Laziness and weirdness

So. Laziness: I am a shining example this week. Granted, my stomach has felt like it had Alien in it, so that has severely limited what I did this week, as until yesterday, I never knew when I was going to have to run for a bathroom... Ick. However, am finally starting to feel normal today, and I have plans for tonight and the weekend. Tonight is a friend's birthday, and another from the residence, and I, will be taking her out to dinner. Then tomorrow, the Chargez d'Affaires at the embassy she is interning at is hosting a parilla and she invited me to join her. Fancy that, me going to a parilla at the residence of a ranked embassy official. I had to give my full name to my friend, because the CdA needed a list of all the guest's full names. Cursory background check? Or just a desire to know who will be entering your home? You decide.

So. Weirdness: it seems rather strange to me to see a man wearing shorts, with his shirt unbuttoned to his waist (thus exposing his chest and beer belly), contemplating which plastic Christmas tree to buy. It is starting to get rather warm here (it's been in the mid-80s this week, and will only get hotter from here on out), and it will be unusual for me to be spending the holidays and New Year somewhere where I am not wearing sweaters and shivering and hiding from freezing rain. Granted, I'm from Seattle and 'White Christmas' is a movie you watch on tv, not experience, but still...

Also, it's worth noting that I'm not one that gets possessed by the Christmas Spirit. I enjoy giving gifts to friends and my mother. However, I strongly prefer to do it when the inspiration strikes me, not when society says that I should go into Shopping Overdrive and overspend in an effort to observe a holiday that doesn't mean anything to me personally (I was not raised with religion, I have not 'discovered' or adopted a religion (ever) nor do I observe any religious tenets -- though, I can respect some ideas (such as not murdering someone or respecting the earth and all objects on it)). I suppose at the root of it all, I just have a big problem with someone or something else telling me how to live my life and what I can or cannot do. I went to a Baptist church for a short period of time when I was 13 or 14. Let's just say that I didn't find God or anything else of much interest to me, there. I remember being in Sunday School and being told I couldn't travel by myself. 'Why?' I asked. My memory of the response was that it was wrong for a girl to do on her own (Look At Me Now!) and that it was just plain frowned upon by that particular Sunday School teacher. I am not an avid Rule Breaker (well, maybe I am, but I generally don't get caught in my sly escapades and if you don't know what those escapades are, I'm not going to tell), but if someone can't provide a good, sane and reasonable reason to not do something (e.g. don't go to Juarez, Mexico because it is one of the most dangerous places in the world for women -- women NEED to be home before dark, or they risk being kidnapped, brutually raped, then possibly killed, before being dumped in the desert and abandoned), I'm going to do what I want to do, screw what other people think.