There are so many things I should be doing right now...

...but instead, I'm blogging. Don't you readers feel special? All three of you?

Yesterday's newspaper said something about the weather I found odd. "The cold front coming in should provide us with a week of crisp, autumn weather, maybe even two." After which we will return to our regularly scheduled summer, I suppose. It was 78 degrees in the house on Monday, forcing me to turn on the a/c. Yesterday we were in sweats and parking it in front of a space heater as the temp got down to 57 degrees (and that's during the daytime!). Next week we may be back in shorts.

This is the thing about living here: you can never "put away summer clothes and bring out winter clothes," at the end of autumn and into winter. You just kind of have to make more room in the closet and dresser for the extra sweaters and overcoats that you may need, should the weather decide to get down to freezing. It does do that, you know. People have to wrap their water pipes and light the pilot light on the gas heaters and go shopping for gloves. But we really only get about three weeks or so of actual winter, in which there's frost on the ground and the sky is grey and you can see your breath in front of you. It comes in spurts, between stretches of warm weather (or the elusive "cool" weather).

Which is why the Wal-Mart closest to me actually sells sleeveless children's Christmas dresses. Without little skin-tight shirts to go under them.

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Nilo said something about people not wanting to admit that they'd been taken in by fads. And he's so right. Nilo, you've inspired me to make a confession:

When I was in the fifth and sixth grade, I was in love with the New Kids on the Block. Yes, it's true. I loved them and had most of their CDs, back when CDs took up a mere three sections of shelf space at the music store. Yes, even the Christmas album (a real piece of crap, that one). I knew all the words, even to the songs that I thought were not so good. I had posters of them all over my walls. I would even kiss these posters. And my greatest treasure was an autograph by Danny Wood, acquired by my mother's boyfriend at the time, who met the guy at a local gym when the band was here on tour. (He wasn't too impressed by Danny Wood, and even asked him if he could make out a different one, as the first was completely illegible.) Yes, it is a sad thing, when I reflect on it now. In fact, it was a sad thing when I reflected on it in seventh grade, which is why I denied ever having loved them or even owned a single CD.

But now I can admit this. Yes, I did love the New Kids on the Block. When I was twelve and too dumb to know better. Don't judge me! In another ten or fifteen years, you'll see bloggers shamefacedly admitting that they loved N Sync and Backstreet Boys when they were in middle school. Of course, by the time those two rolled around, boy bands were made up of guys old enough to have goatees, not 12-year-olds who still hadn't hit puberty yet so they could hit the high notes (Joe McIntyre).

And as long as I'm admitting things, I might as well tell you that I had the cassette of Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. Just reading the insert was good for a laugh. One of the songs actually had a vocal credit called, "Fly Puerto Rican girl on the sex tip." For making...noises. And actually gave her name. Whoever that girl is, I'll bet she's not happy about having her name on that album now. Of course, by now she's 35, and hopefully living a happy life that is Wahlberg-free.

Happy Thursday everyone. One week to Thanksgiving! Make sure to visit Butterball's website for all your turkey-cooking questions, including thawing safety!