Step two: Convince yourself that no, buying him a gift is just plain weird. How is that going to look, if you get him a Christmas present, and nothing for any of your other friends?

Step three: Well, that's easy. Gifts for everyone! Spend an hour on a slow Sunday at your bookstore job picking out stuff for everyone you know. Succeed on about half of them.

Step four: Take another long look at the original gift. It's a cheap gift, an empty gesture, and maybe not even that funny. Or maybe only funny in a even though you're strange, I do love you, look at all the real gifts now honey kinda way, that doesn't really apply anymore.

And that's about where things are. Oh, and the thing that's sorta earmarked for Hans is something I'd kinda like to keep for myself. I succeeded in buying a total of three gifts, and suddenly needing 4-5 others, including something for him. I think tomorrow I'll try to get to Chimera, see if anything jumps out at me there.

That's the cool thing about having a bunch of gamers for friends. You can reach a certain point, and then say "Screw it! Funny shaped dice for everyone!" Well, no. I'm sure I can do better than that.

The really annoying part of this is knowing I brought it all on myself. Not too long ago, I was secretly congratulating myself. All around me, chaos and drama. But my little corner of the world was finally a pretty good place. But noooo! I had to make things complicated. I hate my brain.

previous--next