages that have collapsed when the people weren't married, had never been married.

Just last week I was at a party for BlogHer in New York City (yes, thanks to the new job, I'll be traveling a great deal), and I met a PR guy who has been very active in the momosphere. He gained some infamy, in fact, for some dealings he had with mommy bloggers last summer. He told me, blatantly, that he has two -- TWO -- fake mom blogs that he maintains. He told me this like I was going to commend him for shitting where I live, for giving more people fodder to think we're all making this shit up. I asked him why he did it, and he said he "wanted to see how businesses treat mommy bloggers." I rolled my eyes, and let him know that I thought it was pretty crappy.

It's no wonder that people don't believe us. I've had people leave me comments doubting the truthfulness of my story; they say, "Really? You're an alcoholic, and you lost a pregnancy late because of preeclampsia, and you then had a placental abruption, and you went through years of infertility? All of that is true?" Yes, yes, yes -- all true. I'll happily produce all my medical records as soon as I land that elusive book deal. Usually these doubters come around in time, and I can't honestly blame them for wondering.

When this poor young woman's son died this week, it didn't take long for the doubters to clash with the supporters. Wildfires don't just happen in California, folks: they happen on Twitter, nearly every day, and burn hot and bright and furiously. In this particular case, lots of people got really nasty really fast. I'm not going to take sides; I've decided to generally not have an opinion in any online fight anymore. The whole story is rarely known, and usually blame can be generously shared all around.

But I needed to just acknowledge the impulse the woman had to notify everyone about her son in a burst of 140 characters. So many people that don't live in the social media universe don't understand. But I do. I really do.

The ones that don't understand? Well, they don't use social media as a source for community. They use it to promote a business or an organization, or to keep up with pop culture, or to fight off boredom. They might enjoy keeping up with high school friends on Facebook, but they do not understand those of us that constantly air our private lives in a public forum. And I can't possibly expect them to.

But there are some people who don't understand why you would wear white to a funeral, or dance at a wedding, or rend your clothing when a child dies, or whatever kind of culture clash you can imagine -- fill in the blank. And I have to say, judging this mom for her impulse to share her grief in a public way, in the moment of agony, is just as inappropriate as judging any other culture you don't understand.

My heart goes out to @Military_Mom and her family (that's her twitter name). I hope that she finds the comfort and support she needs, wherever she looks for it, in the coming months as she copes with such a devastating loss. And I hope that you will all hold her in your thoughts, and refrain from judgment. Even if it's hard to do. Even if your first impulse is to question it. Hold it in, and just know that it worked for her.

Tori enjoying the light show at Wanamaker's (okay, it's a Macy's now). It's over 50 years old and silly and totally lacking in anything like lasers, and kids love it.

An iPhone sneaked shot of Tori's on Santa's lap.

And the official Santa photo:

For a refresher, our previous experiences with this same Santa:

2. Now that I work for Eden Fantasys, a company that sells sex toys, I am going to have become accustomed to people feeling comfortable discussing their sexual proclivities with me. While I am an incredibly open person, I am finding this adjustment slightly more challenging that I expected.

3. Am I secretly a prude? Damn. Wouldn't that be HILARIOUS.

4. Sarah and I have decided that we are going to do a gift-free Christmas. Except for Tori. Tori will get presents. I feel horrible and sad about that. I like getting presents. But I like giving presents even more.

5. In eleven days, I will have fourteen years sober. DAMN.

6. I didn't properly introduce Cannie Belle, the new dog, to you folks because I didn't want to trick you into liking a dog we weren't going to keep. But we love Cannie, and she's awesome. Here's some great photos Sarah took of her (our SLR camera is broken, most likely beyond repair. *Sobbing*. Most of my recent pictures have been from my iPhone.) Be sure to scroll down to view the silliness that is Cannie's ears. Our house feels full again, although we still miss Hammer deeply.

7. I think we have mice living in our piano. Fuck.

8. Good news! Unlike our lazy cat, Cannie apparently likes to hunt small creatures.

9. Not so good news: that could make hiking off the leash a challenge. Hmmm.

10. Y'all remember when I was writing for Savvy Source? It's always been an awesome site, but they've totally flipped it around and now it's a Social Media site. Like Facebook for Parents. Seriously. Check it out! You can friend me there, and you can follow me there. Best of all? Remember when I asked if you guys all wanted a place where you could post questions and chat and engage with each other? Guess what? You can do that all there! So sign up with Savvy Source, then join my group, and we can talk. My first question (answer there! not here! pretty please?) is how the hell to get Tori to stop being so scared of Santa. I want my idyllic Christmas photo, damn it. And yes, this part of the post is totally a commercial. So? :D

My Darling Tori Anne,

I had to stop writing this post to go help you fall back to sleep. You are in the full on sleep regression, and excellent sources tell me this is totally normal at three and a half. AWESOME. I am now finishing this post the next morning. This is my life with you -- always hopping, and generally interrupted.

Oh my GOD. You are THREE AND A HALF. How did that happen? You just barely turned three the other day! Seriously, I'm going to be totally and completely cliché here, but DAMN. You are growing so fast.

It's been a tough month. Work stress, money stress, your sleep issues -- we've all had a bit of a difficult time. I'm sorry that some of that stress has rubbed off on you. I hate that our frustrations, particularly with money, are becoming evident to you. Yesterday I scared you a bit losing it on the phone with the bank; it's stupid stuff, really, but when you're older and you read this you can imagine how scary it is to have a small child and no access to your money because of the bank's arbitrary hold-your-deposit rules. Oops, this post is supposed to be about happy things. How about this; when I started crying on the phone to the bank, you came over and said, "Mommy, are you sad? Can I give you a kiss and make it better?" You are awesome, kiddo.

During one of the five minutes this last month when we weren't broke, you begged me to buy you a scooter. It was on sale for $20, and even though I couldn't imagine any object you'd be safe riding on that cost that little, we bought it (but the helmet cost a bit more). After much frustration and screaming, we got it put together, and you went for your first ride. You love your princess scooter, although you were surprised that there was no grownup handle for me to push when you had to go uphill, so you often dismount and sit down on the sidewalk and say, "I'm tired. I have to catch my breath."

You got another haircut this month, and after much searching on line to try to find you a hairstyle that would be both cute and stylish yet keep your hair from sticking to your face at each meal creating two sticky and crisp "points" in the front of your hair, I gave up and just gave you the standard toddler girl bob, with a bit of a graduated stack in the back. Next time, we're doing the same thing but shorter. Ironically, the next time is coming up soon because good LORD your hair grows fast. Your bangs are already in your eyes again. Have to trim those before you see Santa this month.

Until this last few days, we've had unseasonably warm weather here in Philadelphia, and you've had a great time playing outside (even if it does get dark basically in the middle of the afternoon). One of the things I love about you the most is that even though you are one of the most girly-girls I know -- you wear dresses most days, and you love all things sparkly and glittering -- when it comes to playing, you are FIERCE. You jumped into the leaf pile with a glee and gusto that matched (and even beat) the boys, even when you got wet leaves on your face and found a worm. You are my tomboy in a skirt.

You and I have had some special times together recently. We've gone swimming a couple of times at a friend's indoor pool club. We went hiking with Sarah. I love getting to spend time with you, particularly outside, because I love to see the delight with which you view the world. You are such an amazing joy.

We also finally found our new dog. Cannon was at our local animal shelter but then was taken into a foster home where she was taught good manners, as well as spent lots of time around small children and cats, so we knew when we brought her home that she was most likely safe. We call her Cannie Belle, because you wanted to name her Belle after the Princess, but I'm beginning to think Cannie Belle might stick in its entirety because it fits her so well. She's a cute little red pit-mix with the silliest ears you ever saw. And most importantly, she LOVES you. She comes when you call, sits when you tell her to, and licks your face clean several times a day. You two are a very cute pair. I'm so happy she's come home to us; I'm a little bit crazy about her too.

You've been doing amazingly well at school; your teachers are deeply impressed at your ability to follow directions, your knowledge of the alphabet, and your verbal abilities. You might end up changing classrooms in January, to be paired with kids your age and some older than you (right now you are with kids your age and younger). You had a brief performance right before Thanksgiving (that's where you were wearing the bowling pin turkey hat you see above), and unlike last year where you got scared and cried, this year you sang your heart out. It was freakishly adorable. You go to school with some cute kids, but you totally kicked all of their asses. And no, I'm not biased in ANY WAY.

You are VERY excited about Christmas. You request Christmas songs at bedtime (The Little Drummer Boy is your favorite), you ask me to tell the story of Jesus' birth at nighttime, and you shriek with joy whenever you see holiday lights on someone's house. Which means a LOT of shrieking in the car when we drive after dark. Last night we visited a local park with a little decorated path with lit trees, and you could not have been happier. We were happy too, because it was free. Free is good.

My darling girl, I am once again struck by the grace, beauty, and awe you bring to my life on a daily basis. You balance it beautifully with stubbornness, infuriating behavior, and lack of sleep, which I suppose is good because if you didn't, all the other parents would hate me for having it so easy. You continue to amaze me each and every day. I love you so much, my darling girl.

Love, Mommy

...

I grew up a poor kid. I know I'm mentioned it a million times, but it's a pretty foundational element of who I am. I've been thinking a lot about the meals I ate as a child; the night we ate zucchini and canned corn; the nights I spent helping my mom pick out small rocks from the cheap pinto beans we bought; the time someone said something nasty to my mom about the beef in our grocery cart (a rare luxury) when they saw we were paying with food stamps.

On our way home from the Type-A Mom conference, we had a bit of a financial issue. We used our bank card to pay for the hotel, and for some reason the hotel messed up and ran our card for about three times what the room cost, leaving us with a whopping $8 to drive home to Philly with. I was on the phone with the bank for about three hours trying to resolve the situation, and at one point was unable to get any help until I absolutely burst into tears and, sobbing, screamed at the customer service person that she was NOT going to make me look into my three year old daughter's eyes and tell her she wasn't going to be able to EAT THAT DAY. I've never been so fucking scared.

My mother spent my entire childhood on that knife's edge. Honestly, I don't know how she did it. She tells me now that when I was Tori's age, we lived on $190 a month. $150 of that was rent. Everything else came out of the remaining $40, and food stamps (thank GOD for food stamps). And this was with her working, as much as she could, as a single mom with a three year old kid (thank GOD for co-op day care, as well).

...

The first year I freelanced, things went really smoothly. I had one primary client, and they paid me about the same as my full-time job. Unfortunately, that full-time job also paid my taxes and my health insurance. But we were still making it with some sacrifices, until the economy collapsed. Even though we never stopped having work (Charlie and I both freelance, of course) we started having a much more difficult time getting our clients to pay on our invoices, and some clients were letting them go unpaid for weeks and even months. Also, slowly but surely, they began chipping away at our rates, demanding we charge slightly less yet do slightly more. This last year, we've had some rough times. These times would then be interrupted by times when we had some money, and we could pay off all our bills and maybe treat ourselves to dinner out. But then, over the last six months, it got worse. Times when we were searching the back of the cupboard for old cans of chili to share for dinner. Then, these last two months, it's been even worse.

A year ago, I'm not sure I would have taken the job with Eden. Now, I am so grateful for it. Not only am I getting to work with some great people, I am also being challenged by my work again (as good as I am at writing SEO copy, I don't find it terribly challenging to write 25 articles about car insurance or 100 articles about the MBA degree; sorry, clients), and I am also being graced with enough of a regular paycheck that I can breathe again. We're paying off back bills. We're sitting down and discussing money as a family (I'd given control of the finances to Charlie years ago because we fought about it, but it's too much of a burden for him to do alone now). We're skimping and planning – once we pay off our late bills – to establish some savings so that I am never sitting in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant screaming into a telephone to a customer service person about not being able to feed my daughter.

Obviously, other than a few days here and there when we were really flat broke (thank GOD for generous friends with a fistful of twenty dollar bills to loan for short periods), we've never been as poor or as desperate as my mother and I were when I was a small child. We've never lost any of our utilities, (not even our cable internet connection), we are not under threat of foreclosure, and yes, I still have a god damned iPhone (it was a gift! I swear!). There are many, many people that are looking down a far more scary and desolate path right now than I am.

But that doesn't mean that it isn't hard, that it doesn't trigger some of my childhood panic, and that I don't hate the fact that still, even now, I am waiting for two freelance payments (one was supposedly "directly deposited" last week, the other was a check that arrived on Saturday and we are now waiting for it to clear). Without those checks clearing, well, it's gonna fucking suck. Until my next regularly scheduled paycheck on Thursday or Friday.

Not to mention the massive and crushing pressure of Christmas impending (Tori keeps demanding to know where our tree is). Gah. I think Tori might be the only one getting gifts this year.

...

Despite all of this, we've tried hard to keep Tori from noticing. Apparently, not as well as we thought, judging from her careful collection of that dirty penny this morning. I don't think it's all bad; I think that perhaps we say yes to her a bit more often than is advisable, and getting in the habit of saying no is probably good for her (and her halfhearted "Aw..." when we say no is actually rather adorable).

It's funny; throughout my childhood I know I got plenty of gifts. But the one year I remember most is when I got only two things: a gallon of whole milk (normally we drank re-mixed powdered milk, so a jug of regular old milk was a rare treat) and a bottle of strawberry shampoo.

I can still smell that shampoo. I fucking loved it.

I think Tori is going to be okay. In fact, I think our whole family will be.

Whatever your situation is this year at the holidays, I hope you have what you need, and plenty of love besides. I wish you peace. And if you want one, I really hope someone gives you a fucking iPhone. :)

When the movie came out in 1985, I saw it in the theater nine times. Not because I loved the movie (although I do love it); I saw it because it got me through a tough time. I've written here before about my personal experience with sexual assault, and how attending the movie of The Color Purple over and over again gave me the courage to get through the court process of the charges against my assaulter; each time I had to meet with a lawyer or go to court I'd see the movie first.

Ten years later, my life was completely different. I was newly sober, a writer, living with the man who would become my husband. I was reading books by the dozens, and somehow I ended up with a copy of Push by Sapphire. I was already familiar with Sapphire's poetry, and when many people compared her first novel to The Color Purple (not always favorably; there was a lot of backlash against it, claiming it mimicked Alice Walker's book), I knew I had to read it.

It is an amazing book. Wrenching, agonizing, and terrible but is also such an intense story of redemption and healing that you cannot beat it. When I heard a year or so ago that the novel was finally being made into a movie, I nearly wrote it off. But then I heard that Lee Daniels was involved, the power behind the movies Monster's Ball and The Woodsman, and suddenly I was intrigued. Over the last few weeks as the movie prepared to (and finally did) open, everything I heard about the movie was good.

On Saturday night, Charlie and I finally got to see it. I feel grateful that I'd read the book; I knew what to suspect. I don't think everyone in that completely packed theater did; at least one person brought a small child (gah). Most people there knew that Oprah and Tyler Perry had thrown their considerable powers behind it, and I think some people thought it would be similar to the Tyler Perry movies.

They were surprised, but they all stayed. They all gasped with horror, laughed, cried, and celebrated just like I did.

Go see the movie. No, really, go see it. The performances in it... God. They will blow you away. Gauborey "Gabby" Sidibe infuses Precious with such a spirit; oh my God. You will be knocked over by her. Mariah Carey -- yes, really -- is so unrecognizable as Precious' social worker that I had to talk Charlie into believing it was her.

But Mo'Nique.

Give her an Oscar. Screw the voting. Seriously, SCREW THE VOTING. Just give it to her. She plays Precious' mother, and her abuser. You will hate her, with the hot fire of 1000 suns, for much of the movie. But in her last scene she is so raw, and so vulnerable, and so god damned broken, that your heart will break for her.

Give her an Oscar.

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SPOILER ALERT. (But not really if you've read the book, or know anything about the movie.)

Why am I mentioning this movie in relation to World AIDS Day? In the movie, just as Precious is pulling her life together, she finds out that she is HIV positive. Unlike today (in the United States, anyway), during the time of the movie (it is set in 1987), HIV and AIDS were a near immediate death sentence. I was working at an animal hospital in the Gayborhood here in Philadelphia in the late 80s, and one of our jobs was to find homes for all the homeless pets of AIDS victims. Back then, there were six short months between diagnosis and the funeral, and everyone died. Or at least it seemed that way.

I've written about my own near-miss with AIDS, and today Eden Cafe, the blog for my new place of employment (sex toys featured in that link, folks, get used to it), they reprinted that post. Eden is doing some really cool stuff for World AIDS Day, which makes me even more excited about my job.

During the time you read this post, three more people were diagnosed with HIV or AIDS, just here in the United States. Wait, now it's four. AIDS had not gone away, and people are dying, even if many survive, like my friend Michael who has been living HIV positive for over 20 years now.

Find out more, and how you can help. I'm going to try. How about you?

*Yes, I work for Eden Fantasys as a consultant. No, I was not paid for this post. In case the FTC cares.

It's not shocking I'd dream about snakes. I lived in New Mexico, and we had snakes. And lizards. And bears. And mountain lions. Lots of things to be scared of. But snakes, especially. In girl scout camp, we were warned to check our sleeping bags for snakes when camping (in New Mexico, thanks to the lack of rain, we generally slept sans tents while camping). I knew snakes were scary. I also had a simple solution; in my dream, I simply got on the table and stood above the river of snakes. Easy.

Charlie isn't so lucky. His dream life is vivid. His run-of-the-mill nightmares are far worse than my worst ones. It's hard for him, and it interrupts his sleep routinely.

Sadly, it appears that Tori has inherited Charlie's dreaming capacity. There is much about this that is good; Charlie is one of the most creative people I know, with a massive capacity for love and a generous heart, and I believe the fact that his big brain doesn't quit even when he sleeps is a sign of his brilliance. So I think it bears well for Tori, overall.

Tonight when he was putting her to bed, she stopped him mid-lullaby and said, "Daddy, I have to talk to you." Charlie waited, and she said, "I was lost, and I had to call the police. I was in trouble in the car, and I couldn't find you and I had to call the police." Charlie said, "Did the police come?" She said, "Yes, the policeman came and he had a mustache and a little beard like you...[and segway...] I don't have a beard." Charlie said "Did he help?" She said, "Yes, he took me home, but no one was there. I couldn't find you or Mommy anywhere." Charlie said, "Honey, was it a dream?" She paused and said "Yes. It's a very sad dream."

Sigh. Poor bunny.

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I can't believe it was so easy. Seriously, how did I not know? The solution to the morning routine is this:

Skittles.

Tori loves Skittles. I came back from seeing Precious on Saturday night (oh my GOD, go see it, my review is coming), and had most of my bag of Skittles left. I spotted them on the kitchen counter as we were headed upstairs to get dressed for church Sunday morning, and I had a sudden stroke of brilliance: I announced to Tori that she would get ONE SKITTLE for each successfully completed task; one for brushing her teeth (shut up, I KNOW candy after teeth brushing, hey, it's not like she's not getting new teeth in a few years -- JOKING, JOKING), one for hair brushing, one for using the potty, one for washing her hands, one for washing her face, and one for getting dressed without delay.

Dudes, for the price of SIX -- count 'em, SIX -- Skittles, we have a peaceful morning. Just like that.

Bribery: the American way.

:)