Jingly jangly

I just figured it out. Why everything Christmas is so damn appealing to me right now: I don't have a job. While this puts a bit of a chink in my gift-buying routine, it also means this: I don't have an office.

Which means this: I don't have co-workers.

Which means this: No office party.

Read what The Cynical Girl has to say about that.

Unless, unless! I put in an appearance at Slim's (former co-workers being worlds less annoying than current ones) and I'm guessing no one asks me to make a copy in the middle of carving the turkey this year. But I exaggerate. Wildly.

No discussion of what to do for the office party, as if we were allowed to exercise judgment and do a single thing different from the year before. Meetings of the DOJ "kitty committee," as we were reluctantly known, a forced labor arrangement that involved purchasing large quantities of bagels, then putting up with the snotty attorney who simply must have her favorite flavor, and with the right kind of cream cheese, or she's destroyed...where was I? Oh yes, the "kitty committee" meetings are designed to maximize your migraine: three hours later, "now about the decorations - what did we do last year? Did we have lights or candles, I can't remember..."

Attending your fiancee's office party by choice, in all seriousness, is a different beast entirely from having to attend your own. I can drink too much and insult the boss (not too far from an ordinary work day at DOJ) and no fear of being fired. Who am I kidding, his boss is great and drinking gets me all sappy and silly. Well, no fear of facing people I got ridiculous in front of the night before, anyway. Small blessings are the best kind.

So. Here in Colombia, I'm insanely attracted to every single blinking light, every hint of possible jingly bells like music (so far, nothing), every family-oriented pastiche of holiday bliss, each whiff of cinnamon in the air. It's revolting.

Christmas last year, Dad's foot on film.

I love collecting, then wrapping, gifts. It's like when I was a kid and was always bribing Kathleen to play the packing game. Putting things into boxes has a strange meditative quality for me. Maybe I can get one of those jobs wrapping other people's gifts at the mall! It's clearly a symptom of my disease that I typed that sentence, click-clacking happily away. The mall. Good lord, it's worse than I thought.