2001-12-15 - 5:15 a.m.

Please don't crash

OK, hopefully third time's the charm. Twice in the last four days I've tried to add entries and been thwarted. Apparently Photoshop just can't resist crashing my computer when it feels neglected. I look forward to getting this house bought so I can upgrade my PC to something XP-friendly.

Luckily I haven't been up to much. Work, Xmas shopping, a bout of weekend illness that kept me off the social scene for a while... fun! Back even before that, I got to hang with Marc and Stacy for a while, and tonight I had dinner with Danno, Jill, and Kris, so maybe this weekend will be better.

This week will definitely be better. Instead of trying to take an entire week of for Xmas, I'm taking parts of three weeks off, so from now until the second week of January I won't have to work more than three days in a row. Hopefully that will give me a chance to recover from an unpleasant year at the office.

I got a delightful Xmas present from Mechaiah (thanks, dearie!) and then had spasms of Xmas confusion. Who else might suddenly decide to send presents this year? My barbarian tribe's devotion to potlach requires me to reciprocate in all cases, but on the other hand pre-emptively buying a worthwhile present for everyone I know would be financially tricky.

So for some cases I'm just saying "Well, I didn't know we had a present-giving relationship, how delightful! I'll go reciprocate so as to indicate that this is a welcome thing" and in some other cases I guess I may say "sending gifts is no substitute for not being a better friend all year" and let the chips fall there they may.

Minor moral: Being friends with Mechaieh leads to a life of pleasant surprises.

Major moral: The holidays become more endurable when taken with a side order of scorn and contempt, just like everything else.

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