2003-12-20 - 11:54 p.m.

But I needed that second cup of coffee, so I wrote down what I needed and where I needed to go to get it, and I plotted it, geographically, so that I would loop around and end at home. I also got the sure things first, the specific hat my cousin wants, a bag for Deb - and I knocked it all out, with a few fortuitous drive bys (waiting to cross the street at 15th, I looked west and saw a toy store - bingo, cross one off my list) I then went to Cr@te and B@rrel, blessedly the only big store I had to brave, and got a ton of stuff, including an invitation to a party tonight by the cute boy standing in front of me in line. And a boy he was, too - I was wearing my bucket hat, so my crows feet were probably in the shadows. .

I went to a glass ornament shop, S@von, an amazing soap and treatment shop, the hat shop, my friend B's store, the funky local jeweler.All within a 10 block radius, and I stopped and got coffee to walk at the diner, and a bagel, and had breakfast after the first drop off. Back out, finished up, got boxes, went grocery shopping and to Du@ne Re@de, came home and did the laundry, cooked dinner, went on an emergency wrapping paper run, and even did much of the boyfriends shopping for his family. Sucker. I do love the Christmas shopping, though, and he buys kind of generic gifts for his family, so I'll take that over. He'll owe me, though.

I just spoke to him, he had an exhausting day today (snowboarding) and I have to tell you, the occasional separate weekend is so good for me. I love the solitude, and we've had a busy few weeks of togetherness, and I've been able to be both productive and self-pampering. It feels decadent and restorative to me to have my own schedule, a whole two days to go to bed when I want and eat when I want, and write and putter around in my pajamas. And I miss the boyfriend, and appreciate him anew - when we're apart we talk on the phone three or four times a day, and the last one, before one of us goes to bed, is the one when I can literally feel my heart swell when I speak to him.

And tomorrow, I'm going to drive out to NJ and bake cookies and have dinner with my parents and my grandmother. June is beside herself, this is the thing she loves about Christmas, the rituals we do together. The ones I wrote about yesterday, that I can't seem to do myself. I can go to them, though, and I'm looking forward to it.

Tonight, I'm here in my pajamas, with the tree lights on and an amazing Christmas Candle burning, and I am DONE shopping and DONE wrapping, the gifts piled up around the tree. And I feel damn good. Merry merry.

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