Dear Natalie,

On behalf of all the days of 2008, below is a list of some of the things this year brought you. Just in case you were starting to feel entitled, we would like to remind you that these things are GIFTS, and that you should really be pretty grateful. We remember when you went around saying, “Doing great in ‘08!” and hope that slogan was realized. We’d like to remind you that you’ve been hollering, ” ‘09 is fiiiiiiine!” for a couple months now, and hope you are productive and kind and all that in the new year. And seriously, start exercising again.

To: Natalie

From: 2008

Better parallel parking skills

Reduction in fear of driving (especially when merging)

Fondness of spicy food (with graduation to Medium Salsa)

Decline in sharpness (with must-return-to-school guarantee)

Fascination with Mexican culture

Fondness of sushi (with habit in saying in yuppie voice, “Omg, I NEED sushi, I haven’t had it in FOREVER.”)

Vast improvement in grooming/dressing, including: Chi straightener, interest in jewelry, daily showering habit (in contrast to college), ability to wear heels for duration of workday, dark denim, Vegas dresses, itsy-bitsy polka dot bikini, high-waisted pencil skirt and increased materialism/susceptibility to shallowness/weakness for shopping

Increase in open-mindedness, tolerance, compassion

Two terms of tutoring gig, with ensuing increase of interest in teaching

Six visits from out-of-town friends/family members

Visits to San Francisco, Napa Valley, Boston, New York and three trips to Las Vegas

Ability to run 4 miles (completion of New Year’s resolution). Current status: Lost

Two-month (and counting) case of bronchitis

Leftward leaning on political spectrum

New brakes, rack and pinion and tires

Agonizing, prolonged, tear-inducing victory over insurance company

Ever-growing desire to learn Spanish

Six wedding invitations; attendance at four

Singlehood — for first time in nearly five years

First pro football game

Addiction to volunteering

Well, Natalie, there you have it. Don’t blow it next year.

Sincerely,

2008

Since adulthood, I haven’t gotten too jazzed about Christmas music. I get misty from the occasional Silent Night at just the right solitary driving moment, but usually, the incessant holiday music in stores and radios gets on my nerves. Being both obnoxious and fond of appearing too smart for sap, I show off the irritation. I’ve made gagging sounds when a particularly noxious cover comes on (Celine Dion’s What Child Is This, say), so my shopmate will know I’m not one of those maudlin ninnies who gets all farklempt about the holidays.

Until this year.

It may be the voracious homesickness that has been gnawing at me since before Halloween, or the increased communication with my sister Alex that feeds it, or the warm, sunshiney absence of any winter weather in SoCal (the most glorious absence EVER). Or maybe it’s because I put my schedule on amphetamines this semester, and just am aching for a break. (More accurately, I’m coughing, sneezing, nose-blowing and dragging my ass for a break.) Regardless, I was at beauty megastore Ulta getting a haircut, and I couldn’t get enough of Bing Crosby and Irving Berlin and the whole schmaltzy gang. I was at a grocery store buying Clorox wipes (so the coughing, sneezing, nose-blowing and ass-dragging doesn’t spread throughout the office) and gleefully looked up — literally looked up — at the speakers when Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas came on.

Then there was Santa Baby on the way to work one day. I had poor reception and turned it up, static and all, so I could catch all the words and breathiness of Eartha Kitt, who, by the way, played Catwoman in the 1960s Batman series. The next day, I wrote an e-mail to a friend musing on the incredible sexiness of the song, and how that kind of coy innuendo just doesn’t happen anymore — and THEN I was worried. Because at that point, Christmas music became an intellectual exercise — which means I’m really starting to like it. Christmas music made it to first base.

This susceptibility isn’t the first time fate has smacked around my too-thinking-for-feeling airs. In high school, I was cynical, intolerant and mean — and proud of it. I was best friends with two boys, and we’d cruise around, smoking cigarettes and making fun of the idiocy of others, especially girls. We called ourselves The Trifecta, and we were hilarious. I was immune to typical teenage girlishness then: I didn’t admit crushes, confess insecurity or reveal anything. “You’re 90 percent male,” one of my best friends said, assessing my cold-cruel-logic mentality. Then, after graduation, I got my face rocked: I fell in love.

It was a turbulent, unhealthy, devastating summertime romance*, but one of the gobs of lessons I learned from it was that I’m as susceptible to sentimentality as anyone else. Friends and family were astounded at my transformation that summer. I’d go from gleeful to devastated in one phone call, and back up again a love letter later. Nobody knew what to tell me. I got dumped in August.

This time around, the humbling is much gentler. My pride puffed me up, sneakily, through work and being busy — I hurtled through the pages of my planner, shot from a scheduling cannon. I needed to be brought back to earth.

I’d never have thought a sexy 1950s singer would be the one to bring me down, but it’s Christmastime, and if nothing else, Christmas proves one thing: The Lord works in mysterious ways.

*We’re friends now.

My dad was telling me that the air conditioner went out last month. Kansas had a set of warm days, and when the AC didn’t do its part, my dad something that’s amazing in these troubled times: He went out and bought a new one. I heard this, and wanted to run home and hug him. That new AC story was the first in weeks I’d heard of financial comfort.

My newspaper had 34 layoffs last week. Detroit’s Big Three (”As goes GM, so goes America”) are begging for (more) help. One of my students murmured last week that fights between her mom and dad about money were getting really bad. “Like, really, really bad,” she said. California’s budget hole, once thought closed, is gaping at $11.2 billion again. The Dow plunged below 8,000 for a while. Nobody I see or hear seems to have enough of anything, for anything.

My dad bought that AC without a worry, I am certain. He helps run the family business, which does plumbing and heating and air conditioning for commercial buildings. He probably used his connections to get a good deal and made a sensible choice on a fine product that will last a long time. If he didn’t have the cash on hand, he could dip into savings (he’s a prolific saver) or take advantage of his sterling credit.

I imagined him and my brother Paul, 16, climbing into Paul’s beautiful truck (my parents wouldn’t normally buy a teenager such a nice car, but it was a great deal, an

investment) and Dad explaining air conditioning circuitry on the way. I figured Paul, sinewy from a season of football preceded by a summer of manual labor, helped carry the unit out. I pictured Paul watching Dad connect the thing, listening Dad’s stories about learning the plumbing/heating/AC trade. I wondered if they jumped up and grinned when the unit finally turned on, and if Mom came out from her cooling house to congratulate them.

1950s suburbia imagery aside, the fact remains: My parents are financially stable, even as the U.S. economy is hemorrhaging. And the biggest reason, besides fabulous blessings and luck and an aversion to credit card use, was captured in how my Dad closed out the conversation (which had turned, as always, to politics and the economy): “I can still swing a wrench, Nat,” he said. “If that’s what it takes to get us through, then that’s what it takes.”

He, white-collar for so many years now, wouldn’t hesitate to get back behind the toilet or water fountain. And that willingness to work is why smart money says Mom and Dad will always be comfortable.

I’m not so naive as to think willingness to work is a magic potion that brings wealth. I work with students whose parents manage (or die trying) two jobs apiece, a home and a family and have far less than the prosperity I have been privileged to enjoy. But the appreciation for work goes hand-in-hand with success, and I’m lucky to have it as a cornerstone of my upbringing.

P.S. But sometimes I need reminders. When I whined about my 65-hour workweeks, Dad shut me right up: “You’re 24, Natalie. That’s what you DO. For Pete’s sake, you don’t even have kids or anything, why wouldn’t you work those hours?” And he’s right.

You’re used to reading our words, but in honor of the holiday, we’ve compiled videos of This Ordinary Day writers sharing what they’re thankful for this year.

Unless you’re confident and well-adjusted, you probably cringe when you necessitate the phrase “YOU DIDN’T KNOW THAT?!”

I’m no exception. As someone who wants desperately to be seen as sharp and intelligent, I cringe when, for example, I’m coming up to a word I don’t know how to pronounce (e.g., “eschew”). I also eschew conversations that would require me to know geography, history or politics, or keep the heat off by asking a lot of questions. I embarrass myself frequently, the kind that is stabbing shards of humiliation, as well as the one that burns slowly, and worsens with recollection. The embarrassment of not knowing something that everybody else knows can be both kinds of embarrassing, depending on how widespread the fact is.

However, in doing research for this piece (which meant bringing it up to three co-workers the day before I wrote it), I learned that everyone has these obvious pieces of common knowledge that somehow escape them for years — or decades. One co-worker told of a sister who thought Washington, D.C., was in a foreign county until she was 16.

So, in the interest in humility and making you feel smart, below is a list of way obvious things I didn’t know, along with the situation in which I learned them. They are in no particular order.

1. No Woman No Cry.

I didn’t know of the song No Woman No Cry until I was 21 or 22. This, despite: Many of my high school friends were instrument-playing, concert-attending music buffs. One, who drove me everywhere for like a year, had a car littered with CDs and guitar tabs printed off the Internet. My friend Erika taught herself how to play guitar and piano and had rabid music fanaticism spanning Korn, Matchbox 20 and the instrumental soundtrack to Titanic. Three of my three boyfriends were passionate about music and all taught me music stuff — the second could play guitar, bass, piano, most percussion instruments, and sing and write too. All this, and somehow didn’t know about No Woman No Cry until it came up on Boyfriend No. 3’s iPod in the car one day.

2. Bob Ross.

I didn’t know who the PBS painter with the ‘fro was until I was 20. Boyfriend No. 2 was responsible for that earth-shattering discovery. He mentioned Bob. I said, “Who?” and I think his first response was, “Bob Ross! You know, ‘We’ll put in a happy little tree, yes, there we go, what a happy little tree.’ ” The Bob Ross thing never fails to elicit a shocked “YOU DIDN’T KNOW THAT?!”. It’s like a pathetic party trick. It can be explained by me almost never watching television as a child, a fact that could make this list endless.

3. Area rug.

The scene: Sophomore year of college, waiting for class to start, doing a crossword puzzle. The players: Me and my roommate Casey. I needed a 7-letter word for something like “it covers part of the floor,” and the fourth letter was A. Casey looked at me like I was an idiot. “Area rug,” she said. “Huh? Never heard of it.” I knew of areas, and I knew of rugs, but I didn’t know there was a breed of rug with the distinguishing “area.” Casey was appalled. I still think it’s stupid. What, “area” rug as opposed to perimeter rug?

4. That move from the Thriller music video (where you hold your arms to the side, one higher than the other, hands in claws).

OK, the “no TV” explains this one too — but seriously, it is probably the most famous music video of all time; you’d think it would have come up. Boyfriend No. 2 is responsible for this discovery too. We had one super awesome MJ All-Day bash wherein he taught me the basics, we watched the videos online (that day I also saw Black or White and Billie Jean videos for the first time) and ran a bunch of errands blaring the greatest hits. It was a really great day, one of the more gentle ways I learned something everybody else already knew.

5. The pronunciation of “daschund.”

I was nearly 23 when I learned that one. I talking about a roommate I found on Craigslist. “She’s my age, she has a real job and a fiance and apparently she’s way into her dash-hund.” My sister Niki caught this one and howled. “DASH-HUNNNNNND?!” Pet fan I ain’t, but still — how do you go nearly 23 years and not observe the correct pronunciation of the technical name for weiner dogs? Weiner dogs! Niki still texts me whenever she sees a dox-in.

In the interest of your time and TOD’s space, perhaps I’ll save for another day “How I Realized I Totally Had the Wrong Idea of What ‘Foreskin’ Means” and “When I Discovered the Internet in 2002.” In the meantime — beat that.

My left calf has become 3/8 of an inch larger than my right.

I discovered that there is a disparity on Monday, Oct. 13, when I was getting dressed for a wedding in New York. I’d put together a stellar outfit, complete with the knee-high black boots my mom got me for Christmas last year. Right boot went up without a hitch, but I found myself wrestling with leftie. The zipper was stuck midway on the slope from ankle to peak calf bulge.

The wedding party, whom I’d spent the day with, was rushing off to the church. I tugged. The zipper barely budged. I started sweating. The maid of honor’s dad was doing a last sweep through the living room. Did one boot somehow shrink on the plane? Did I accidentally put two socks on my left foot? Had I done an enormous amount of hopping and then forgotten about it? Half the party was in the elevator. Someone was calling my name.

I willed my calf to suck in, like when you’re at the beach and a good-looking person walks by. But calves can’t suck in. I poked my calf muscle and pulled the boot together, jiggling the zipper. Finally, it rounded home. My calf felt like it was in a corset.

I looked down. Rightie had some nice breathing room, a few leather wrinkles just north of ankle territory. Leftie looked swollen, as though I’d stuffed a pillow into the boot. I had a gut. On my leg. I rushed out of the apartment, imagining a wardrobe malfunction — my calf busting out of the boot, the white declasse sock grinning through the gaping zipper seam. The bridesmaids had designer dresses. How trashy would that be, my calf hanging out in front of God and everybody?

At the church, I told my friend Matthew, as I put most of my weight on rightie. I didn’t know how much pressure leftie could take. It felt like the boot might explode. I imagined my toes turning purple, losing circulation. I expected Matthew would tell me it was all in my imagination, and we’d get a good laugh out of it. He sized up my gams. “Oh, God,” he said. “Well, just don’t tell anyone else.”

I’ve heard of different-sized feet (guilty) and different-sized breasts (guilty), but different-sized calves? Seriously? How does that happen? I drank a lot of beer on the trip, but there’s NO WAY beer belly can become beer left calf, right?

A few days after I got back from the trip I took a measuring tape to my calves. It’s gotta be some weird problem with the boot, I thought. But sure enough: There was a difference — of 3/8 of an inch. HUGE. My left calf is 3/8 of an inch larger than my right, a difference of nearly 3 percent. FOR NO REASON.

Well maybe one reason. I have a theory. Since adolescence, I have been extremely self-conscious about my legs. I didn’t wear shorts for years, and I endured commentary from people — in public — about the disproportionately large size of my legs. I worked a summer at a sports bar where we had to wear short skirts. One co-worker, Ginger — who had a stint of living in her car and claimed to subsist on a Hot Pocket a day — once matter-of-factly said, “Damn, you got big legs, girl.”

See, I’m built to be a lean person, but my legs didn’t get the message and evidently thought they belonged to a beefy athlete. I never took up much beef or athletics, though, so they got soft and kind of atrophied. They became lumpy, pale things that need, apparently, knee-high footwear with a stretchy top (Think maternity jeans.). The point is, this whole calf thing didn’t send me into a tailspin of self-loathing, or even self-consciousness. It was an opportunity for a joke, and blog fodder. Maybe the cosmos deigned that my confidence be tested. If so, I passed.

I’ll take that over calf symmetry any day.