Tonight's Bubonic Mouse™ award goes to Colortyme—and, by proxy, every other rent-to-own shop in northeast Alabama with nasty guilt-tripping ads.

The first thing I heard in my car this morning was a spiel about how you should placate your family this holiday season. For your wife, buy her a bedroom suite to keep her quiet. For your children, a Playstation 2 to stop their whining.

Then it finished with the following jingle:"It's not what you thought.
It's what you bought."

Well, it was bound to happen eventually, but I'm surprised that it took this long. I've been found.

Someone who knows me from back home sent me a "Who are you?" email to one of my domesticat addresses. It's a disturbing feeling to see a name in your inbox that you haven't thought about in years, and to realize that because of the privacy precautions you've taken, that they don't know who you are. Gotta love having a very common first name while not making your surname public. This person correctly recognized that if I grew up in the [very small] town that I claim I did, and attended the [very small] high school that I attended, that she must undoubtedly know me.

She is correct.

I answered the email; I wonder if I'll regret doing so. I think Jeff wishes that I hadn't replied; I've said some pretty personal stuff on domesticat about a lot of things going on in my life, and I think he's concerned that some people (read: my family) might be offended or hurt.

The Christmas tree stands in the far corner of my living room, rising silently above the round tree skirt my mother quilted for me. We placed the crystal ornaments one by one on the tree, moving them close to the white and blue lights, to allow the lights to shine through them as much as possible.

I got my car back this morning. I doubt that many people would rejoice over the return of a six-year-old underpowered purple Sundance…but it's my car, and I've actually rather missed having her around. I always thought people were joking when they said that their cars developed character as they aged; now that I own an aging car, I understand.

It's a bit odd to be sitting here right now. Big Spring Jam is quickly gearing up—Huntsville's annual music festival is less than half a block away from where I'm sitting right now. I've been listening to Michael McDonald do his soundcheck. There's a surreal quality to all this.

Sean has arrived. We spent a good while pestering each other today while I was ostensibly working.

I have a few minutes left before the end of my workday, so I'm going to sit here, look occupied, and type out today's random thoughts. I promise that I'm over my depravity from yesterday; it would take a while to explain why in the world I posted what I did, but suffice it to say, it was just one of those things that, once you heard about it, is hard to get off your mind.