So here we are, a few days before Christmas 2007 … actually not even a few days … tomorrow is Christmas Eve already! My Christmas shopping culminated last night when I went out to five different Targets/Wal-Marts trying to find my nephew the WWE action figures he wanted. Of course, the popular list was already bought by other uncles and fathers and mothers and aunts. I got some things for him, but not what I wanted to find in particular. I know, and agree, with all of the sentiments that Christmas isn’t about the gifts and the items themselves, but that’s another lesson for another day.

Last week I found myself extremely bored with not having school. Justin and I were hoping to take advantage of our extra free time to actually associate with one another on more than just the weekends, but he’s been swammped with work — his job is in retail — so we haven’t had the time we both wanted, but that’s okay. I’ve been trying to use the time to hang out with some other friends whom I haven’t seen in awhile, such as Tim, Jamie, and David. Tim and I hung out at a local Starbucks and caught up on the last couple months, and I bought  cigar to smoke for the occassion – my first cigar in nearly two years. Can’t say that I enjoyed it that much; chalk it up to a youthful attraction or maybe just a bad cigar? Jamie called me the other day when I was at work, and she was visiting our mutual friend David Wheeler, the same lad whom I visited in Israel and then returned a few months ago, dissappeared, and was discovered in a local hospital sometime later with massive heart problems. In short, the three of us haven’t been together since Jamie split up with us to join her other friends at the Jaffa Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem back in April 2006. It was good to reminisce and talk about our walks along the coast of Tel Aviv, the one evening where Jamie cleaned David’s bathroom in his Haifa flat, our late-night conversations over Hookah on top of the bomb shelter, and our arguments at the Sea of Gailee. When David had his medical issue back stateside, he had some tempoary memory loss, so I did my work of jokingly trying to convince David of things that he never did and moments that never happened. He would always quickly catch on and punch me. Hey, it sounds cruel but David would be doing the exact same thing if the tables were turned!

This weekend I find myself starring at a five-day break from work, and no school. Just lots of holiday stuff. Normally, I would find this relaxing and take the opprotunity to get some writing work done. Not only can I not seem to get myself in the swing of things creatively, I am also having a hard time with the lack of structure at the moment. I can’t seem to calm down or truly relax. My empty house is alternating between welcome and depressing, and my moods are swinging between couch potato and social butterfly.

It’s emberassing to say the least, but it’s 1:31pm on Sunday and I still haven’t done anything save for putting my clothes in the dryer and taking the dogs out. I would finish wrapping my presents – only I decided to do all my shopping, for the most part, online this year, and am still missing several items! But there are the people I could hang out with, so I may make this a day for that. I need to visit my brother, my grandmother, David, and Linda. I want to visit all of these people, I’m just having a hard time getting moving! In any case, if I don’t get on here before then, have a Merry Christmas everybody!