The day after: Thanksgiving. A gluttonous event. Fortunately for me, I was invited to dine at a friend's house, so I was spared the hours of labour preparing the food. Additionally, my refridgerator is bare. There are no containers of mashed potatoes, yams, and sweet potatoes. No green bean casserole, corn-bread stuffing, or cranberry sauce. No carcass of a once-plump turkey drying out on the shelf, dreaming of becoming a soup. And while I may secretly mourn the absence of pumpkin, pecan, and apple pies adorning my counters, I am also secretly pleased that my will-power will not be tested by their presense.

And, blissfully, I worked today, whilst so many others went to Meier and Franks, Walmart, and Best Buy at 6 am, armed with rebates and coupons and self-propelled shopping carts. An orgy of conspicuous consumption at its best, the Day after Thanksgiving is a shopping extravaganza that most people would find shameful if they stopped long enough to consider the balances on their credit cards. But most people are sheep, and the media and advertisers have been pushing shopping, the credit cards have been raising limits and lowering rates, and the economists have been making dire predictions about the consequences of poor consumer spending at the holiday season. Most people feel obliged to go shopping.

Ah well. Tough to be a thinking individual in this day and age. If I voice these thoughts most consider me a scrooge, a pessimist, or worse. Some days I just don't think. I close myself off from the Outside and live in my own world, surrounded by books, plants, computer paraphernalia, and my lover's arms.