Last night, around 10 p.m., i gave birth to a strange yet adorable creature. It wasn't too painful, either.

I finished my very own sock monkey! His name is Argmore Goyle and i'd like to think he's quite a handsome fella.

Whenever i get a hole in one of my socks, i throw it out, but i just can't bring myself to throw out the mate. So i've had a collection of mismatched socks in my drawer that i'd wear now and then.

And, yes, these are often women's socks, okay? Ya happy now? I like fun socks -- colorful argyles or bright blue with snails or fun checkered patterns -- and most of the time it's the chicks who have those options. When i buy them at Target, i make pretend that they're for my "girlfriend."

Once Chausette the Sock Monkey came into our lives, i've been thinking about giving her a little brother or sister. I don't need to be going around with mismatched socks. I look enough like Punky Brewster as it is.

Making a sock monkey really didn't take much time at all -- i'd say two or three hours total, if that. Keep in mind that i've never sewed anything before and i had to figure out the whole knotting process to start. I got frustrated when our cat Boudini would bat her paws at the yarn and mess up my stitch. But she was just being a cute lil kitty. And the reward!

I brought Argy along with me today, showing him off first at our coffeeshop and then at work. River gushed over the lil guy and told me, "You know, i was feeling pretty angry this morning -- well, not ANGRY, but upset -- but that stuffed animal made me feel much better."

And then i showed it to Dawn, and she fawned over Argy, too. I think he's going to get a big head if this keeps up. Dawn clutched the monkey to her ample bosum and asked, "Is it okay if i keep him by  me for awhile?"

Pictures to be posted soon!

How to spend a sleepy, snowy Sunday? I decide to head up to Hancock Fabrics to buy the materials to make sock monkeys out of my mismatched socks.

These are the sites i'm using for my Franken creations:

web-goddess

wikiHow

Supersockmonkey.com

The world outside my door is wonderfully white. At least a foot of snow covers everything in sight.

But there's something amiss. Something doesn't seem quite right.

And then it hits me: No children playing in the snow.

City kids so rarely play in the snow. No one is having a snowball fight. No one is building a snowman. No one is making snow angels.

When i was a kid and we got any amount of snow, my friends and i were outside all day, making igloos and Snowl, the snow owl (boy, did i think i was clever for coming up with that one), and packing six of us onto my parents' toboggan as we'd slide down our neighbors' driveway. We'd stay out for the entire day, sometimes not even bothering to come in for lunch or hot cocoa breaks.

And it's not just in the winter that you don't see kids playing outside. Sure, there are the tot lots and the entire lakefront, but i'm thinking back to the summers i spent at my parents' house, Galleius Glen, in Annapolis, Maryland. It was a wealthy neighborhood, with lots of young doctors and lawyers and Washington types, who lived in massive houses with beautiful front lawns as big as football fields.

We'd've killed for lawns like that, growing up. But i'd never see any kids on those lawns. Nobody playing football, or Red Rover, or Mother May I? or Red Light, Green Light, or Smear the Queer (just jokin' about that last one).

I'm thinking about all this as i exit the el station and walk through the snow on Thorndale Avenue.

Up ahead, i see a woman with a white cloth covering her head, and a navy top, with a large gold pendant, and my first thought is, A nun! You don't see a whole lot of them nowadays.

Then, as she gets closer, i see that she's wearing a skirt (even as the temperature dips toward the single digits), paired with combat boots. And the pendant isn't a cross -- it's a Star of David! My next thought is, Oo! A prostitute! I see more of those than nuns.

By this point, she's in front of me, and she's got terrible acne all over her face and i hear her muttering a nonstop tirade of profanity -- muthafucka PUNK ASS BITCH ASS fucker -- that fades out of earshot once she's passed me.

I nod my head and come to a conclusion. A prostitute nun!

Our upstairs neighbor, Rick, who moved here not so long ago from San Fran, is part of some online strip show. An AIDS organization, Test Positive Awareness Network, has a bunch of bar wenches from local watering holes on its site. I guess each of them took a bunch of pics in various states of undress. The more money a bartender rakes in, the more nakeder he or she gets.

Rick calls and tells me about the site, and says that he and one other guy are far and away the leaders of the pack. When i check it out, i see that the other guy giving him a run for the money is none other...than Matador!

So open your pocketbooks, peeps. It's for a good cause: PORN!

Click here: chicagotakesoff.net.

One of our darling baristas at Pause likes to cut out a horoscope column from the paper. The astrologer's name is Holiday Mathis, but of course Duke and i renamed her Holiday Mantis. It just has a delightfully sinister ring to it. We've started calling our barista Holiday Mantis now, once we decided that she's psychic.

She's run with it, the sweet thing, and plays our reindeer games. I asked her to come up with a 2009 prediction for each zodiac sign. She came in one day with a sign she made up with fortune cookie-style horoscopes for the year (complete with a corresponding drink).

It's going to be an okay year financially for us Taureans -- we'll weather this economic storm, as long as we learn to compromise.

I just asked Duke what it said about Libras. He doesn't even remember! He's OBviously not as big a fan as yours truly. I have a sneaking suspicion he might even be a Muggle! I suppose we can't all be wizards or witches.

You know who IS, though? Good ol' Mema (who, you might recall, goes by the advice-doling alias Razmelinda). Well, now she's got yet another split personality: Madam Minerva, a wise(ass) clairvoyant who knows the secrets of the stars.

Here's her new column. Tell me it's not the best collection of horrorscopes you've ever read!

Flashes of Brillance

 by Madam Minerva  (alias joann duke)

Aries – March 21 – April 19

You are a warrior, a fighter…..which is the reason you can’t sleep.  You count sheep but when you get to nine, you jump up! 

Taurus – April 20 – May 20

You are brave….too brave sometimes….remember what the Eskimos say….never pet a bear unless it’s a rug.

Gemini – May 21 – June 20

Ah the twins….which reminds me, a twin came home from a late date and told her sister, “we’re not identical anymore”.

Cancer – June 21 – July 22

Keep focused….today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday, but not enough.

Leo – July 23 – August 22

You are a born leader – one  who forms committees consisting of a group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary.

Virgo – August 23 – September 22

You are a born Economist – An expert who knows tomorrow why the things they predicted yesterday didn’t happen.

Libra – September 23 – October 22

You are a true lover, but a homebody.  Anybody’s home.

Scorpio – October 23 – November 21

Be better with your hygiene ….remember what one skunk said to another “so do you!”

Sagittarius – November 22 – December 21

You have enough money for the rest of your life….unless you buy something.

Capricorn – December 22 – January 19

You are an adventurous but stubborn person ….just remember a cat might have nine lives but a bullfrog croaks every time!

Aquarius – January 20 –February 18

You love to sing and you have a great voice, Unfortunately it’s in someone else’s throat.

Pisces – February 19 – March 20

You worry too much about aging.  You are not getting wrinkles, it’s possible that your skin is turning into corduroy.

"So where are you moving?"

It's a strange thing for Michael to be asking me, and it takes me by surprise.

"What do you mean?"

"Saul Tomorrow (editor's note: that's not quite his real name) wants to know when your going-away party is."

"Why is Saul so crazy?" i ask.

"He just is," Michael sighs, impatiently. "So you're not moving?"

And then it clicks. An hour or so ago, Saul had posted some cryptic comment on my Xanga blog, asking if i had a job yet and is he the last one moving to NYC, or some such nonsense like that. I realized he was actually commenting on Gal Cock's blog post about Natalie moving to the Big Apple Core. I'm not sure how i got mixed up with Nats in Saul's muddled brain, but there you have it.

Not so later in the day, Quiche emails me, asking when my going-away party is. I tell him the only thing i'm doing is retiring from the social scene. Visits with people who have kids make my late-30something homo lifestyle seem depressingly frivilous. Maybe it's the fact that i've been sick since Christmas Eve (ear infection, though i'm now on antibiotics), but the idea of going to yet another bar to get drunk yet again with my too-loud too-violent chums has utterly, finally, lost its appeal.

"So when's the retirement party?" Quiche asks.