Mom's health aide arrived 20 minutes late. “Are you OK?” I asked. “I feel like I might be coming down with something,” she said, “but I hate calling in.” I sent her home. Now, my house is cleaner than it would have been if she'd been here for 5 hours, so I'll take that.

I'm having coffee tomorrow morning with the woman who spearheaded Cleveland's Parkinson's Disease fundraiser, and I'm really looking forward to it.

I may also be within three steps of getting Ohio plates on my car, but I don't want to jinx it by saying anything.

Finally got my Lohan cover-issue of Playboy and I've got to give it to Lindsay, her boobs totally point in the same direction. Too bad her eyes don't.

Sorry for the bummer post left below for the holiday season. That was the day that I took my three-month fitness evaluation and learned that after attending the gym 40 times from Sept. 11 to Dec. 8th, I was actually two-percent fatter. I am the only person I know who goes to the gym “like a machine” (other people's words, not mine) and gets fatter for the effort. For real. I can run three miles in 36:30 and five miles in less time than it used to take me to run four, and I'm fatter.

All-in-all I guess things are going OK, with just enough annoyances to keep me from becoming too proud of myself. The Master Theorem is going on hiatus and I'm bummed, bummed, bummed, as it was a once-a-week assurance that I would use my brain for something. There's something very… turgid about answering The World's Most Obvious Questions day after day, hour after hour, sometimes minute after minute (BK's a repeat-requester, the one who asks me to do something while I'm doing that very something). I sent M, TMT's master of the game, a pathetic thank-you note that he probably found hilarious, because more and more I'm learning how funny my pathos is to other people, and as I believe that comedy exists to help to alleviate our –inherently human– fear of death, there's something rather apropos about the whole thing.

The good news is that even though we weren't there for Christmas Eve or Christmas morning, we have found a church, and the people are friendly and welcoming and we're enjoying the effort we put in. So far I've made salad and garlic bread for our shelter-ees one night and also brought a plate of our homemade cookies for their finger-food festival fellowship hour (that feels like it should be in capitals but I'm not going to change it). As I handed over the cookies the lady accepting them said, “Lynn, you get to take a bye for a week,” inferring an as-needed basis. Nice.

For those seeking closure on a few things I've written about:

1) “Hey Lynn, what happened with the guy who gave you your first kiss and then went on to commit your hometown's first murder in nearly 20 years?” [Ed. note: tragic photo accompanies article and the whole story's' a total bummer, which contributed to my downwardness before Christmas.]

2) “Played any ukulele lately?” (yeah, and the picture makes me look like a chinny dork, but also captions me with the wrong name, so it's fine.) My book is on the right.

Anyway, it's nearly the new year, and it's time for new heights and new goals and new things that not only let-but-encourage me to use my brain. Coming soon!

Some days are for running hard at the gym; other days are for crying in the changing room. Today was the latter.

Sorry for the lack of a birthday post prior to this. It was indeed an incredible day. Monstro bought me a spectacular piece of jewelry, I had two tequila shots at our family's Mexican lunch (one was free and came with a song and a sombrero. Olé!), and then Monstro, the boys, MFM (My Favorite Mother for those of you keeping track) and I went to the opening-day premiere of “The Muppets.” Words cannot express how much of an impact the Muppets had on my formative years, so for their new movie to premiere on my 40th birthday was kismet. After the movie we went home and then once the sitters arrived, Monstro took me to dinner at our new favorite restaurant, where the owner gave me the sweet-potato-pecan pie he was going to have on his Thanksgiving (he let me share it with every patron in the restaurant), and then we went to an Irish pub with a kickin' band (for old guys) and our next-door neighbors showed up and they played One Bourbon, One Shot, and One Beer, which made me curse Alex a little for being such an asshole and killing himself, and then we went home, and in the morning Monstro and I had furtive “don't let anyone know we're already awake” sex. Which, besides camping sex, is about my favorite kind of sex.

All in all, a spectacular ringing in of this new decade. Holla!