dear brad santa jolie-claus,

this year i have been perfectly decent. i have avoided direct conflict and managed to pretty convincingly hide my honest emotions. most importantly, i voted for obama. in light of my 'good' status, i would like to make a couple of requests re: christmas presents.

first, it seems i will be spending the holiday in texas. please don't hold that against me, brad santa jolie-claus. it isn't my fault that there exist people in this world who seem to think that 'houston has a lot to offer.' houston has an ikea and while i adore the smart scandanavian stylings, one ikea does not forgive an entire state. especially when that state is large and called 'texas.' anyway, i'll be texas this christmas so please make a special trip by to deliver my goods and services - i know it isn't one of your usual stops. now for my list:

1. i would like a package of kraft handi snacks pudding, chocolate-vanilla sundae flavor only i don't want the chocolate on top like it usually comes, i want the vanilla on top and the chocolate on bottom.

2. go go gadget arms or legs or both.

3. hugh laurie but only american accent hugh laurie.

4. i would like all of the time i've pissed away on facebook back.

5. an illustrator. i've got great ideas up thar in ma noggin but damned if i'm not woefully incapable of expressing myself and/or lazy. i would like a full-time, permanent live-in illustrator who i could nudge in the middle of the night and say 'monkeys in cadillacs' and BAMMO that shit would HAPPEN.

6. a pip. there's a reason that movies have soundtracks - i would like my life to have one, too and it is high time gladys shared the pip love, don't you think?

7. i would really enjoy about a hundred of those green plastic army men. i've got a plan.

8. a pony.

9. robert preston, a bottle of tequila, 6 8-track cassettes, and a pistol.

that's all, brad santa jolie-claus. i don't feel like i'm asking for too much here. of course, i'd give it all away for one chance encounter with santa's 8 tiny jolie-pitt reindeer.

happy the ho ho.

just because i haven't blogged in a while doesn't mean i've stopped my never-ending search for the jolie-pitts. i have, in fact, been looking in new and exciting places - denver! you know what's in denver? a sheraton. after five days in the mile-high city i can safely say that i know that sheraton like the back of my hand. i can also safely say that the jolie-pitts were not present at the sheraton.

not in my room enjoying a complimentary sierra mist.
not in the hotel bar with 6 dollar pitchers of guiness.
not in the lobby with the world's largest and most inefficient fireplace.
not in the ballroom with the eastern european catering staff who shout at you if you try to get two glasses of water instead of just the usual one because no one ever bothers to come refill your water glass.
not in line at the buffet where, inexplicably, there is always tofu.

maybe they were back in new orleans, enjoying the snow that i missed while i was at the non-snowing denver sheraton hotel and making perfect little jolie-pitt snow angels.

when work ends

1710h/ pj's coffee & tea co.

so i'm unemployed. there. i said it. i didn't get fired in one of those catharsis-making scenes where you throw your rolodex and desk chachki in a swiped box and slam the office door screaming that all these suits will rue the day they lost you because they don't give a damn about genius or loyalty now but one day, in what i'm guessing will be the result of a near-death experience, they will realize they've just been serving The The Mighty Dollar. i don't get to hate anybody or feel self righteous about not selling out or lowering my supposed "standards". basically i started a project and we ran out of money for luxuries like salaries.

you can sugar coat it if you want, but the best you'll come up with is sour patch kids.

unemployment leads to many life changes, i find, not least among them lack of work. the corollary to this life change is a noticeable lack of things to do. i've chosen, primarily, to fill these huge expanses of time with reading while being seated. i've taken my reading roadshow to several local places including my sofa, my bed, certain purveyors of adult beverages, and the afforementioned pj's coffee & tea company - my favorite due to its soft chairs, relative lack of people begging for bus fare, and willingness to let me read while being seated much longer than my $3 iced coffee should reasonably entitle me to.

i've been here for a few hours today and will probably read while being seated for a few more unless the sacred heart girls stage a coup against the mcghee girls for control of study space.

oh, i almost forgot to mention my most notable (a relative term) reading-while-being-seated experience of the day, which took place not at pj's but at wrbh radio, where i read aloud while being seated once a week. today i read an hour worth of articles from people magazine. i can report that stephanie from full house is getting divorced and not, repeat not, taking methamphetamine. no mention of the jolie-pitts.

this evening i watched what is, hands down, the most disturbing movie ever written. the wizard of oz.

the movie begins with one broad killing another broad and then a third broad in a spangly gown tricks the murdering broad into stealing the dead broad's shoes. next thing you know a whole village of badly dubbed midgets are singing a joyous ditty about being dead. wtf?!? i tend to keep a running narrative of television for the sake of the wee one but i found myself saying things like: 'oh! there's glenda the good witch! she's telling dorothy about...eh...the, uh, other...under the...oh! the munchkins! they're cheering because dorothy kill...i mean...dropped...uh...maybe barney is on.'

the whole cinematic experience is just wrong wrong wrong. at the end, turns out spangly dress broad was just KIDDING about the wizard and the shoes and the near-death and monkeys trying to eat everyone's eyeballs and, turns out, was just looking for dot to come to some sort of pathetic realization that her depressing orphan life in kansas is SO MUCH BETTER than the fancy color-changing horses and cobblestone streets and wanton homicide.

worst part? the whole time i was sitting in my living room watching this crap i did not - not even once - run into a jolie-pitt. the guy at blockbuster lied.

this afternoon i was terribly excited to learn of the existence of a cuco's mexican restaurant in the city of new orleans as i previously assumed that they were all closed. we packed up the kids and drove out, the whole way explaining to beatrice that we were going to lunch! with chips! and crayons! she was quite looking forward to the event, which was nice because she woke up this morning insisting that we go visit the 'moose' again (reindeer).

so in we go to cuco's only to be told that they had no crayons. i asked the friendly hostess if she had a spare pen or pencil since i'd talked up the fact that the kid was going to color and was told that 'it is cuco's policy to NOT distribute pens/pencils/crayons to children anymore. they mark up the walls.'

what?!? this is NOT a fancy restaurant. this restaurant makes applebees look 4 star. the walls - those precious precious not-to-marked-upon structures - are oddly painted stucco with bits of old lettuce stuck to 'em. the whole place smells like pee but damned if they don't make a happy mexican meal. so what with the no crayon policy? and why on earth do they continue to provide paper kids menus with activities like 'help mr. taco shell find his missing guacamole' maze? how are kids supposed to help mr. taco? how?!? i promptly found a pencil in the car and invited bea to scribble obscenities on the wall. sadly, she doesn't know how to spell. also sadly, she is only 3 and therefore woefully incapable of helping mr. taco.

this evening i offer a stern warning to the owners of cuco's - the jolie-pitts have lots of kids and i bet all 67 of 'em like to color. you will NEVER EVER GET A JOLIE-PITT in your restaurant until your repeal your nazi stance on crayons.

this evening the family went down to the 'miracle on fulton street' where everything was a little frightening. there was an 8 foot man dressed as a candy cane; a woman dressed entirely is tulle and candy; and what can only be described as Giant Evil Santa Who is Probably Going to Eat You.

thankfully, bea and maggie escaped the clutches of Giant Evil Santa but i fear the jolie-pitts did not fare so well - they were conspicuously absent from fulton street this evening.

a cold and rainy day here in the big easy which, i discovered, is anything but.

this afternoon i was tasked with finding out a simple bit of information - how many residential units surround my office. easy, eh? take a moment and try to think of all the reasons this sort of information would be useful and now take 10 years to find it. it doesn't exist. this, my friends, is a lovely indication of the problems in this city. no one person or organization or deity knows everything. 10,000 people have 10,000 separate pieces of information and not one of 'em talks to another. i had to piece together my answer from about 6 different sources. i had to TALK to people. i DON'T LIKE people. sigh.

not one to bitch and moan without offering a solution, i propose that we all get together and rent a double somewhere in the city. once a week all the good meaning folk working to 'fix' new orleans should stop by and write what they learned on a piece of paper and tape it to the wall. thankfully, i have 28 notepads to dedicate to the cause. we can call it the post-it note house and anytime you have a seemingly simple question, you can just go check the south wall of the bathroom for your answer.

and to bring it back around - you know who is currently building houses perfect for my post-it project? brad pitt.

this morning i arrived at my office to find 28 notepads in a battered envelope on my desk. there is no note, no indication of where they came from...just 28 notepads shoved in an envelope and mailed to me.

i'm pretty sure, though, that the notepads did not come from the jolie-pitts.

another day, another jolie-pitt sighting in the city of new orleans.

i don't know where they were or when they were there but according to my trusted celebrity gossip webpages, the first family of the lower 9th ward were attending a movie premier here in the crescent city.

why wasn't i informed? sure, i know i don't follow local 'film' news or read the times picayune...or gambit...or really any book with words...wait, that's not true. once a week i read for the blind on the radio. wait, that's not true. i read in a soundproof room into a microphone that gets recorded and then transmitted via the magic of fm radio to blind people across the world who, i am sure, are really pissed off by the fact that today i inadvertently renamed the ' md anderson cancer center' the 'md anderson cooper.'

anderson cooper was in new orleans following katrina. you know who else was in new orleans following hurricane katrina? the jolie-pitts.