Well then.

I wrote a whole Christmas entry yesterday complete with photos and everything. That entry (thanks to my own endless supply of stupidity) will never be seen. Maybe I will get around to repeating myself later.

I'm pretty sure most of my friends hate me right now. I currently have 20 voicemails and I've yet to listen , much less respond, to a single one of them. Actually, I'm pretty sure my friends don't hate me because this is pretty common for me. I'm enjoying this quiet time terribly. I've left the house once since Christmas. I plan to go out for a bit this afternoon but just to get a few things necessary to finish up a couple of late Christmas gifts.

I'm going home for a few days in one week exactly. I'd love to say that it will be nice to get out of this city for a bit, but that would be a lie. I really like it here. I've yet to have that feeling of containment. Fortunately, I'm meeting J in New York after my stay at home.

Ugh, before I know it I'll be back in class.

Here's the real sad Christmas truth:

It's 7:17am and I've been up for almost exactly one hour. I want to run into the bedroom, jump onto the bed and shout "It's Christmas! It's Christmas! Santa came!" but I don't think sleeping boyfriend would like it. I hope this abolishes any thoughts of my dark Christmas spirit.

We had a very nice Christmas Eve. I spent $9.99 on a CD from iTunes just so I could buy Kelly Clarkson's O Holy Night. We made candy (buckeyes --apparently a midwestern thing because I'd never heard of them. I made one shaped like a penguin and named him Quigly the Peanut Butter Christmas Penguin). We also made an apple pie and a cherry pie. Then we watched The Phantom of the Opera (at my urging), Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (at J's urging), and Spanglish.

And now it's 7:25 and not really much later than it was when I sat down here. I don't think I've had this much excitement about Christmas since I was a kid. This is our very first Christmas together and I hope that we have many more just like this one. It really has been perfect.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and have a very nice day!

People.

Christmas is like 12 seconds away. Those of you expecting Christmas cards from me, well, don't. Here's the sad Christmas truth: After making a total of 70 hand-cut, hand-made, hand-embossed (and one hand-feathered --don't ask) cards I couldn't give two shits less about my friends and their lack of Christmas cardage.

Actually, that's a lie. I sent four cards. Four of them. One to each person from which I'd already received a card. And one to Kate, because she's special and lives in Canada and sometimes I forget which countries celebrate which holidays and I was afraid she might miss Christmas if I didn't remind her with a Christmas card. Also, just for the record, they were leftover cards from J's set last year. Because that's just how over Christmas cards I am right now.

Last night J called me a scrooge after I told him that I had the nearly uncontrollable urge to be unnecessarily rude to the entire staff at The Container Store just because they were all so fucking filled with holiday cheer.

I still love Christmas. I promise.

I am done, done, and done.

School is through and I can't help but think I've managed at least three A's. I'm pretty sure I got a B in Art History through the 15th century, but that is fine.

Now, one might think that it would be time to relax or do some holiday shopping or maybe even clean this slovenly hole that we usually call a home, but no. No, not so much. This is because, as I've said before, I seem to have a combination of rotten bananas and refried beans inside my head where a brain should be and actually thought it a good idea to agree to make a still undetermined number of rather stylish hand-cut, hand-made Christmas cards for a friend. Oh, and he'd love it if they could be FedEx'd today. This would not be such a hassle if, oh, I don't know, I was getting paid or something.

I will now show you my final photography assignment (which was not my final. That was a photo essay bound into a book that I was very pleased with, but have no desire to upload). I bit the bullet and did a self portrait. It's not great, but I'm pleased with it. It's very me, I think.

Almost in the clear.

Tomorrow is my last day of class. I just submitted my art history paper online and, believe you me, it feels great to have that big, ugly, Romanesque Vs. Gothic monkey off of my back. Now I just have to take one last photo for photography.

In light of this sudden and recent slowing down of all things academic, I've found the time to go back to my every day To Do list and see what's left to be done before Christmas. Upon opening up the file (I keep my To Do list in a Notepad document on my desktop) I found this rather cryptic item:

Buy that one last thing for J (You know, that thing)

Needless to say, I haven't the slightest clue what that thing is.

I don't have the time for java or joy.

Two more weeks of school left and I have roughly four million things to do, including but not limited to making and binding three books, designing and comping a shopping bag, shooting a photo essay, laying out an article about Orlando Bloom (I never thought I'd tire of looking at his pretty face), writing an art history paper, and throwing J an enjoyable birthday party (which will include handmade mini pizzas to each guest's liking, an orange orange cake, an alternate, more palatable dessert, and a very fancy card made by moi).

Also, I'm getting fat because I've eaten nothing but toast and Haribo Gummy Bears for a week.