I returned to work this morning deliberately early. I�ve been gone an entire week, so I wanted to have coffee made and the goodies out that I purchased in Oregon while I was there for Christmas. The first thing I saw, however, is that my desk was piled with crap. It resembled the way I found it the day I began this job, though not quite as daunting. One word came to mind, and one word alone:

Floyd.

Floyd is a temp worker here, and as much as I want to like him, to bond and empathize with him (having worked temp jobs several months out of the year 2002), he continues to make it impossible by being, in general, unlikable. It�s not that he�s not polite because he generally is; it�s not that he�s incompetent because he generally isn�t, and it�s not that he�s lazy necessarily (though, I think it depends who you talk to about that). It�s just that he bugs. Floyd bugs me. He has this way about him that makes me feel as if he is seething underneath the surface, as if he harbors some intense hatred toward me and is letting it seep out in silence and sideways glances. Maybe it�s because they hired me outright and didn�t hire him. Maybe it�s because I�m getting accolades for my work and he isn�t. Maybe it�s because I won the football pool my first week here and he didn�t. Who�s to know for sure? All I know is I�ll be happy when they hire someone to fill the position he�s kinda been filling. He bugs me bad.

So� Christmas. Non and I had a great time in Oregon with my parents, my sister, my brother-in-law, The Boy, my brother and his girlfriend. It was so good to be around my sister again. We used to live about 45 minutes apart, and we�d see each other at least once a month. Of course, that was five years ago. Now, we live on opposite sides of the country and see each other once a year at best. I miss her, and I miss her sense of humor. She is so damn funny! I'm not nearly as funny as she is, not by half. If you�ve read her diary, you know what I�m talking about. Now multiply that level of funniness by twelve, and you�ve got her in person. She�s just so wonderfully, randomly funny. And she gave me the best bracelet ever. It�s big and bauble-y and orange-y/red-y/yellowish. She has one just like it; now we match.

The Boy (my nephew) is doing so well. He is eleven years old now and in sixth grade. They had him and I stand back to back and, you guessed it, we�re the same height. He�s fairly tall now, but when he hits those early teen years, he�s really going to sprout up. He�s so beautiful and sweet and funny and smart. Ah! I almost started to cry one morning while I was admiring him (of course, I was PMSing outrageously, too).

Something I did when I was home (i.e., at the parents) was to go through boxes of stuff from my childhood. Mom wants to clear excess stuff from her house (and who can blame her?), so I rifled through at least three boxes and one drawer�s worth of things and began making my �discard� and �keep� piles. Needless to say, my �discard� pile contained many more items than my �keep� pile. Whenever Mom would walk by she�d glance at some of the things I was throwing away, pull something from the pile and clutch it to her chest. �You�re not going to throw THIS away, are you?� If I kept everything that she said that about, there would�ve been virtually no need for me to sort through the stuff in the first place. She�s so crazy� in a good way. I love her. She and my Dad got Non some funny stuff for Christmas. I told her that he likes Scooby Doo (the original cartoon character), so I figured they�d get him something with that likeness on it. And they did, alright. They got him a Scooby-Doo Chia Pet. They also got him The Simpsons Shrinky Dinks (although I told her specifically that he wanted that). The gift that Mom instructed Non to open last turned out to be a 5� x 7� photograph (a professional photograph, mind you) of my parents wearing the getup they donned the first time they met him, complete with my father�s cardboard sign. Non, of course, loved it. See? I told you my parents are crazy in a good way.

In addition to the fantastic bracelet from my sister, my gifts included a dvd of the second season of Friends (which I started to watch yesterday), a really neat glasses/contact lens carrying case, some Aleph-bet flashcards from my nephew (that�s not a typo; they are Hebrew flashcards) because, as you might recall, Non is Jewish, an ornate and sparkly green hair clip, and a work-type suit from my mother which I ended up returning and stumbling onto a 50% off sale at which I ended up getting two pairs of pants, three shirts, and a blazer instead.

I took down the Christmas decorations today at work. I thought it would make me feel melancholy, but it didn�t. Actually, it made me feel good to get some of that clutter out of the front area that I occupy. I also watered the plant that�s on the table. I don�t know how I ended up being in charge of its well-being, but I�m not the best person for the job. I�ve never been, nor do I ever imagine I will be, a good plant person. I never know when or how much to water it, when or how much sunlight it should have, etc. Ah well. It was looking pretty bad.

I guess I couldn�t make it much worse.