Ed note: It's Thanksgiving Week! I don't really like turkey or stuffing or Pilgrim-buckled things, but I do like talking about myself, so every day this week I'm going to write about something for which I'm thankful. Today, that thing is my hair.

I wouldn't trade my (naturally!) curly hair for any other kind of hair. It's a source of stress and a financial burden, sure, but it's also a source of pride, comfort, and secret delight--the kind I know I'm not supposed to take in any part of myself, especially my appearance, because it's vain and unbecoming and will surely result in some sort of accident which causes me to lose what I think I value (meaning, for those of you who don't like to follow these sorts of run-on sentences, the hair in question) and only after many tears discover that what I really need to be worried about is Inner Beauty.

That being acknowledged, I really, really like my curly hair. In these troubled and uncertain times, it is one of the things I think about late at night that doesn't give me agina, especially since when I was in middle school and curtain-hair was the only road to pretty I spent hours and countless volts of electricity (that's what that's called, right?) trying to make it lie flat, and also I got weird golden-blonde highlights, but that's another story. I cursed it and abused it with heat and every kind of expensive goop I could get my hands on (when I think about the money I have spent on Hair Goop in my relatively short lifetime!), but somehow I emerged from that period follically unscathed. My hair is shiny and air-dries into magazine-y pre-Raphelite waves and it is really heavy, in a way that makes me certain that should I ever compete in some sort of boxing match and need to lose a quick pound or two to make weight, I could cut it off and that'd do the trick.

Also, it occurred to me about halfway through the first paragraph that this 'I'm thankful' story is really just bragging. Maybe tomorrow I'll write about an embarrassing thing that helped me learn some kind of important thing to make up for it.

The Secret

I don't want you guys to get jealous or anything, but I'm basically living my dream life right now. First, I made my father promise to take me to see New Moon one afternoon this week. I think there's also going to be frozen yogurt involved. Second, I have really thoughtful and with-it lady friends who send me things like this:

It's almost unfair how lucky I am, right?

Regency House Party

I won't be buying A Truth Universally Acknowledged: 33 Great Writers on Why We Read Jane Austen, because I hurt my shoulder and thus can't be lugging around hardcover books all the livelong day (also: hardcover books are expensive, and, well, you know the drill), but I will be greedily reading excerpts on the Internet. Once again, Martin Amis proves that he's the best Amis (sorry, Kingsley fans--Papa wins re: best name, but Amis the Younger is better at everything else) by announcing that not only has he read Pride and Prejudice 'five or six times', but also that he thinks the only possible improvement would've been the addition of Darcy and Elizabeth making excuses to Lady Catherine and Caroline Bingley and Mr. Collins and all the other drags in the story and heading off to a quiet corner of Pemberley to get down to business. Also, Martin Amis thinks this scene should be no less than twenty pages in length, in part, I'm sure, because he knows it'd take at least ten for the removal of the Regency-era getups, but also because he'd like to see "Mr. Darcy, furthermore, acquitting himself uncommonly well." I wholeheartedly approve.*

*Ed note: I should disclose that I took an extended work break this morning when I noticed that Sense and Sensibility was on Starz. I'm happy to report that Willoughby is still an asshole.

Just FYI

Today is the worst. I'm looking at pictures of bear cubs and trying really hard not to be a Sally Sensitive, but probably I'm just going to go to Yoga Booty Ballet and be secretive about the fact that I'm not interested in setting intentions or cleansing my spirit cloud and then come home and fill out applications and listen to, like, Liz Phair.

Better?