I like being understood when I speak. The problem is, I speak in allusions, so half the time no one understands what I’m saying. Because they don’t absorb pop culture the same way I do. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. The other issue is that I use certain phrases that make sense only to me. And the select group of people who have the misfortune of being my close personal friends. I can’t fix the allusions thing without resorting to a Clockwork Orange approach that is, frankly, illegal. What I can do is share with you my particular peculiar sayings- my Ginny Idioms if you will- and their meanings.

That is literally all I want for Christmas.

So, I say literally like a lot. Literally like a lot. And I almost always use it properly. The one time that I know, for certain, that I’m using it wrong is when I say “That is literally all I want for Christmas.” Because between August and December 25^th, I will say this literally over one hundred times. And that time I was using the term literally right.

I said it last night, in fact. I’d just put in the first DVD of Daria and the ad for The Maxx came up. Now, for those of you who didn’t know me in high school- and I mean like, really know me, so everyone who isn’t my husband and maybe my sister- then you don’t know how much of an impact The Maxx made on my life. I might cover it one of these days in my Throwback Thursday feature (which will, if I ever start it, be heaps of praise for the things that have molded me into the artist I pretend to be today), but until then just know that The Maxx was huge to me. So when I learned that it was now on DVD (which I already knew and had just forgotten) I told my husband “that is literally all I want for Christmas.”

Which would have been more convincing if I hadn’t already said that in the past seven days about:

• A nice tea cup with a saucer (Does not have to be part of a set and can come from a thrift- but not pawn- shop)
• A manicure
• A haircut
• A wax (Though of what I’m not telling. Okay, it’s my legs … don’t judge me, everyone hates shaving their legs)
• A pedicure
• A massage (Okay, someone should just get me a gift certificate to a spa)
• Lessons in how to tie a bow tie by Jherek Bischoff (the kickstarter is over now, and I did not get it. My bow tie dreams have been crushed and Christmas is ruined. That was literally the only thing I wanted)
• A Dutch Oven
• com credits
• A subscription to lootcrate.com
• A signed print copy of “The Art of Asking” by Amanda Palmer (even though I already bought the audio version)
• Dinner from The Everyday Café (They do dinner now, and I never get to go)
• An eggroll (I was a bit drunk at the time)
• Guardians of the Galaxy (Right now, not in a week when it comes out)
• Min to become a bestseller
• (And then when it became clear that wasn’t going to happen) Someone to review Min.

That is literally all I want for Christmas

I should clarify, this isn’t always an exact quote. It has many variations.

• That’s the only thing I want for Christmas
• That’s all I want for Christmas.
• That’s literally the only thing I want for Christmas.
• If I got that for Christmas, I would die happy.
• If you get that for me, I won’t need anything for Christmas.
• Buy me a pony or I’ll cut you from nose to trinkets.

Most often though, I’m literally going to tell you that this is literally all I want for Christmas.

And I don’t even know if I mean that figuratively anymore.