Holiday Lessons

I learned a lot yesterday on Christmas. The only lesson I feel comfortable sharing right now is that commercials really work, especially on my sister. As I type this, I'm wearing one of my (favorite) gifts from her: a hot pink Snuggie. She also bought a Bump-It for her best friend and a Pedi Paws for our family cat - the poor thing has already lost two nails as a result.

Related: If I can fit into the child-sized version of a Snuggie, does that mean I don't have to diet or train for that half-marathon I signed up for?

Moving Day

When I moved back to New York from Los Angeles in 2007, I decided to drive my car east. It was my boyfriend at the time's idea, so we could drive to see his family in Queens and drive to see my relatives in Northern Massachusetts. Well, we broke up two years ago, but I've still held onto that car. I'd like to get rid of it, but until then, I'll use it for the powers of good including: Target, the beach, visiting relatives and helping friends move.
A few weeks ago, I drove into the Lower East Side to help a friend move to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I hate driving in Manhattan. As a pretty nervous person to begin with, it really stresses me out. But, my friend promised me a burger and sweet potato fries, so I overcame.
The friend I helped move was someone I used to work with at my first job out of college. I love her because she has this amazing life outside of work, which seems to be rare in the corporate world. This "amazing life outside of work" includes writing musicals, painting and even reviewing sex toys for a Web site.
When I got to her apartment, I amazingly found a parking space and went upstairs to help her grab some stuff. I went for this large black Tupperware because I figured I could pile stuff on top and minimize the number of trips. As soon as I grabbed it, she said, "Careful, that's filled with sex toys." I'm not entirely prude, but I do get teased quite a bit for not wanting to talk about sex very much. It was a little awkward.
It got even more awkward when I grabbed some steel bars and heard, "Oh, that's my sex swing." Even more awkward still, when grabbing a pole with the top half covered in a black trash bag and feeling something squishy at the covered end. What could that be? A pogo dick.
That sent me a little over the edge because I had been trying to manipulate the "object" to get it to fit into my car. I didn't realize the object was a rubber penis.
I don't know if I'll ever have a more unique moving experience, or a more delicious burger that I know I earned.

Gadgets That Have Changed My Life

In order of appearance, here are a few gadgets that have changed my life:

1. The Barbie Dream House: For so long I'd been playing with The Heart Family dolls, the least popular, now discontinued, toy for young girls and confused boys. The Heart Family was designed to teach kids the importance of family and the answer to why Barbie can't have kids: because she's not married. You can't have kids outside of marriage, you know? One Christmas, my younger sister got the Dream House, complete with elevator, squealing tea kettle and "working" faucet. My dad set it up in our garage; we played for hours, inhaling gas fumes all the while.

2. Talkboy: Again, a gift for my sister that changed my life. It was mostly for my love of Home Alone 2, although I recorded myself singing a song about "losing my shoe" that my sister later discovered on the tape. She said, "That's really good! I don't remember singing that, but I sound good!" With arms crossed, I smiled smugly whilst dreaming of my recording contract with Frankie Sharp of Sharp Records.

Fast forward many years, ok maybe 1 or 2 ...

3. iPod and all its various accoutrement: This may seem obvious, but for many years I had a Dell DJ - again, the less popular of what was available. I got it for Christmas because my mom saw it was one of Oprah's Favorite Things, which I'm very grateful for, but it became unusable when I bought my beautiful Mac computer. Dell didn't make software to upload songs from a Mac (and their customer service rep basically said, "duh" when I asked if they did), so I had to make the switch last year. Now, I listen to it all day at work, I have a speaker dock for my room, one of those obnoxious arm bands for outdoor runs and a chord in my car.

4. Bluetooth Headsets: It's only changed my life in that now I know what unbridled hatred for an inanimate object feels like.

And, finally, the newest addition to gadgets which have changed my life. This little guy:

5. An (illegal at work) space heater for my office: My friend - some may say best, now - is loaning it to me until her side of the office feels like the tundra mine does. I can't even tell you how warm my legs are right now.