Things I'm Considering to Keep Off Holiday Weight:

- Walking past a gym twice a week
- Bringing a healthy brown-bag meal to family dinners
- Hanging around with Jack Lalanne
- Cutting back my servings of mashed potatoes from five to four
- Switching to diet eggnog
- Not going crazy on the marshmallow Snowman Peeps this year

It's nine at night and I'm at the gym, trying to justify having pizza and a gin and tonic at four in the afternoon.

I get onto an elliptical machine and put on my headphones. Dancing with the Stars isn't holding my attention on the screen in front of me and I start looking around. The girl on the machine next to me looks familiar, but I try to avoiding staring and seeming like some sort of creep. I glance over at her a few more times and when I'm finally sure I know who she is I get her attention.

"Is your name Megan?" I ask. She says that it is. We went to high school together.

We both exclaim (several times) how weird this is, and then trade facts about our lives. "I actually work at Playboy," she says. There's a pause. "Not as a model," she adds, laughing. I fight the urge to roll my eyes. Her delivery sounds rehearsed, and I imagine how many times she's been out at a bar and used that joke on whatever guy she's flirting with.

"Do you like this gym?" she asks. I tell her that it's a little too cruisey for me. She looks at me confused. "I get cruised a lot here," I say, enunciating. "Perused?" she asks. It dawns on me that I'm going to have to explain to her what cruising is.

"No, cruise. It's slang for when one gay man checks out another gay man." She nods, and I can practically see a light go off inside her head. I clarify: "Not that I'm gay," and as soon as the words and tone come out of my mouth I realize that I sound like a gay man who isn't yet comfortable coming out of the closet. She nods and smiles politely at me. I realize that denying it more it just going to look worse, and I sigh inwardly.

I knew there was a reason I avoided the gym.

A transcript from the Charlie Rose interview with Scooby Doo, which never actually occurred, but I like to pretend it did.

Rose: Welcome to the broadcast. Tonight a conversation with Scooby Doo, a dog who, some can argue, changed the face of Saturday morning television.
(roll clip from Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! wherein Scooby Doo and Shaggy are being chased by a large zombie)
Rose: Scooby Doo for the hour. Coming up.
(roll message from sponsors and Charlie Rose intro clip)
(if it helps you can also just play the Charlie Rose theme song)

Rose: Scooby Doo is here. For years he's been known as the mystery solving dog. Now, he has a new memoir out, as well as a new show. I am pleased to have him back at this table. Wecome.
Doo: Ranks ror ravving re.
Rose: Now Scooby, when you first began your program back in 1969, did you have any idea of the cultural impact you were going to have?
Doo: Rell Rarlie, roo ran rever row rhen...rhen rometing rike rhis ris roring roo rake roff.
Rose: True enough. But really, at that point Hannah-Barbera had only had success with more action based, some might say violent - though not by todays standards - cartoons. Among them, Jonny Quest, Space Ghost, and The Herculoids. Did you get the sense that the public wanted something...a bit lighter? A bit sillier?
Doo: Rats ra rood ruestion. (thoughtful pause) Rou row, reries rorelopment roesn't rearry run rof ry rarias rof rexpertise.
Rose: (laughter)
Doo: Raybe row rit ris. Rut rack rhen, rit really rus rust...rust ran racting rob rore re.
Rose: And you feel that that has changed over the years?
Doo: Rell roo ran't row ron raying ra rareactor ror ris rong ran rot rake rit...rersonal.

Visit charlierose.com for full transcripts. ...Again, if this interview had ever actually occurred. Which it hasn't.

So the blog and I have been going through some issues.

You see, after more than six years of being together, well...the thrill is gone.

We tried going to couples counseling. The blog refused to open up.

We tried using costumes and roll playing to spice things up. The blog was a spoiled candy bar heiress, and I was the Portuguese pool boy who spoke no English, but loved the nougatty goodness that she provided. Until one day we couldn't hold back our passion anymore and I took her into the room where they whip the caramel and we blogged passionately.

"How was it for you?" I asked after I had written the blog on November 15th. "500 Internal Server Error," she replied.

That was the last straw. So we decided to call it quits.

We went out separate ways. The blog spent some time at it's parents. But we both did some thinking. And now we think we want to give it another shot.

We're on shaky ground here, but we're willing to give it another try. Let's hope it takes.

The other day I was over at Bernadette's house and noticed a pile of her mail. On the top of the pile was this:

That's right. Bernadette has now joined the ranks of Cher and Beyonce. She is simply Bernadette.

And the U.S. Postal Service knows it.

Last night Micah was invited to the test-run for a new restaurant opening in the Palmer House Hilton downtown.

After it was over he sent me a text. "My meal: oysters, foie gras, lobster, filet, ribs, dessert, expensive wine. Ah, bliss..."

My response text? "I just ate a bag of new Zesty Salsa Tortilla Combos."

So much for sibling rivalry.

Lately I've been running out of room for my books.

The books sit on bookshelves. They sit on top of my dresser. They sit on my windowsill. They sit under my TV, muscling out my DVDs. They sit on top of my kitchen cabinets.

So I've started thinking, maybe I should get rid of some of them. Surely, I can't need all these books, can I?

I scan the shelves, thinking of what books I can get rid of, and the first one that jumps out is a book of sheet music. Ironic, seeing as how I don't own or play an instrument. Heck, I don't even know know how to read sheet music!

But I remember buying the book back in high school. I liked this girl, let's call her Sally. And Sally liked Ben Folds Five. And I think she played piano (though I may be making that up), so I decided to buy Sally a book containing the sheet music for the Ben Folds Five album, Forever And Ever, Amen.

But Sally and I stopped talking (in the way that regularly happens in high school) before I could give her the book. And then high school ended. Now Sally is married and lives in the suburbs, and I'm still stuck with a book I've had since I was 15 and have never once looked at.

The hard option: I need to learn to throw out books.

The easy option: I need to move into a new place with more surfaces to put books on.

"So you know that new iPod Touch ad?" I ask Byron last night. He nods that he does. "I read that some guy made that when he was bored and put it on YouTube and then Apple saw it, loved it, and commissioned him to make it all professional for them."

Byron makes a face of shock. "That just blew my mind," he says.

I tell him I love the song in the ad too, and that I love it double because the band is named CSS. He looks at me confused. "So?" he asks. "You know. CSS," I say.

He shakes his head no. "The web term," I say. "Cascading Style Sheets. I thought that was awesome."

Byron takes a drink of his wine. "You're such a nerd," he says.

Dear Holiday Trinket Makers,

Stop making everything animatronic. For serious. I don't want a snowman that sings. I don't want a reindeer that dances. I'm perfectly content with quiet, stationary objects. Really. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that I have a rule that there is nothing allowed in my house that sings or dances that A) Doesn't sing or dance in nature, or B) Doesn't sing or dance the rest of the year. My houseplant just sits there. Same goes for my picture frames. I've never heard or seen my lighting do anything other than light.

Basically I'm saying this: Just because we've reached a technological point where we can make anything play music and vibrate side to side, it doesn't mean that we should.

It's bad enough that we have to deal with the overload of Christmas paraphernalia every year, I'd rather not have it actively and audibly vying for my attention.

I'm certain there are thousands of Walgreens and CVS employees out there who are subject to dealing with said vibrating/singing trinkets all day and will whole-heartedly agree with me on this.

Seriously. Just consider what I'm saying.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Eisenberg

p.s. This has nothing to do with the fact that I'm Jewish and don't celebrate Christmas. I like to believe this is an issue transcends, among other things, religion.

The other day Byron got a new MacBook. You know, the kind with the little camera built-in right above the screen. Since I have the same computer, he got an idea within minutes of taking it out of the box: "We can video conference now!"

Below is an actual capture of the screen when Byron and I were "video conferencing." As you can see, things didn't go quite as planned.

"I can't really see you," Byron says, "you're kind of fuzzy."

"You look like a Seurat painting," I say.

Out at a coffee shop, Katie is looking through the Craigslist personals, trying to find me a date.

"This girl loves the beach, Josh," she says. "You love the beach too."

I raise an eyebrow at her. "I do not love the beach," I say. "Maybe you're confused because I'm a Jew, and my people happen to have a fondness for the sand." I pause. "But the beach? I don't like the beach."

If I really wanted to make my mom proud*, some Jewish celebrities** I wouldn't kick out of bed:

+ Lisa Loeb
+ Keri Russell
+ Maggie Gyllenhaal
+ Rachel Bilson
+ Emmanuelle Chriqui
+ Natalie Portman

So I've closed the caption contest (but I don't know how to close the comments on that banana post, so just pretend it's closed, okay?), and I'm proud to announce the winners.

In first place, because she submitted six captions and they were all gold (banana gold!), is Librarian Girl. LG, just let me know which prize you want and it's yours.

In second place, I'm going to have to give props to Brad and his comment of, "My partner's King Kong fetish is getting out of hand." Get it? 'Cause King Kong was a giant ape. And apes like bananas. It works on several levels. Brad, whatever two prizes are left after LG claims hers, you can choose which of those you'd like.

And in third place, it's a tie between Sunny and KT. So...I'm not sure how I'm going to work out the prizes there. Maybe I'm going to have to throw in a fourth prize so that everybody gets something. Let's just say the fourth prize is, oh, I don't know, a bottle of weird German liquor called Gebirgskräuter that Stine gave me a while back.

The label on the back of the Gebirgskräuter describes the liquor as, "Jahrunderts gab es eine Frau, die weit über die Grezen ihres Heimatlandes Sachsens bekannt war - Amalie Dietrich, sad Krauterweibl aus Siebenlehn." Mmmm!

Translated by Babel Fish, that means, "Year and RTS gave it a woman, who admits the far over Grezen of its homeland of Saxonia was - Amalie Dietrich, sad Krauterweibl out filter-lean." You hear that, people? Out filter-lean! If that doesn't want to make you gulp down that liquor, what will?!

I'm feeling kind of lazy today. So I'm hoping that you people will help me out (though not without some compensation).

Below is a picture I took out of The New York Times a few weeks ago. It is a guy in a banana costume crossing the street.

Whoever can come up with the best caption for this photo (and then submit that caption in the comments) will have their choice of the one of the following three prizes:

a) An autographed copy of the Richard J. Daily biography, American Pharaoh, b) A DVD of the Cameron Diaz non-stop-action flick Charlie's Angels, or c) Four magnets or buttons of their choice, donated by the good people over at Fivefoldink, just for this contest.

Have at it, people! The winner will be announced tomorrow.

Lately Byron and I have developed a bit wherein I play myself (but for some reason I'm 20 and home visiting from college), and Byron plays my 15-year-old sister named Bridgette who has a lateral lisp and is kinda spastic.

"I'm totally thhrilled about tha Hannah Montana conthert coming up," Bridget says with her lateral lisp.
"Just pay attention to road while you're driving, okay Bridge?"
"Whatever," Bridget says, "I'm a great driver!"
"Then how come you hit Mr. Markofski's mailbox last month when you were backing out of the driveway?" I ask.
"I wath on cough shyrup!!!" She yells/lisps. "Mom totally undershtood it was an acthident!"

I sigh. Bridget goes back to singing along to the new Avril Lavigne song.

Several years ago I had a girlfriend who, for the sake of this story (and this girl's anonymity), let's call Uma. Why Uma? Because it makes the story that much more entertaining.

Now Uma and I were dating, and Uma started staying over at my house regularly. Uma, like a handful of women, liked pillows. Lots of pillows. I, personally, never really cared for them. I just need one. Sometimes not even one. But that Uma, she liked her pillows.

So Uma forced me to go pillow shopping. Forced! And this wasn't just to buy an extra pillow. No. For starters I got two additional regular sized pillows (2!). Then I had to buy a body pillow (body what?!). Pretty soon there wasn't enough room for two people in the bed! ...Which turned out okay, because Uma and I ended up breaking up.

But then, after the dust had settled, I was still stuck with these pillows. To this day (more than two years later) I still have the pillows, though the two standard size ones are lost somewhere down in my storage space. And what of the body pillow? It spends its days along the headboard, behind the normal pillows. And at night? Occasionally we spoon (with me, needless to say, always being the big spoon).

I like to think of the pillows as the children in a divorce. Sure, the marriage might not have worked out, but that doesn't mean nothing good came out of it. At least I have full custody of the pillows.

Since signing up for NaBloPoMo (I did it, and so can you!), I've discovered a hoard of new blogs that I've instantly become infatuated with. And the best part about these new friends? I'm guaranteed to get new material from them every day for the month of November!

Some of my new favorites are:

+ Moose in the Kitchen
+ There Are No Words...
+ Oh! How Lovely!
+ The Life of a Lovechild

...I somehow feel like Oprah telling you people what to read. Just don't expect to look under your chair and see a free copy of these blogs, 'cause it ain't happening.

Other possible titles to Gabriel Garcia Marquez's classic, which may have made the book less successful:

-Love in the Time of Syphilis
-Love in the Time of Restless Leg Syndrome
-Love in the Time of My Life (and I Owe it All to You)
-Love in the Time of Hammer
-Love in the Time of Hiccups
-Love in the Time of Incandescent Lighting

Sometimes I forget that there's more to people than just what I see.

For example: My mom.

When I think of my mom I think, "Okay. She's just my mom." Usually I don't think of her as a chiropractor who has a successful practice, or as a woman who goes to ballroom dancing weekend getaways, or as a significant other who has been living with her Man for the past 5 years. No, I don't think of any of those things. I just think of her as Mom.

The same goes for my good friend Byron. I see Byron almost every day. I'll see him in the morning when he's hungover. I'll see him in the afternoon when he's been working hard and he's exhausted. I'll watch him eat his soup and get some on the corners of his mouth. And because I see all that I get a little desensitized to him (like a virus to anti-biotics), and it escapes me that he's also an amazing writer.

But then he'll go and write something like this, and he'll remind me of what I overlook so easily.

...Maybe I should start looking closer at everybody.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you about the exciting news that I promised to divulge on November 1st. How silly of me.

So it turns out Jargon, the online magazine I helped start, is back. It's new, improved, reformatted, and a slew of other buzzwords I can't think of at the moment. So you should really go check it out.

...And if you're only going to check it out for Josh-sake, then check out my latest piece, The Biggest Little Mistake.

Last night, for Halloween, Bernadette and I sat on her porch steps, extending our giant bowl of candy to the kids who walked by, and waving to the parents. Bern occupies a house in a fairly residential area of Lincoln Park, and if you block out the occasional traffic noises from Fullerton you can almost swear you're in the suburbs.

We're enjoying the parade of cowboys and hippies and insects that walk past us. And then (because sometimes parents like to dress up a little too), we see a mom dressed in a French maid costume, fishnets and all. We smile politely, give her children some candy, and wait for them to move on.

"Well we know what they're into in that house," Bern says.
"No kidding," I reply. "She totally got that from the back of her closet."
"Are you sure I should wear this?" Bern asks, imitating the wife.
"Of course!" I say, being the husband, "No one will know!"

...For your Halloween lovers out there:
+ My 2006 Halloween blog
+ My 2005 Halloween blog
+ My 2003 Halloween blog