So. Christmas is coming. 'Tis the season of family, and togetherness, and the vaguely uncomfortable phone calls from all my Oklahoma/Missouri relatives who are still just a little bit pissed at me for dumping (their word, not mine) that nice girl who used to be on that show they liked.

Fuck.

They kind of get the big stuff -- you know, the one-of-us-is-still- establishing-her-post-TV-show-career-and-needs-to-focus-on-that- for-the-next-twenty-years, the-other-is-ready-to-start-a-family- oh-maybe-the-day-before-yesterday kinds of stuff -- they just think we should be willing and able to work through it (read: suck it up) like they all did back in the good ol' days.

What they don't get is the little stuff. Sometimes, like a funky smell over your septic tank, the little stuff is really just the sign of a deeper problem leaking out through the cracks of your well-manicured wife. Er, life. I meant "life". Or maybe "lawn".

Like for example -- pie. Sometimes you want to eat pie, and you don't want to have to spend your whole fucking life feeling guilty for eating one little slice of pie, or plotting how you'll atone for the sin of eating the pie -- or even worse, feeling like your life is so fucking complicated that you can't even let yourself *think* about eating that pie because of my god, the consequences!

Sometimes, you want to eat pie, because... hey, pie! So you eat the goddamn pie. And you enjoy it. End of drama-free story.

AJ, she gets it about the pie. God, but that girl can put it away, and she's not afraid to enjoy it. (Yes, you perv, I am actually talking about PIE here. Get your mind out of the gutter and into the butter, baby.) She will enjoy the pie, the non-diet full-carb beer, the deep-fried Cambodian goat-parts -- and it's a thing of beauty. The girl knows how to LIVE.

Juliette, God bless her, was always like that, too. Well, except when she wasn't. But with her it was never about some weird societal neurosis -- more like, "Well, I think pie is oppressive to cherries" or some shit. God, I miss thanksgivings with her....

But I digress.

Or -- wait, maybe that's the answer. Maybe it's time to take AJ home for the holidays to meet the extended clan. It'd give the ol' grandparents a chance to meet their new soon-to-be-great-grandchildren. Their cute, sweet, well-behaved... exceptionally well-tanned great-grandchildren.

Note to self: Remember to introduce AJ as "my girlfriend the UN goodwill ambassador". Except to the cousins who think the UN should go fuck itself.

Fuck.

Maybe I'm worrying for nothing. Didn't they always accept Juliette, even after that year she did that thing with the turkey-leg and a box of glitter?

On the other hand, maybe that's why they always liked Jen so much.