It's Christmas Eve and I have to work.

Yesterday I did all my Christmas shopping--all of it. Kevin, the cute Barnes & Noble guy, made fun of me muchly for this. I couldn't hate Kevin, however, because he called all over Sioux Falls and managed to locate a copy of Kurt Cobain's Journals. With the tiny amount of money I had left, I bought myself a David Bowie t-shirt and that print of the turtlenecked hippie sticking flowers in the soldier's guns.

Joe bought me trinkets for Christmas--a gaudy quarter-machine ring to satiate my hunger for shiny things and a fucking awesome button with a 50's style waitress and the words "God knows when you don't tip." He bought me Napoleon Dynamite on DVD, which we are going to watch after work tonight, and he has promised me something else, which I will receive prior to movie-watching.

Antici..................................pation.

He and I have been dating for exactly nine days, and things are good. I have, unfortunately, hit a point wherein I don't really like my friends, and that makes me kind of want to cry. I've found that my social life is kind of hollow.

News of my various concert/partying exploits finally reached my hometown, and I suddenly find myself much more popular. Suddenly the Queen Bees are telling me that they like my shoes/shirt/bracelet/Levis. They're asking me which bands I like, where I got this or that, which show I'm going to attend next (December 26th, L.A.W./csnvtt! tour kickoff, the Urban Hermit). They wave me over at basketball games and introduce themselves to my boyfriend. They ask how I met him; they tell me, "He's so...cool." They pause and add, as an afterthought, "You're so...cool."

Since when am I the Cool Kid?

So that's my life right now, and I'm pissing myself off with my own dissatisfaction. Maybe it's the Christmas thing.

I kind of hate Christmas.