On breasts.

Wonderful things. I don't know that I'm a breast man, per se -- the legs, posterior, hands and ankles all must be factored in -- ankles perhaps the real litmus test -- but the breasts have their heft in the equation. And then there is the whole breast-buttock ratio to consider, as well as the chunk-in-the-trunk zaftigity that tends to accompany a pair of real, screaming gazongas. Real here meaning natural -- and so comes the topic of structural augmentation. Jane Anybody desperate to attain an epic, globular status worthy of a south Indian temple frieze or perhaps a '57 Chrysler's bumper.

But I need to recuse myself. Breast implants paid for my education, braces, and shoes, Dad being a plastic surgeon. I'll just say this -- in my first job, as a filing clerk in his office, I encountered an implant lying on the counter like a tumescent water balloon, with all the lateral slurdge attendant to its unfettered state. And...well, that kind of took the bloom off the rose right there.

On choosing a Jewish identity rather than that other thing.

Well, a Gentile friend says I'm Jewish, dammit, and I'm not going to argue with her. I always wanted to be something, growing up nothing. And why not Jewish? I'd be proud to be a Real Jew. The Jews have the lion's share of the great violinists, biochemists, movie moguls and tough generals with eye patches. I'll go with that. Anyway, it's easier to be a Jew without having anything to do with the religion, per se. Saying someone's a Jew is tantamount to saying they're Irish. That is, just as you don't have to do anything except wake up and there you are, blang, red hair and gab, and a tendency towards fistfights, being a Jew doesn't mean you have to stand up and be counted in temple at High Holy Days to prove it. Whereas being a Christian, well, that implies a proactive, participatory religiosity, does it not? Along with a slow-talking, high-waisted, neatly-combed, somewhat Talibanistic zeal for cultural censure.

On not really being Jewish.

I never received any Hannukah gifts.

Because it's my dad who's Jewish, not Mom, a Presbyterian-turned-Anglican from Minnesota, I get a big "thanks for playing!" from all but the most relaxed Reformed Jews. And I've never heard my dad say "I'm Jewish." But then why would he? He's a rabid atheist, and a bit of an anti-Semite. That's another story, however. This is the Christmas story -- my Christmas story. [Cue "Little Town of Bethlehem," faintly, in the background.]

Mom, from her side, loved the tradition of Christmas. The carols, the wreaths, the tree and so forth. So we always celebrated the holiday growing up, and I guess we celebrated observed it pretty much as any other American family would: with shopping. A lot of shopping. Hundreds of presents. Thousands of presents. Millions of presents. A consumerist wet dream under which you could hardly see the damned tree. All of which had nothing to do with Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ but rather with Dad, or more precisely the expiation of guilt. I guess he felt he was never around enough...I mean, he was always off in Vietnam or Central America -- or even St. Francis hospital, across town -- operating on deformed children rather than spending quality time with us or dealing with his marriage.

Sure worked for me, though! I could hardly sleep for weeks leading up to the big day. And then, wow! Bikes, radio controlled cars, mainframe computers, elephants, Nubian slaves -- it went on and on for days! Sounds of ripping paper and squeals of delight, followed by more ripping paper, and soon the delight and squeals dispensed with to conserve energy for the grim and unceasing ripfest, the struggle to separate twelve square miles of paper from combined industrial output of Germany and Japan. Pets and younger children lost under wrapping, ribbon, stick-on bows and To-From cards, some never to be found again. Hours later, the last gift wrested from under the tree and summarily violated, my dad would sadly say, "I guess that's all, huh?," signalling to the rest of us that it was over and it was now time for us to sink into a black, post-bacchanal depression that lasted through the New Year.

The Christ Child as such, and especially church services, upon which my dad frowned and about which we children thus had no clue, played no part in this.

Dirty Ice in Wheel Well. Goddess and Mezzanine.

As a San Franciscan, my mind -- if not my budget -- is always running to matters of style. Posh clothes from Wilkes Bashford, a Maserati to drive up to Napa on weekends, logo-splashed cycling jerseys for just the right look as you glide across the Golden Gate on your Colnago. It's a sybaritic malaise for which there is only one cure: the Midwest.

Just back from two weeks in the tundric wastes of Iowa. When snow falls, ice forms, slush pools, and frost blinds you to oncoming traffic, when nose hairs crinkle and snap, it's all about survival. Dreams of Versace lost under puffy, mismatched layers of wool, down, fleece, and nylon and stuffed into slush-covered boots. Ice, snow and filth accrete into stalactites around your wheel wells, morphing the Maserati of your fantasies into a '72 Ford LTD. And jogging is seen clearly for what it is: an exercise in bourgeois, West Coast narcissism, a waste of vital energy that should be used for hunkering down.

Californians don't understand hunkering. That's too bad. A good hunker is very centering.

The moral compass of this country, its only hope in the current political climate, is the hunker vote. Delusional, imperial ambitions cannot float for long against the irresitible, stoic gravity of the hunkerers, the counterweight of big, snaggy chunks of ice and grit and dirt and corn chaff lining the underbody of your '69 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser wagon. Forget the democratization of the Muslim world -- will the damn car start?

A note on the flight -- at the airport, the waiting area may be filled with seraphic lovelies, but my seatmate is inevitably the grunting equipment salesman who smells like sausage, his abundant midsection breaching the armrest and smushing me against the window. Yesterday, however, on the all-too-short flight from Moline, Illinois to Chicago I sat next to a goddess with her nose in a Nicolson Baker book. We got to talking about The Mezzanine, which she had not only read but enjoyed. So right there you're talking soul-mate. And even though she was married, and lived in Brooklyn, it's nice to know that women like that exist. Gives a single man hope.

Unless she was the only woman who has read and liked that book. Which is possible.