Once More Into the Breach

New Year's Eve is the best holiday.

You can, of course, polish off an entire bottle of champagne by yourself (it makes a good chaser for six glasses of boxed wine) and pass out on your bed fully clothed with a cat on your head any old night of the year. But on New Year's, you can still respect yourself in the morning.

Not that you should.

Okay, "Portlandia" is now getting a little out of control. Not only does Carrie Brownstein look uncannily like my sister Jessica, but in Season 3, Episode 3, they go to Seattle (which happens to be where my other sister Margie lives) to recruit new residents. One of the Seattleites they meet looks and acts just like Margie. I mean, has her haircut and everything.

Later in the episode she turns up and nonchalantly says she's decided to come live in Portland. They ask her, what will you do? Where will you live?

"I guess I'll just live with you guys," she says, nonchalantly.

If there's one word that describes Margie, "chalant" is not that word.

So now I'm waiting for the episode where the trying-desperately-not-to-be-middle-aged friend comes up from Austin in order to experience the bike culture. She'll have a flat-bar road bike she tries to pass off as hip by color-coordinating it as if it were a custom fixie. But it has 27 speeds and she still can't make it up hills without walking.

She's pretty damn chalant, I'm sorry to say. However, because the champagne hasn't quite worn off yet, she'll be played by the beautiful, brilliant, and still-living Madeline Kahn.

Happy New Year! Now for chrissakes get that damn cat off your head.