I was awake all night. All night. I don't mean that I was awake part of the night, or that I was awake every half hour. I mean I was awake all night. I don't really know why. Maybe it was the vanilla malt. My appetite is coming back, and yesterday around noon I started craving a vanilla malt. I wasn't hungry at supper, so I didn't eat anything, but around 8:00 I told Tim I must have a vanilla malt. Just three sips. We went to Sonic and I drank the whole thing. I didn't even really want it once I had it, but I drank it because it was there. Well, of course I have a milk allergy and I'm not supposed to eat ice cream. I was awake all night.

If you're ever in Seminary shopping at Piggly Wiggly and you decide to try to figure out how to get to my house on the backroads and you go up by the side of the store past the feed mill and then you keep going a ways and decide to turn on Speed Town Road because it seems like it would take you to Hwy. 535, and then you sit for a minute at the place where Speed Town Road forks into Frank Speed Road, and you decide to stick with Speed Town because Frank Speed looks pretty much like the road less-traveled, and then you wind and wind and wind around the winding road that is Speed Town, then you take a right onto Abercrombie/Knight Road and you end up at what looks like 535, don't turn left onto that highway. Turn right. Because you're not on 535 at all. You're on 588. So if you turn left you'll go straight to Collins, and not to my house. Just thought I'd share that information.

Yesterday morning (or was it Monday morning?) I watched the tail end of Bobby Flay's holiday show, and I saw him make a gingerbread trifle. He made gingerbread, then he mixed lemon curd with whipped cream, then he made a raspberry filling with raspberries and some kind of liqueur. It got me to thinking about the tastes of the Christmases of my childhood. Detsie made gingerbread with lemon sauce, sticky buns, and something we called ambrosia, which was oranges and coconut and I don't know what-all else. Detsie's cooking was completely different from Mama's. Mama is, of course, a world-class dessert maker. She can make anything, no matter how difficult the procedure. Then there was Mrs. Myrtle High, my Sunday school teacher. She made date-loaf candy and brought it in a little Christmas tin to church--the same tin every year. That tin was Pavlov's bell for me.

I started re-reading Breathing Lessons this morning. I got it from the library Monday. I did not, after all, go to Shirley's or the Collins Library. I went to the Seminary Library instead. I got Breathing Lessons, The Clock Winder, and a Barbara Kingsolver whose title I can't remember right now. I finished up The Accidental Tourist last night and was irritated that it ended the very same way it did the last six times I read it. Why does Macon choose Muriel every time? Why? He so obviously should stay with Sarah. It makes me mad every time I read it.

I might go ahead and read Deuteronomy and Esther this week, though traditionally I don't do it until the week between Christmas and New Year's. I sort of dread the Esther thing, since I've decided not to be an Esther anymore. I just don't want to. I've run out of steam. I always think of that guy who worked in the palace when Elijah was shaking his finger at old what's-his-name the king. I always think, well, I'm him instead of Elijah. Working from within instead of without. But I'm getting out now, and yes, it is sad in a way. Everything I did with the children in December, I'd think, "this might be the last time I ever do this with children" but then we'd have a meeting or get a memo and I'd think "I love teaching too much to stay in this situation."

Yesterday morning, I watched Proof of Life with Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan. How could anyone not love Russell Crowe? It came on again this morning at 2:30. I only watched part of it.

I've never been able to hide anything my whole life. Yesterday, I was in T.J. Maxx and I saw some lingerie I had to have. The girls were with me, and I hid it in the shopping cart (it's pretty, um, revealing) under the chocolate-covered cranberries, espresso beans, vanilla caramels, and pewter bowl. Then, when it was time to check out, I told them to go sit on the bench at the front of the store while I stood in line. The place was packed. Packed. So when I was finished and we were leaving, the alarm thing went off as we were walking out the door. I knew. The lingerie. Ink tag. All eyes were on us as we walked back over to the register. The girls walked back with me, and the cashier started pulling out all the clothes I'd bought. "It's the lingerie", I told her, and she pulled it out, held it up for everyone to see, found the ink tag, got it off, held it up again for everyone to see. Yep.

Today at ten I have a hair appointment and I'm worried sick about it. Danita was booked up until 2009 or something, according to the receptionist, so she worked me in with someone named Megan. I've been with Danita forever. We've been through everything together. Nikki's death, Preston's divorce. Everything. My hair.

At eleven, I'm meeting Kim and Jen at Chesterfield's for lunch. After that, I'm coming home to sleep, I hope.