December 31, 2002 - 10:38 a.m.

Evil Gifts and the Status Quo

So, this weekend, I attended the second annual Secret Satan party, thrown by my friend Emily. Yes, you read that correctly, Secret SATAN. The idea is to give an awful gift rather than a nice one, with the idea that much laughter will ensue. This year, since not everyone knew one another, we didn't draw names and buy gifts for specific people like a normal secret santa style event. Instead each person brough a more generally evil gift and we then had a Yankee swap. For the uninitiated, here's how a Yankee swap works. First an order for choosing gifts is established, usually by drawing numbers. The person #1 chooses a gift from the pile and opens it. Person #2 then chooses a gift from the pile and, BEFORE opening it, decides whether to keep it or take the gift unwrapped by #1 (in which case #1 opens the gift from the pile. Person #3 can then choose to opne a new gift or trade for any gift already opened, and so on until everyone has a gift. The process can be quite fun in itself, but with the hysterically awful gifts involved it got even funnier. "Please, take the Hamsterdance CD, I beg you!" "No, you really want the photo of Gearge W Bush in pink gel frame; you know you do!" Those two items were actual gifts from the party and are good examples of the spirit involved. I ended up with a DVD of four short "adventure films": Rescue from Gilligan's Island, Over the Hill Gang, Seven Lucky Ninja Kids, and White Fang to the Rescue. Anyone want to come over for movie night? :) The gift I brought was a big hit as well, the N'Sync inflatable armchair, which cost me $2.99 plus tax. Other lovely presents were a DVD called Kickboxers from Hell, an N'Sync marionette, a vinyl bag with sparkly hair gel and a vinyl Xmas thong, a Spam calendar, and an insect cuisine cookbook. I love my crazy friends! It was a really fun party, and I suspect it will be repeated again next year.

Not much to report about yesterday's lunch with the BIA. Maybe by "We should talk" he just meant chitchat, because that was all we did. It was nice to catch up a bit and just hang out together - I've missed his sense of humor and his unique perspective. I admit that I had hoped for more than a casual lunch, though. I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but it didn't materialize. Now I just have the New Year's Even party at our friend Jess' place to get through. Not sure whether I want to get really drunk or whether that would just be a bad idea with him around. Mostly I plan to have fun with the other people there and try not to think about the relationship problem too much.

I've also come up with a game plan for coping with the situation from now on, barring a sudden resolution in the next few weeks. I'm far from ready to give up on what I had with Sam, but with the possibility that things may not work out, I feel I can't put my life on hold indefinitely either. So, I am going to try to get out more and be open to meeting people. I am not going to actively seek out someone to date, just expand my circle of aquaintances and keep an open mind. If I meet someone nice and want to go out to a movie or something, I will. With my track record, the option won't even arise for some months - combination of me being a bit of a homebody and being picky - but I will have put the gears in motion in the event I need to take the plunge back into the dating game. Sounds good in writing, we'll see how well I can actually put it into effect. Hopefully, my good friend, Torie, who is single will be my ally in the process. I envision us going out for karaoke in the near future. :)

today's project: a shopping trip to Best Buy for CDs and DVDs to round out the Christmas loot

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