One says she's a friend of mine.

Well, January has come and gone (almost), and my resolution to blahhhhg more has been, well, Not Followed.

I am not completely to blame. I had jury duty last week, and planned to catch up a little bit. Alas, for some reason, the Wi-Fi in the jury assembly room blocked access to Blogger. I guess that The Man didn't want me to reveal any jury secrets. Of course, I had no secrets, other than the fact that I sat in said room for two days without ever even being called out to be screened as a potential juror. Whatever.

Anyway, on to substance. After taking the time for a hundred visions and revisions, I dared to disturb the universe, and sent an email to The Punk Rock Girl. She responded, apparently Not Creeped Out by my message from out of the blue. We emailed back and forth a couple of times, catching each other up a little bit over what happened in the last [mumble-mumble] years. We even exchanged photos at her suggestion (since I am not on myspace or whatever).

All good. And it looks like we will maybe get together to catch up in person. But, as you all know, I am a man who is always puzzled by the mysteries of interpersonal dynamics and the whole boy girl back and forth. And something struck me about the back and forth, and I just had all of these questions about text, subtext, etc. In short, I needed advice and translation, and naturally reached out to one of my Imaginary Friends, who is an expert, in my opinion, on the ways in which XX and XY talk. And, naturally, she came through with some pearls of wisdom.

Quick aside -- I have, as I may have mentioned before, a whole host of Imaginary Friends. Most of them are women. They range in age from more than a few years younger than me to slightly older than me, and are in located in places far and wide. I really ought to explore this phenomenon at some point -- the fact that there is this network of intelligent, amusing, and insightful women with whom I maintain a series of almost entirely electronic and mostly platonic relationships.

Anyway, my "things that make you go 'hmmm' " thought about the PRG's email and photograph exchange was reinforced by the Imaginary Friend. Which on the one hand is a good thing because, hey, it's always nice to be told that your impression was Not Stupid. But on the other hand, when one's insight is confirmed, it doesn't really answer the question of what to do, no?

Stay tuned.

The Rangers had a homecoming in Harlem late last night.

Thank you Versus, for showing me the Rangers game tonight. Thank you, Rangers, for not blowing a 2-0 lead late in the 3rd period. And by "thanks for not blowing" it, I mean, thanks for managing to win the game. even after you allow Boston to tie it with around three minutes left.

Oy.

We'll just glide, starry eyed.

Advantages of flying JetBlue -- nice seats, the satellite radio and/or Direct TV, a lee-tle more leg room.

Advantages of flying Delta -- Woodford Reserve.

Verdict? Push.

Ah, well, my friends. Back to the salt mines tomorrow.

I looked once, then turned away. When I looked again, it was much too late.

Moral: if you go to a holiday party with your wife, do not hit on the hot vegan friend of the host. Even if you think that she is gay, based upon a comment made by your gay host and his partner, and that therefore any hitting is simply rhetorical (so to speak). Even if you think that you will be subtle in your game. You will be Not Subtle. Your wife will be Not Amused. You should, however, Not Admit that you were, in fact, doing any hitting. There is no upside there, of course.

And as it turns out, she was not gay (NTTAWWT). And apparently semi-famous, as a Google search revealed, and married to someone more semi-famous than her.

She was totally Not My Type, by the way, despite the hotness. She's vegan, for one. And with a semi-granola, hash soy brownie kind of vibe. But there was totally a spark there, as the missus noted when she threw a Hummel Madonna figurine at me at the next holiday party.

Denial, baby, denial. Even as you imgine how that yoga-toned body would feel.

What's so amazing about really deep thoughts?

I know that I have plugged my friends (of the one-sided Imaginary variety) at The Awl a couple of times here already, but if you do nothing else that I tell you to do, you *must* go read their series on The End Of The 00's. Each written by a different author, they are all funny or sad or angry or heartbreaking or some combination thereof.

It's a depressing series, too, because I, like everyone else, have been pondering The Meaning of My Life and other such nonsense as we approach the end of the decade (bite it, nit-picking calendar pendants), and have been considering a blahhhhhg post on how happy I am that the Aughts are passing. Then I read an Awl post, and --- well, what do I have to say and how well can I say it, compared to, say, Natasha Vargas-Cooper?

At any rate, check it out. And I probably will still pen something in celebration of the new decade, and to say good riddance to the old.

You can go sleep at home tonight if you can get up and walk away.

Query: What does one do when one receives a text message from a phone number that looks vaguely familiar, yet one has no idea who the sender is?

Yesterday I received a slightly mocking text (regarding the football team I root for) from a Mysterious Person With A Vaguely Familiar Number. This is the second such text I've received from this dude/ette this season. I replied to the first one, saying something like "that's not a very nice thing to say," hoping that the response would give me some sort of clue to the sender's identity. Instead, s/he just said "it was a very appropriate thing to say."

What to do? Send a "who the fuck are you?" response (too bad I couldn't send a clip of Roger singing it)? Ignore it? Send a subpoena to Verizon?

They said there'd be peace on earth.

Thinking about The Punk Rock Girl reminded me that I love me The Waitresses, so "Christmas Wrapping" is on heavy rotation in the holiday mix playlist of Jackson's iPod this year. (Sadly, I couldn't find a version with the band itself on YouTube, and found this one with flashing lights to be the least offensive. To mollify my inner teenager, here's their video of "I Know What Boys Like".)

And, since 2009 has been kind of a crappy year, listening to Dolly Parton's "Hard Candy Christmas" seems to be appropriate.

What songs are you listening to this holiday season?