For the past week, I've been hous­esit­ting for a friend. For the most part, it's been great. I've enjoyed my time alone. This is the first Christ­mas where I've waken up alone in a house that wasn't mine.

It's been a strange expe­ri­ence. But I have to say that I don't rel­ish the posi­tion of the rest of my fam­ily — run­ning around, try­ing to "plan" as best they can, shop­ping for peo­ple they see approx­i­mately once a year.

We attempted to cram the entire fam­ily as well as some friends into our house. It wasn't that hard to do, but the com­mo­tion of every­thing that was going on was a bit unset­tling. I tried my best to restrict my con­ver­sa­tions and activism to a min­imun. I don't know why, but I really just wanted to get every­thing over with. So after we opened presents and every­thing else sup­pos­edly asso­ci­ated with Christ's birth­day. Then I drove back to Charlotte's and went about my business.

About the only cool thing about Christ­mas this year was that it actu­ally snowed on Christ­mas for the first time in … well, years. Oh well. Guess I just wasn't in the spirit this year.