Lord, do I hate snow. Specifically, I hate driving in snow. I've discovered that ze little purple car can't handle snow at all. Nothing too serious yet, but I've already done more 180s in the middle of intersections than I'm really prepared to admit.

***

I asked D. last night when we should exchange our gifts. He immediately disappeared into the bedroom, and came out with my presents. He'd attached some of George's kitty toys to them, because he knew I always insist on bows on every single thing I wrap. I cracked up for about five minutes. One of the toys was a ball that looks like it's made out of crumpled colored foil, and the other one was a bunch of tubes and bells all tied together. The presents looked surprisingly cool. Maybe some year when I have extra money, I'll buy a bunch of funky kitty toys for the sole purpose of present decoration.

He'd gotten me two PlayStation games, a drippy candle designed to be played with (It's a sickness I have. I can't ever leave a candle alone. Hot wax kicks ass.), and a Waldenbooks gift certificate. How cool is that?

I actually felt kind of bad. He probably spent about twice as much on me as I did on him. But, one of the games is one that we'll both play, so I guess that makes it ok.

I'd gotten him the new Lara Croft game (Running joke: Every sinlge year for the last five years now, I've given him Lara for Christmas. I honestly don't know what I'll do if they ever stop making them.) and a poseable Diablo guy. It was a much cooler present when I bought it a month ago. He hardly ever plays anymore. But, as soon as that expansion comes out, he'll probably play again, and then he'll have a Spooge to sit on Bob's computer.

(All during the whole Everyone-is-playing-Diablo scene, everyone else would make a character, play for a few days, and then make a new one and start over. But D. only had Spooge. Spooge was a Barbarian. Spooge had an axe. Spooge reached almost unholy levels of damn near everything. So, I saw the Barbarian figurine, with an axe, and I knew I had to buy it. How could I have known he wouldn't really keep playing forever?)

Oh, I also got him a bong. For some reason, all of our paraphenelia keeps migrating over to Chez Dante. The steamroller is there. My hookah, that I mostly just kept clean cuz it was cool enough to even own one, and besides, the bowl is too damn large for everyday use, lives over there now. The purple pipe keeps going back there, even though I make the concentrated effort to bring it home every time I see it there.

(Funny story about that pipe. I'm feeling chatty tonight, so I'll share it with you. When I was dating Kehl, (long, long ago, in a galaxy far far away...) I was just starting to get heavily into the whole drug thing. He bought a purple pipe, because he claimed a chamber pipe was infinitely cooler than the cute little pink and blue number I'd picked out for myself, and actually thought was pretty neat. That's just the kind of guy he was.

We broke up. Time passed. Three years later, D. and I got a package in the mail from Arthur. In the attached note, Arthur explained that he'd been holding onto some stuff for Kathryn for about two years, and it was taking up space he required for other purposes, so he sent it to us. Down at the bottom, wrapped in about a mile of aluminum foil, we found Kathryn's pipes. One of these was purple, and looked suspiciously like Kehl's. It made sense to me. Kehl dropped out of the Tau drug scene right after I dropped him, and Kathryn was one of the few people who didn't think he was completely psychotic and without a soul at that point. So, I owned this pipe that I was pretty sure had originally been bought, if not for me, than at least to impress me. Cosmic.

Two years later, that purple pipe was the only thing that didn't get taken when the nice police officers stopped by for a visit. (Oh, and that's another story. I was burning strawberry incense. STRAWBERRY, I TELL YOU! One of our neighbors reported a suspicious smell. The nice policemen came, and found nothing. I explained about the incense, and even showed them the incense stem. I really thought we were going to get away with it. Then, while the first officer was just about to apologize for disturbing us, the second one opened the wrong drawer. The purple pipe was probably buried in the couch at the time, so it escaped.)

The point is, this purple pipe and me, we go way back. We've got a history. And now D. keeps trying to abandon it at Vincent's every chance he gets.

The real point, before I got sidetracked by all the ancient history, is that D. and I were always finding ourselves all set for a cozy evening at home, and then realizing that once again, D. had left the pipe over at Vincent's. So, I went out and bought him a bong.

Two weeks ago, Rick randomly came up for a visit. I came home from somewhere, and found my living room full of incredibly cool people, passing around a one hitter, because it was all they had. Silly rabbits. So, I made D. open that one present early, after telling him that it absolutely would not leave our apartment, ever, under any circumstances.

***

So anyway, that was Christmas, part one, for me. I'm working all damn weekend, and D.'s parents are going to take him away from all of this tomorrow. I hope he's back by Monday. I don't think we've actually spent a Christmas apart since we started dating. In past years, it was Christmas Eve with his family, and Christmas Day with mine, (or more specifically, with my Dad's family. But that's an entirely new can of tinsel, and I want to wrap this up...) but now his sister lives about two hours away, and she wants to host Christmas this year. Feh.

***

D. just got off the PlayStation. My turn. More later.

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