the period between thanksgiving and the start of the new year, known as the holiday season, is a very strange time. people's priorities change. on a very primal level, it's the coldest time of the year, and keeping warm becomes a dominant theme in everyday life. if you work (don't we all?), work becomes secondary, as most of your attention is shifted to focus on holiday activities. making travel arrangements for thanksigiving, buying presents for christmas (or hannukah, or whatever gift giving holiday that happens to coincide during this time of the year), making social plans for new year's eve. it seems like one month out of the year, western society is in a time out period. this year i feel like i'm weathering a holiday storm. i'm not trying to be a grinch, but i just wish the next 30 odd days will quickly go by so i can get on with the new year 2003.

i spent the whole day in my house, in one of three rooms: if i wasn't in the living room watching television or using the computer (tinkering with flash mx), then i was in the kitchen eating thanksgiving leftovers, or in the bathroom. i got up early enough to watch jenny jones. today's topic:

"You're No Perfect 10! I Think You're Frontin' About Playin' Men!"
Meet women who claim they play men for money and gifts, and give nothing in return. One guest suspects her friend is having sex in exchange for money and wants her to take a lie detector test. Her friend denies any foul play.

i hate it how the mob audience always picks on the fat girls. sure they're easy targets, but why don't the audience get creative, give themselves a challenge by harassing the girls who don't usually get picked on? i felt bad for the one fat girl on the show, even if she was a lying player wannabe.

i squeezed my own orange juice today. three sliced oranges and a couple minutes of squeezing only give about half a cup of o.j. it was pretty good o.j. though, i had some ripe oranges in the fridge. fresh squeezed orange juice is more of a novelty than a viable source of fruit juice. but you can get more natural, more old school, more "labor of love" than freshly squeezed.

my one good deed of the day: i called up my friend andrew morse (in new hampshire) from high school and informed him of our 10 year reunion tomorrow night in boston. i was happy to hear how excited he was and that he could actually go. i'm actually very nervous about going to the reunion, and even now i'm sort of hesitant. it's almost like a day of reckoning, where i meet everyone whom i went to high school with, and we all see where we ended up. now i'm going to say i won't be judgemental, but it's hard to be so objective about that like this. just seeing the rsvp list, it scares me to see so many people married already. it makes sense, this is about the age where most people get married, but matrimony is something that's just totally foreign for me. marriage, kids, house, a nice job. well, at least i got one out of those 4 things. i went to my 5 year reunion as well, but that wasn't anything very shocking, fresh out of college, people were different, but you could still see their former high school selves. but 10 years? a decade? that's a long time. at the very least the only two friends i've kept in contact with - andrew morse and adam smith - will be at this thing.

i better get some early sleep, a strange day is in store for tomorrow.

nznaqn enjfba v arire jnag gb frr lbh ntnva!