I take care of Grandpa’s cat, Grunt, when Grandpa goes to Florida. Grunt’s an ornery cat, but lately I like him more than Langston. So long as I feed him and don’t smother his furry head in too many unwanted kisses, Grunt would never toss me aside for some boy. Grunt’s as close to my own animal as I’m allowed to have in our living space.

When I was lit le, we had two rescue cats, named Holly and Hobbie, who disappeared very suddenly. They both died from feline leukemia, only I didn’t understand that at the time. I was told that Holly and Hobbie had graduated to “college” and that’s why I didn’t see them anymore. Holly and Hobbie went o to college only a couple years after the gerbil incident, so I guess I understand why the real reason was kept secret from me. But it would have saved everyone a lot of grief if they’d been honest at the time. Because when I was eight and went with Grandpa to visit my cousin Mark, who was a freshman at Williams college, I spent the whole weekend darting through all eys and peering inside every bookcase crevice I found in the library, looking for my cats. That’s when Mark had to break it to me, in the very public dining hall no less, why the poor lit le things were not, in fact, at Mark’s college, or at any college, other than the big one up in the sky.

Begin Shrilly incident, stage 2. Let’s just say Williams college probably would appreciate me not applying there next year.

In the years since, I have petitioned at various times to adopt a kit en, a turtle, a dog, a parrot, and a lizard, but all requests have been denied. And yet I allowed my parents to go on holiday at Christmas, guilt free. Who was the wronged party here? I ask.

I like to think of myself as an optimistic person, especially at the holidays, but I couldn’t deny the cold, hard suckage that this Christmas had sunk to. My parents were away in Fiji, Langston was all into Benny, Grandpa was in Florida, and most of the cousins were spread far and wide away from Manhat an. December 24—what should have been the Most Exciting Day Before the Really Most Exciting Day of the Year—appeared to be one big blah.

It would have been helpful at this point, I suppose, if I had some girlfriends to hang out with, but I’m comfortable as a nobody at school, except on the soccer eld, where I am a superstar. Strangely, my saved-many-a-game goalie skills have never translated into popularity.

Respect, yes. Movie invitations and after-school socializing, no. (My dad is the vice principal at my school, which probably doesn’t help—it’s a political risk to befriend me, I suspect.) My athletic ability mixed with my complete social apathy are what got me elected captain of the soccer team. I’m the only person who gets along with everyone, by way of not being friends with anyone.

On Christmas Eve morning, I decided maybe I should work on this de ciency as my New Year’s resolution. A less Shrilly, more Frilly plan.

Learn to be more girl friendly so I’d have some backup on important holidays should my family ever abandon me again.

I wouldn’t have minded someone special to spend Christmas with.

But all I had was a red Moleskine notebook.

And even Nameless He of the Notebook Game, while he was intriguing me to an extreme that was causing my body to feel all tingly every time I was alerted that the notebook had been returned to She Who Has Politely Told Her Name, was also a cause for concern. When not one, not two, but three relatives (Cousin Mark at the Strand, Uncle Sall at Macy’s, and Great-aunt Ida at Madame Tussauds), independent of each other, all used the same word—snarl—to describe the notebook’s mystery boy, who thinks he’s too “esoteric” and “arcane” to tell me something as simple as his name, I had to wonder why I was bothering with this charade. No one had even bothered to mention whether he’s cute.

Is it wrong that I long for that idealistic, pure kind of love like in that animated movie Coll ation? Oh, how I yearn to be the piece of paper gliding the stapler around the conference room, treating it to amazing visions of city skyscraper skylines and annual reports with rosy earnings forecasts, while avoiding the vill ainous star sh intercom phone on the boardroom table, Dante, voiced by Christopher Walken, the corporate raider who’s secretly planning a hostile takeover of the company. Secretly, I want to be held prisoner by Dante and rescued by a heroic Swingline. I guess I want to be … stapled. (Is that crude of me? Or anti-feminist? I don’t mean to be.) Snarl is probably no dreamy stapler, but I think I might like Snarl anyway. Even if he is too pretentious to tell me his name.

I like that he wants an OED for Christmas. That’s so geeky. I wonder how he would react if he knew that I actually know a way I could give him what he wants, and for free. But he’d have to prove worthy. If he can’t even tell me his name, I don’t know.

My name is a connector of words.

What was that supposed to mean?!?!? I’m not Einstein here, Snarl. Or Train Man (connector of Amtrak and Metro North?), whoever you are. Conductor? Is that your name?

are. Conductor? Is that your name?

The only other thing I want for Christmas, besides the OED, is for you to tell me what you really want for Christmas. But not a thing. More like a feeling. Something that can’t be bought in a store or gift-wrapped in a pret y box. Please write it in the notebook and deposit it with the worker bees in the Make Your Own Muppet department at FAO Schwarz at noon on Christmas Eve. Good luck. (And yes, evil genius, you should consider FAO Schwarz on the day before Christmas payback for Macy’s.) Conductor Snarl should consider himself lucky that this year turned out to be the Christmas of Suck. Because normally on this day, I would be (1) helping Mom chop and peel food for Christmas dinner the following night while we listened to Christmas music and sang along, (2) helping Dad wrap presents and organize the mountains of gifts around the tree, (3) wondering if I should put a sedative in Langston’s water bot le so he’d fall asleep early and then have no problem get ing up at ve the next morning to open presents with me, (4) wondering if Grandpa will like the sweater I knit him (poorly, but I get bet er each year, and he still wears them anyway, unlike Langston), and (5) hoping and praying I was going to get a BRAND-NEW BIKE, or any other Major Gift of Comparable Extravagance, the following morning.