I've been really busy lately, thus lack of updates. I shall try (and fail) to be succinct.

Last night was the office Christmas party, which was an absolute blast (as usual). I'm glad to have such good employers and such likable coworkers (for the most part, anyway). Lots of family members were there too, such as Andrew's parents (Jeff, they asked a lot about you). Food and drinks were awesome as usual, and much fun was had.

I'm looking forward to giving out gifts, there are quite a few this year that I know will please people.

I don't consider myself to be an outgoing person by nature, in fact, I'm quite an introvert at heart. Sometimes I border on downright autistic tendencies. So, as I've mentioned before, it began to surprise me when a few years ago people started referring to me with such words as "confident", "outgoing", and even "personable". Baffling. And I've realized that socializing is a skill that, like others, I've been able to hone somewhat if I approached it as an intellectual pursuit. My naturally shy tendencies and broad hatred of the public at large can be melted away using this approach.

But socializing can be a mentally taxing, tiring activity. An activity which, if I'm forced to mingle with people I've virtually nothing in common with, and whose social behaviors I can hold in very little other than utter contempt, and whose voices grate on me like 50-grit sandpaper, is wholly exhausting. Particularly when those aforementioned persons have had far too much to drink and are exceptionally loud.

I certainly don't mean to come across as an elitist, or a snob. I don't delight in putting people down. I don't act to be cruel. However, there are times when I feel like an absolute alien among other human beings. Before I learned subtle social nuance, when I was a shy, clutzy, grasping conversationalist, people made no bones about pointing out what an absolute doofus I was at expressing myself in groups (there is, one particular comment from one of you that stung me so hard it's burned into my memory still today).

So after working so hard to better myself at expression, not for me, but for everyone else in this world who seemed intolerant of any degree of social roughness, I find I can't abide someone who hasn't figured out by now what bad form it is to be a loud, beer-reeking drunk at a classy Christmas party.

Does that make me a hypocrite? A bad person? A snob? Hmm, perhaps. If so, I beg your forgiveness. But keep this in mind: that difficulty in chewing the fat; that taxing fatigue I feel in socializing with the people I've no interest in; it forces me to pick and keep only the best of the best friends. If I'm keeping you close, or desperately trying to keep you close in this crazy-busy adult world, it's because you're one of the people whose presence is one of those oh-so-rare-in-this-world presences that does not grate on my mind with an unpleasant psychic dissonance. For me, you are one whose nearness is like a soothing balm on my brain after it has spent a day out in the "real world" being char-broiled by humanity's naturally inflammatory ethos.

So that's how I end a stressful encounter on a happy note: I love my friends and family. Thank you.