she wears high heels when she exercises

I hung out with Katie today, which was delightful. It's fantastic to have a friend who has known me forever and with whom it is always the same--regardless of how long we have been separated (in this case, a year, and we didn't see each other all that much last Christmas either) or what has happened in the interval (I spent six months in India while she lost her apartment and her school in Hurricane Katrina), we still come back as though we were never parted.

Maybe it helps that we are driven to each other by our lack of other friendships in town; we were never quite the thing in high school, and our subsequent (childless) experiences make us less-than-normal when compared with our classmates. Anyway, she spent some time at my house this afternoon, and then we went to the library. There's nothing like some trashy romance novels to make my Christmas vacation complete, and so tonight I read the one that I picked up today. It was acceptable, but not great, and reminds me that I need to finish writing mine. I had a flash of inspiration regarding an upcoming plot twist in my novel, which made me realize that I need to slightly rework the geography surrounding MacCabe's Highland fortress--a reworking that shouldn't be a problem since the book is still in its relative infancy. After we hung out at the library, we went to the pizza place in town, where I had the first meal that didn't involve some form of Christmas leftovers since Christmas day. Not that I mind Christmas leftovers; quite the contrary, I love all of it and am sad to see them go. But, they must go, if only to make room for the veritable feast that we're having with Katie, her father, and our neighbors tomorrow night, followed by the belated Christmas lasagna with my grandmother on Friday. Mmmmm.

If only my hometown were filled with a dozen people who were like Katie, or my friends in California, I think that I could move home and be blissfully happy. Alas, that's not to be, so we will have to see where life takes me. Now, though, it should take me to bed, since I have to get up tomorrow (the horror!) and bake a lemon cake for tomorrow night's dessert. Goodnight!