There’s a common tactic that gets used against me a lot: random harassers sign me up for magazines. I’ve been signed up for gay magazines, motorcycle magazines, chicken farmer magazines…all kinds of stuff with the intent of causing me trouble.

The latest slimy move — and it coincides with Reap Paden’s angry spammy comment sprees, just sayin’ — is to sign me up for test drives at local car dealerships. And then I get a cheerful call from some sales person who, in good faith, thinks I’m in the market for a Chevy Tahoe or a Honda Civic or something, and we then have a friendly conversation in which I say they’ve been hoaxed, I’m sorry but I’m not buying a car right now, but I will keep them in mind for the future, and they apologize, and I say, “oh, no, I apologize for the trouble”, and we have a little friendly back and forth, and then we’re done.

It’s absolutely no trouble for me — I have a brief, pleasant, and entirely amicable conversation. But you know what? This game you’re playing is wasting innocent people’s time and money. In your pathetic attempt to lash out at me, you are failing completely…but you are succeeding in using otherwise uninvolved bystanders as your pawns, and costing them some effort. Effort you won’t make yourself because you’re a coward and would rather hide behind some hardworking guy at the local dealership or some clerk at a publishing house.

That makes you an asshole. Knock it off. You want to harass me? Do it to my face, don’t hide, and don’t involve others to do your dirty work for you.

Fucking scumbag cowards. All you’ve succeeded in doing is to continually increase my contempt for you. Good job.

How about tomorrow, at 6pm Central time?

This has been a nasty week for me — my ankle is a nest of flaming knives, which means I haven’t been getting a heck of a lot of sleep. Then on top of that, this morning my nose started bleeding — I’ll spare you the details, but I was browsing the web on my iPad this morning and marveling at this incredibly brilliant, detailed, glistening blood spatter effect appearing on a website before I realized it was me, drenching everything in my lap. Almost two years on blood thinners means that when the geyser blows, it’s a bad one. I’m afraid I’d be going on camera with yet another toilet paper plug in one nostril that would steadily turn crimson over the hour, and really, that’s not a good look for me.

(Yes, I did see a doctor about this a short while ago. It’s become a recurring phenomenon lately. I thought they were going to tell me to count my blessings, I was getting leechings every day for free.)

Now pardon me, I have to go stare at the ceilings some more and pack more wadding up my face while cussing as I hobble about the blood-flecked bathroom. It’s been one of those fun days.

Well, it’s time for my usual wild night of partying…oh, wait. I never do that.

My wife is out at a neighbor’s party, while I’m sitting at home, nursing a painful tendinitis flare-up, and drinking…tea. Sorry, image. I’ll probably just read for a while, and if I’m feeling rambunctious, I might have a wee glass of wine before bed. Or maybe not.

I really can’t get overly excited about rolling over a calendar.

So, what are you fashionable and exciting people doing tonight?

Well, actually, it is getting rather gray. But I was just out on my daily walk on this very cold Minnesota day, and in addition the the usual coating of rime that accumulates on my face, I took off one of my gloves for just a minute to snap this picture.

Really, it was just a quick exposure of bare skin to the cold…and my hand is still burning. Ouch. I think the swiftness of the transition contributed, but you know what? Cold weather can be really dangerous.

You can die.

I’m warming up in the coffeeshop for a bit, and then I’m bundling up again and heading out. Don’t worry, it’s broad daylight, along well-trafficked roads, and it’s a short hike, but still — y’all be careful out there.

We’ll soon be sitting down to a vegetarian Mediterranean style Christmas dinner at my daughter’s house, but before that, my son Connlann had to revive an old family tradition: he insisted on fixing lutefisk for an appetizer. So he bought some, did the usual salt extraction and soak, and baked it for a half hour (my mother assured me that it is much, much worse boiled — I remember the grey translucent goo from childhood Christmases). In case you’ve never seen it, here’s a platter of the stuff, drenched in melted butter and with some interesting lighting that gives it an appropriate eldritch glow.

Would you eat that? Connlann dug in enthusiastically. He actually seemed to like the stuff.

Skatje tried a tiny little sliver of it, aided by tissue paper noseplugs — really, this stuff reeks. She didn’t die! But I don’t think she’ll ever eat it again.

By the way, that’s Alaric smirking in the background. He’d already had a couple of bites, and was only there to crack a Nightstalker stout to wash the taste out of his mouth. I ate a goodly chunk of the palely pellucid processed piscine gelatin…it went down smoothly enough, like boneless slime — but I also welcomed the stout afterwards to thoroughly cleanse the palate.

The downside now, unfortunately, is that Santa will take one whiff of this place and turn around and flee.

It was a hellishly busy semester, and wouldn’t you know that the grading would also be hellish? One more day, I think, and I’ll have all this done. I’m about to stroll down to the coffeeshop and surround myself with papers and red pens again, but I think this should wrap it up. Bear with me a little longer.

In case the trolls are thinking to exploit my absence, the monitors have been doing a good job, and all they need to do is send me an alert and my iPad goes “boing!”, and once I peel my eyes away from the papers I take care of it.

The last student has turned in the last final exam of this semester! I’m done!

Wait, what’s this?

A pile of papers?

I have over a hundred exams and term papers to grade now.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

NO NO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

NOOOOOOOOO! NOOOOOOOO! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!

<curls into fetal position, sobs pathetically>