What a difference a year makes

Last year at this time I was shopping on my "lunch" break (really more of a brunch break) in part to have human contact because I was feeling a tinch isolated in the home office. I really got a lot of Christmas shopping done because I was in stores at a time when most people weren't, and it was a little heavenly. This year I'm constrained to shopping on evenings and weekends with predictable results -- a case of severe misanthropy combined with a certainty that I'm single-handedly propping up the economy.

That's okay, though, I'm sure the feeling will pass soon. And then I'll have a brief reprieve until September 2008 when the chipper retailers will begin pumping Christmas songs on the Muzak again.