I wasn’t planning to take a break from this blog during the between-holidays week, but it would appear I am. And it’s quite lovely! For those of you concerned about my health, I am doing MUCH better — but I must say a low-key week is exactly what the doctor ordered. And since, at least temporarily, I have become one of those people with a lot of food rules — and one of those holiday non-drinkers, to boot — I’m eager to share some thoughts with you about that.

…. later.

In the meantime, do you have any good New Year’s resolutions to share?

I mentioned a while ago that my boss and I had an article coming out in Harvard Business Review on the top five mistakes people make when changing jobs. Here it is — although, unfortunately, you have to be a subscriber or buy a PDF to read the whole thing.

There’s no Globe magazine today, hence, no column. Which means it’s the perfect time to do that lazy-writer gambit of “Top Posts from the Previous Year.”

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas, however you observed or did not observe it. We saw “Sherlock Holmes,” which I absolutely adored, and went for Chinese food, at which I had to be the one person who didn’t put her entree on the lazy susan, but hoarded it all to myself, which I hated to do. Because of my recent illnesses, I’m on a fair number of dietary restrictions right now (some permanent, some temporary). The food chapter of my book was one of my favorite ones to write, and I’ll be writing more here about food and courtesy and identity and priorities.

But for now, the top posts of 2009:

The lady who objected to popcorn at the movies.

A letter from someone who considers herself “unlikeable.” Folks, we helped this woman. She wrote me later and told me so. Y’all did some good here, you really, really did.

I’ve gotten to do so many things I want to do in life, but I have always wanted to be a casting director. My ideas for some great, unexpected casting. (Come on, Bill Clinton as Billy Flynn in “Chicago”? Are you telling me that wouldn’t be freaking awesome?) Feel free to add your own ideas in comments!

Do you look like you think you ought to? I don’t. I wouldn’t cast me to play me.

Etiquette for laid-off friends.

What does “wasting time” mean?

How advice columns work (and what makes for a good question).

An explanation of the Jewish High Holidays.

Dealing with a chronic illness.

Metaphors, cognition, and why I couldn’t get a cab in Brooklyn.

Writing isn’t a thing you do, it’s how you do it.

Thoughts on Aspergers … and some more.

Why what is hurtful isn’t always rude, and vice versa.

Is narcissism the new humility?

Marine etiquette and communication styles.

What’s your real job?

If there are any topics you’d like me to write about in the coming weeks or months, leave ‘em in comments! (That’s if you just want to hear me muse, of course. Specific etiquette questions should be sent to missconduct@globe.com.)

So, here’s the thing about Christmas this year … I’m kind of getting into it. It’s weird to be surrounded by a holiday you don’t celebrate, and that is pretty much impossible to ignore. Dare I say, my own odd fashion, I’ve got a bit of empathetic Christmas spirit this year? When I wish people a Merry Christmas, it’s more than an automatic “How are you?” or “Take care!” — I’m finding myself really hoping that they’ll have one.

And a good bit of that is due to you, my readers.

Christmas when I grew up was a Big Deal, but not a religious deal. As I noted, I was raised in a fundamentalist church in which December 25 was not celebrated as the birth of Jesus, because the Bible didn’t say that’s when he was born. My parents, lapsed Catholics, were fine with that, and put on a spectacular, secular, Santa kind of holiday. The ConductMom in particular is a baker and confectioner of remarkable skill, and every weekend and evening from Thanksgiving on she would be in the kitchen, making a dozen or so of the favorites and trying out another dozen or so experiments: cookies, candies, fruitcakes, and more. The day itself was a celebration of plenitude — or crass consumerism, if you’re one of those types, but there was more to it than that. There were secrets and surprises and stories. And prosperity — we lived modest lives by many standards, but better than most of the world, and better than either of my parents grew up with — is something to celebrate, when that celebration is done with generosity and gratitude.

As I got older, traditions changed: instead of leaving milk and cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve, we’d go out for a movie and pizza. Or have guests over for eggnog and cookies, and then break out a bottle of champagne after they left, and each have a glass while we opened one, carefully selected, present. (We weren’t being selfish about the champagne; as I mentioned, we attended a strict church and not everyone drank, and those who didn’t generally preferred not to know about those who did.) As I got to be more interested in clothes than in toys, and inherited my mother’s instincts for a bargain (though never, regrettably, her skill with molten chocolate) another tradition emerged: she’d keep some of the Christmas budget reserved for post-holiday sales, and we’d hit the malls together.

Christmas was good, when I was a kid, and a teenager, and even a young adult. I missed out on the official “reason for the season,” but that doesn’t mean I didn’t find spiritual meaning in it — if anything, I’m a little bit better at finding spiritual meaning when I have to make it up as I go along. Christmas wasn’t about the birth of the savior for us, but about the ongoing condition of being saved — from poverty, from dysfunction, from hunger, from abuse — and about telling the same stories over and over again every year, about making traditions and keeping them flexible enough to accommodate our changing needs, about measured excess, a little bit of going overboard just for the fun of it, as well as to remind us of the more reliable joys of moderation.

It sounds so Jewish when I put it like that.

Away from my family, that magic faded. I wasn’t a child, or a mother, or a Christian, and thus even before I began my conversion process, Christmas had become the typical adult experience, more about logistics (“Okay, we’ll see your family in the morning, and then mine in the afternoon, but I’ve heard our friends will be in town, so let’s try to sneak off early and go to a bar or something with them”) and obligations (“What should I get for Dad this year?”). Travel arrangements and trying to figure out gifts that would fit a grad student’s budget and also pack well.

Still, the first Year without a Santa Claus was a surprising one. I hadn’t converted yet, but I knew I was going to. I was engaged to and living with Mr. Improbable at the time, and flat-out engaged with and living my dissertation. So on December 25, I got up as I had every morning that week, made myself a grilled cheese sandwich and a sliced apple, and started entering data. Around noon or so, Mr. Improbable said, “So, does it feel weird?” “I feel like the most freakin’ dedicated graduate student in the world!” I yelped. I was entering data on Christmas Day, like a little Cinderella of the social sciences!

After that, my feelings about Christmas continued to evolve. The next year I was very militant and angry about it — get your damn hegemonic holiday out of my face, already. By the following year I’d calmed down a bit, and figured, hey, look at all the pretty lights on the trees and free cookies in the office, and no pressure on me to do much of anything. That’s a bit of all right. We started our own tradition, of a movie and Chinese food with a small group of friends, and that’s been something to look forward to.

But this year … I don’t know. It’s changed. Learning from all of you what you love and dread about the holiday. What it means to you. Knowing that I am in the prayers of strangers I may never meet. Knowing the terrible losses some of you are facing this season, and your extraordinary courage to light a candle rather than to curse the darkness. Seeing from my diverse network of Facebook friends the childlike joy a 30-year-old man can take in the prospect of snow on Christmas Eve, the delight of seeing your child in a Christmas pageant, the pride of creating a beautiful home filled with presents and food and good smells to welcome friends and families. The memories of loss and pain, as well as joys, from Christmases past. The stresses. The difficulties of balancing “Jesus Christmas” and “Santa Christmas.” The extraordinary psychological and spiritual work of those who have needed and managed to break from their family of origin and create a new family, and celebrate Christmas within its loving embrace.

And the tiny joy, for me, of sending a cousin of mine a Christmas present — nothing big, just a couple of novels I think would appeal to him, that are obscure enough he might not encounter them on his own for a couple of decades — knowing that it would be a complete surprise, that he wouldn’t feel obligated to get me anything in return, that we hadn’t set up some kind of tradition where we now have to exchange gifts, inspired or not. Just a little token from the heart, with no strings attached.

Christmas isn’t part of my religion. But it’s part of my culture, and part of my past, and this year, I feel ready to own that, with no betrayal at all of who or what I am.

From the depths of my Jewish soul to you, Christian or atheist or Muslim or Jew or pagan:

Merry Christmas. God bless us, each and every one.

The action today is over on my other blog, where I’m conducting (heh, get it?) an Airing of Grievances, Festivus-style. Go! Kvetch! See you back here in a day or so.

The blogs that I like best, like Andrew Sullivan‘s and Ta-Nehisi Coates‘s, bounce around to a bunch of different topics, more or less like I do. The fact is, though, it’s easier for a new blog to get attention if it’s specialized: fashion, politics, sports, science, Christian, literary, whatever.

But don’t worry. Although I’m pretty sure no one has covered this niche, the preponderance of posts having to do with dogs and/or springtime-green coats is not going to become the sole focus of this blog. But at the risk of beating the topic to death, I did want to share a couple more pictures that I found of Milo and me while perusing my hard drive.

I’d lived in Boston for a good 10 years before succumbing to the need for a puffy coat, but having a dog who requires a morning walk quickly made it obvious that fashion was going to have to take a back seat to necessity. So I chose — of course! — a nice springy green one from Land’s End L.L. Bean. It arrived in the mail, and I tried in on, and then came upstairs to model it for Mr. Improbable and Milo.

Milo, whom we’d only had for a few months, completely flipped a nutty when the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Woman came at him. The hood covered my face, and the strong plastic-y odor of the coat’s wrapping masked my own smell.

Once he realized it was me, of course, we made up.

Take a look, though, at his body language in that first picture. That is one scared dog. Look how far down his ears are tucked, how much eye-white you can see, how his hindquarters are bunched under him, ready to protect his vitals, or to spring. Everyone knows to beware of a dog that is snarling, hackles up, baring its teeth. But a dog who looks like Milo does here can be just as dangerous, if not more so. The vast majority of the time, a normal dog’s aggression is not driven by “dominance” issues, but by fear.

Kind of like people.

So maybe the next time you’re faced with an angry coworker, or in-law, or child, if you can, take a step back and ask yourself what’s really motivating them. Often, treating angry people as though they are afraid can be a remarkable way of defusing tension.

Any pagans, Wiccans, pantheists, followers of Native American spirituality in da house? Now’s the time to throw your hands up and delurk. Tell me a little about yourself, what your tradition means to you, maybe toss in a link to a book or blog you like? I am down with the Abrahamic faiths, and I know a little bit about Buddhism and Hinduism, but the nature-based religions are, for the most part, a mystery to me. (I have read Margot Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon, so I know a bit about Wicca.) As someone who was raised Christian and converted to Judaism, the idea of non-text-based religion is a little hard to get my mind around.

If you’re in the broom closet, of course, you can post anonymously. I’m certainly not going to out you. And I’d really like to know who’s out there. I know I’ve got a fair number of Christian, Jewish, and atheist/agnostic/ignostic readers, and a handful of Muslims as well. Who else is out there? I’ll light a candle for you on this longest night if you’ll light one for me.

Look, I never said springtime green is the right look for everyone:

… is online here.

I often have to edit questions for length, and the question from the woman who is often “accused” (her words) of being pregnant was one of them. The full question was as follows:

I am a petite female who has put on a little weight as of the last year. The problem with this, is that I get all my weight in the front, which is bad enough. However, the icing on the cake has been that every week, there is a new stranger asking me, “When are you due?” I have an identical twin who is a bit smaller than me, but gets the same questions (just not as often). I have no ring on my finger, and several friends and family say that I do not look pregnant, just “fluffy.” And with the most recent pregnancy accusation made by an obstetrician – I am angry. It was funny before (I joked that it was a cheeseburger I just ate – which I had ate the night before), but now it has gotten out of hand. My question is, since when is it okay to ask if someone is pregnant when they could very clearly just be a little bit overweight? Also, what is the appropriate reaction? I would love to point out their flaws (i.e. a big nose, hairy ears, whatever), but I just smile and say “no, sorry,” as if it is my fault.

First of all, I am in no way denying or minimizing this woman’s frustration, so let’s get that out of the way. I’m an advocate or ally or member or whatever you want to call it of the Fat Acceptance movement, which I’ve been quite public about, and if I put a foot wrong here, I hope my FA buddies will call me out on it so I can get my head straight.

I was bothered, although I didn’t address it in my answer, by the “I have no ring on my finger” statement. Not all pregnant women are married, and not all married women wear their rings during pregnancy, if they’re prone to gaining weight or retaining water in their hands.

Also, of course your friends and family are going to say you don’t look pregnant. That’s the kind of thing friends and family do. But if you’re being asked every week — and by an obstetrician, no less! — then, hon, you look pregnant. Which doesn’t make it any less annoying, I’m sure, but everything is at least a little bit easier to cope with when we’re not in denial about it.

Last week, I got my hair done, and my hairdresser looked … fluffy. Really fluffy. I hadn’t seen her for a while, and I knew she’d had a baby eight months ago or so. With this question on my mind, of course, there was no way I was going to presume anything, so I greeted her and said, “What’s new?” She looked down at her belly and then at me as though I’d grown two heads and replied, “I’m expecting again, obviously.” She thought it was pretty funny when I explained my trepidation.

So here’s a question: what are, and are not, appropriate comments to make on another person’s appearance? I’d say both weight gain and loss are off the table entirely. (I used to be more on the fence about weight loss, but both learning more about FA — and also having the unpleasant experience, recently, of being congratulated on weight loss that is the result of illness — has changed my mind on that.) Even if someone is losing weight on purpose, there is a chance they will gain it back, and yesterday’s compliments may make them feel even worse.

Deliberate changes in appearance — new hair color or cut, new eyeglasses, contacts — seem like fair game, as long as this doesn’t involve insulting the way the person used to look. “Thank God you’ve finally gotten rid of the grey!” is not how we compliment a good dye job.

But what other general principles are there?

I think this is an area of social behavior where my own parameters are a little bit skewed from the norm. As I’ve mentioned before, I used to be a theater person, and still am at heart. And theater people, because their body is their instrument, can be extremely straightforward about assessing their own appearance and that of others. You have to know what you look and sound like and what kind of persona you project, and if you’re getting it wrong, a good friend or mentor will tell you, in no uncertain terms. There isn’t time for tact and “everyone is beautiful” happy talk when careers are at stake. Sometimes, in fact, given that I hope to do more television and public speaking, I wish I could get that kind of unvarnished feedback again. Maybe I’ll ask my actor friends, if I can convince them to treat me like one of them, and not like “Miss Conduct.”

But outside the greenroom — what’s polite and what isn’t?

Response was good for my fashion blogging debut on Monday, so I think I may keep this as an occasional feature. Thanks for your kind responses, everyone!

Today I thought I’d mix up two great internet traditions and do street-fashion blogging AND dog blogging at the same time. My Monday post was about the power of dressing against the season, with glamorous blacks in summer and springy pastels in winter. Well, peep this little lady who totally gets the concept:

This is Penny. Penny is owned by a good friend of mine in New York, who got her as a rescue from a puppy mill. When she first came to my friend, Penny was sick, underweight, terrified of humans, and her back legs were so weak from living in a tiny cage with her own filth that she could barely walk. She was too afraid of life to even stand up — when you stand up is when they do the Bad Things to you. Penny is also blind, which means one of three things: 1) she was blinded by someone, 2) she went blind because she didn’t receive veterinary care when she needed it, or 3) she was born that way, and a puppy mill used her for breeding anyway, despite her genetic defect.

Well, look at her now, owning the mean streets of New York! (All right, the gentrified streets of Park Slope, but don’t mess with my narrative.) Penny’s all right. My friend says that springtime green just somehow is Penny’s color, and I can see why. Penny’s like those shoots of grass that come up through the sidewalk in April. Fragile, vulnerable, delicate, but with enough hope and strength and spirit to bust through concrete.

If Penny’s story upsets you, don’t ever buy a dog from a pet store or a “backyard breeder.” Get a reputable breeder, or better yet, get a rescue dog.

And get some clothes that make you feel as good as Penny does in this picture:

Penny says, “I don’t have to see to know I’m lookin’ fly!”