It's 3:38 AM.

I've been shopping online for gifts for my family, and my computer is very slow.

I started out drinking tea with St John's Wort, but now I'm polishing off the beer we've had since Thanksgiving.

This Xmas I'm turning my nephew on to Ryan Adams (he expressed interest), and I'm buying my soccer-loving niece a book about Mia Hamm. My baby nephew is getting Jason Falkner's Beatles covers album, and my toddler niece and nephew are getting a yoga-related board game. The inlaws are getting weird clocks and lamps, and for everyone else, I'm making lip balm. I love lip balm, it is the force that drives me.

I'm listening to the Rufus Wainwright album that came out this year, and it so impossibly beautiful. I mean, I can barely stand to listen to it. Beauty and ecstasy are so disturbing.

I have guarded myself against any beauty or ecstasy that might crop up.