An apple, a pear, a plum or a cherry

I believe the number of fruitcakes spatch and I just finished making was formally defined by Alex Hirsch in 2012 as "bleventeen." It was supposed to be about five. We may have accidentally performed Hanukkah on them.

I slept last night between three and five in the morning and spent my entire afternoon on the phone dealing with a crisis of bureaucracy which resolved for the day on the damn near Christmas miracle of a town clerk in the Pioneer Valley returning to her office after hours to take care of some extra business before the federal holiday, picking up the voice message I had left for her on the advice of my father-in-law, and providing the first crack in the otherwise Kafkaesque wall of proving to the state of Massachusetts that the husband I live with is a real live person with papers to prove it. We have to send her a check and a self-addressed stamped envelope, but I am thinking we should also send her a card.

I am sure that all sorts of utterly unmemorable television was lost in the days of tape-wiping or just not bothering to record at all, but at the moment I really resent discovering the existence of David Rudkin's The Stone Dance (1963) for ITV, apparently featuring a cast including John Hurt and Michael Bryant and themes including queerness and standing stones, only to discover that it is not considered to have survived.

Happy Erev Christmas. Excuse me while we decorate a tree.