Another Christmas card, from someone whose name I vaguely remember, but can't picture at all. The card itself, a ghost of a Christmas spirit with a top hat, red scarf and candy cane - sort of like Topper (anybody remember Topper?) doesn't actually inspire me, so where do I go from here?

Well, let's catch up on the present. Sort of. Election day. I was precinct captain for a day for my precinct and the one next door to root out the Democratic vote. I rooted it out three times that day on foot and a couple of times by telephone. We still don't have a governor, but the "Fightin' 46th", as my legislative district calls its website, came through for Kerry. They haven't published the precinct numbers yet. Still a lot of absentee and provisional ballots being counted. I am lucky enough to live in Jim (Michael Moore's favorite congressman) McDermott's district. That fact alone makes me reluctant to move.

In the meantime, election recovery aside, I still haven't finished the goddam novel and one of my best friends has leukemia and one of my cats has thyroid problems and my ex-boyfriend is living on my couch.

On the bright side, it's only 35 minutes until a Stargate SG1 rerun, a new Andromeda - oh, hell, just a whole bunch of stuff on the SciFi channel. Goddess bless TV.

It was a big year for sleighs. Another Christmas card. A snowy village, complete with steepled church, each house painted a different color - gren, red, blue, purple. The church is yellow. These colors do not exist in settlement buildings outside of San Francisco. A horse and sleigh glide across the foreground. I wish I were in it. George Bush cannot possible be president of this pretty little land.

When I say "big year for sleighs", I forgot to mention yesterday that Harold sent me an almost identical card. So where was the little blue Chevy? Didn't they put those on Christmas cards? Imagine all the folks who made it for the first time in a sleigh.

I was once engaged to someone named Harold. We didn't call him Harry. I lost my virginity to Harold, in the back seat of his blue '56 Chevy. At least I did it in a classic car. On the other hand, no way I could have attained my present age without having done it in a classic car at some point. I suppose.

I went with him in high school. He was a "hood." Sort of. He had a blonde "Fonzi-do" - sort of. A buzz cut that went a little berserk at the top. A midwestern long hair. But all the hair stood straight up.

I didn't know what to say when he asked me to marry him before I left for college. That's when he asked me, not when he wanted to get married, although I suppose that would have been okay with him too. Seemed impolite to say no, when I'd been sleeping with him. And in those days, you didn't sleep with someone you didn't love. Not out loud, anyway. And I supposed I loved him, since I was sleeping with him, but secretly, way down deep inside, I knew I was only in it for the sex. Which I really, really liked.

I remember coming home after the first time and laying in bed, trying to feel different and special. I didn't. I just wanted to do it some more. In the meantime, I just went to sleep.

I have a Christmas card from him. He only signs it Harold, which I suppose means that I've already broken up with him. He gave me a ring from a store that gave Green Stamps. Anybody remember those? I returned the ring. Kept the Green Stamps.

Timely letter from Mom. I had a habit of acting out from time to time on my visits home, and I must have done so again at Thanksgiving, 1962.

She starts out with what a wonderful day it is, so beautiful, "what a day to be glad in."

Then she goes on:

"I hope that for your love of Larry you will change the kind of attitude you assumed last night. No man wants a brash, hard, cynical, unbeliever for a wife, honey - and I'm afraid it wouldn't be long until he would find you out if you continue to discipline yourself to selfishness and vulgarity."

Wonder if I was spouting Ayn Rand again (the old "virtue of selfishness" thang). Or confronting my father. Or just generally spouting whatever new philosophy I had come up with to argue against religion. "Brash, hard and cynical" huh. I suppose I was. Or was trying to be. And her last lines ring a bell. I WAS afraid he would find me out. Find out I wasn't as wonderful as he and his family all thought me to be. I knew I was a fraud. I wonder if those lines were not the beginning of my fear that I could never be what I thought he wanted me to be.