W.W.LuLu.D?

I never really get to see Luerne anymore (that's fine, we're all busy, ya know?) but she still has that little LuLu influence over me.

So, I'll follow suit in assessing my resolution for 2005..."No More Drama!" Now, obviously that was from a personal standpoint, not from a "no more theatre" standpoint. And I'd say I did fairly well. Sure there were blips here and there, but overall I'd say this year was dramatically more favourable to last year.

And yeah....it IS December already! Wow! 2005 really flew...New Year's is coming up so fast! I'll spend this New Years Eve the same way I spent last New Years Eve....the difference is that when I wake up on January 1, I'll be a lot more comfortable and sure of everything than I was last year! 2005 was a year of renewal and ... well, frankly, confusion. Certainty really only set in fairly recently. 2006 will be a year of...gosh, what WILL 2006 be a year of? I'll think on it...maybe commitment. Or continuity.

My new favourite thing - Dogster! You'll note the new link to your left that will connect you to Bitty's Dogster profile - I'm having way too much fun writing little dog-blogs and making little dog-pals. It's not crazy to send an email from one dog to another as long as so many other people are doing it!

Yesterday, I got the strangest piece of mail...a Thanksgiving card from my stepmother. (They don't have my new address, the forwarding must have taken a while.) You'd have to know a bit more of the history to understand how kind of aback that really took me, but I did sit down and write a nice long letter, complete with a photo, to her and my father.

One thing she told me really caught me by surprise - something I think I'd heard he did a while back but I didn't think he'd really commit to. My Dad is a Santa Claus. Stan Wiley, the man who didn't really want kids, who never seemed entirely sure what to do with me, now derives joy from dressing up like a jolly fat man and sitting children on his lap to give him their wishes. I'm transfixed by this...and couldn't be happier that he seems to be so changed as to find joy moonlighting as every child's hero.

Mom recently told me the story of when I was a baby and I had terrible pneumonia and had to have ear tubes. When the doctors would finally let my parents in, they'd only let in one at a time. My dad wanted to go first...and he sat with me in his lap for hours while I slept. I don't have a lot of memories of him from my childhood (I have a terrible memory and he was a very busy business owner) but I'm glad she shared that one. It reminds me that while he may not have been entirely sure how to hold me, or what to do for me, the one thing he could do, in his own way, was love me. And I know in our own way, we both still love each other very much. I don't really feel a need for much more than that.

On a lighter note, because I just feel goofy ending with that...with the return of cable and TiVo, I have finally been able to start getting back to some of my shows, most importantly Lost. And I do love that show. But does anyone else get giggle fits from the onscreen talent vacuum that results every time Matthew Fox and Michelle Rodriguez appear together? He's a terrible actor, she's a terrible actor, and yet when you combine the two, the result is a dearth of talent that is exponentially grander than you could have ever imagined. They should marry and have little vacant-eyed furrow-browed babies together.