12.30.02 - 9:24 p.m.

So, did all the utility and credit card companies get together and say, "Gee, why don't we send everything out at the same time each month - say, around the 20th? That way, every single bill will come at the same time as our customers have to pay everything else, like their really high rents, and we can just fuck them all at once! Brilliant!"

I think they did. I think they did it just to spite me.

So, Bassett will feel bad when she reads this, but there is a gaping wound in the crease where my pinky toe meets the ball of my foot. Yum. I am just cursed, foot-wise. My first encounter with the Pain of Feet was when I dropped a can of Campbell's Tomato Soup on my toe at the tender age of two. Since then I've bombed them with Tupperware coolers of water (lost a nail on that one), slammed them into assorted walls, corners and doorways, and even got out of Christmas tree-hunting one year due to my inability to use my feet properly.

Last night I got a two-for-one special: First I stubbed my toe against the dining room table as I was cleaning plates, hard enough that my big toenail cracked and began to bleed through my sock. Then, as Bass and I were frolicking before bed, the loop of her frayed jeans hem worked its way around my wee pinky toe. She walked in one direction, I went the other, and together we managed to rugburn my pinky crease. Something that can only be accomplished through the same Stupid Brainness of our collective minds.

And joy of joys, each injury is on its own separate foot. I think it's time to pamper them with some home pedicure action now.

Obligatory Christmas haul news: Remember a few months ago when I said good knives were at the top of my imaginary bridal registry? Well, that space has reopened, thanks to the seven-piece set of Henckels (plus bonus steak set for my manly man) I received this weekend. Thank you, Dad and Carol, for the best Christmas gift ever! Now I can inflict all sorts of damage on myself at 8 in the morning!

My quest for the tangerine Mixmaster is too convoluted and embarrassing to even relate, suffice to say that is next on the Almost Obtainable Kitchenware list. It's to the point where I can't even remember what caused me to want it in the first place; the joy of HAVING will be enough once it's in my hot little hands.

I also have VERY NICE Spiegelau wineglasses (not Riedel, but really, there's no point in that yet), a wireless router (well, WE have a wireless router but as my computer is the only Ethernet compatible one, she is taking possession of it for the time being) and sundry amusing items. Such as datebooks, Powerpuff DVDs, sweets, an orange plastic scrubby duck for the kitchen. . . all good things.

Spending the weekend at the barn in the Hamptons was nice. Even if it's not my style, I would love to live there. And we did see a pair of MONKEY PANTS. Corduroy, even.