I arrived at my parents house to find a package waiting for me!! I squeed, then squinted curiously at the address (DC), and opened to find that my Secret Santa is the incredibly generous and loving bonny fides.

As you can imagine, there were a lot of tears as I opened the card (signed by bonny and bartleby) and the super thoughtful gifts; a lovely embroidered purse holding salt scrub for my poor weathered skin, shiny silver earrings for me, a doggy angel medallion for Frankie (my mom started crying, too, at that), a book on changing one's attitudes towards money, a doggie toy for Frankie, a photo album holding a picture of bonny and bartleby (more tears), and my favorite - a handpainted tile of leaves and vines growing out of a heart, and in Italian around the border al cuor non si comanda (the heart takes no commands, or the heart knows what it wants).

It took me about ten minutes to open the whole package, what with crying and telling my mom and brother stories and just appreciating what was in it and the thought behind each item. I don't feel I have the words to communicate the depth of my gratitude and how touched I am at bonny's generosity in such a difficult time, so forgive me if I resort to a facile intensifer.

Buffistas are the fucking BEST.

Oh, smonster. Oh, bonny.

smonster that sounds like wonderful gifts.

Bonny you are continue to be in my thoughts and prayers. I got my secret santa present!

My secret santa present is going to go out on Monday. I'm working to finish one more thing and I don't think i'll have time to go to the post office tomorrow.

The handwriting is in purple and there's purple tissue and wrapping. I haven't opened the card or anything yet.

Should I open it or wait until Christmas?

Open it!

Mine will go out Monday or Tuesday -- umm, depending on my plans which are completely up in the air.

quester is the best!!!

Dean and Penny are currently attacking catnip bags with gusto. Dean just flipped his up in the air and caught it. And Penny decided to ambush Dean for his.

I also have 2 awesome cookbooks - A Taste of Terrace Hill and Marica Adam's Heirloom Recipes.

There's also a Disappearing TARDIS Mug - just put in hot coffee (or tea/cocoa in my case) and watch it disappear.

A book of Catmus Carols = (Christmas carols redone in cat theme).

Some chocolates that look wonderful and 2 jellies. Pear Raspberry and Strawberry Rhubarb.

A beautiful purple and black velvety purse. A cat bookmark, an wooden sign saying Smile (which I could use), Awesome bandaids with comic book words on them - Ouch! BAM! etc . Alice in Wonderland peppermints.

Lavender soap, a lavender sachet, and essential oil.

And a pair of awesome, iridescent earrings that are black, blue and purple in vary degrees.

This is some quality catnip. They've had catnip treats before but I've never seen Dean act like this. I was walking toward Dean, he picked up the toy and ran with it to protect it.

Wow, we must grow some potent stuff here in Iowa!

I'm glad you liked it! I tried really hard to only shop at craft sales and local stores, though some of the stuff is obviously not from here.

It was fun to shop for you, askye. My only problem was having to stop! there were a lot more things I could have picked up...if I had unlimited funds!

I guess I should open my gift now, too.

My Secret Santa has been waiting patiently, especially since he/she started by sending a wonderfully mysterious card in November.

I'm glad I was fun to shop for! I've been having fun for my secret santa.

Dean and Penny are totally sacked out right now.

I'm totally loving the Heirloom Recipes, there are some really tasty sounding ones and some oddball stuff like Sauerkraut Cream Pie. Which I think I'm going to be crazy enough to try.

Actually, sauerkraut cream pie sounds pretty damn awesome. Post it once you try it!

I got the cookbooks in a store called Mystery Cat. Mostly used mystery books but some other gems. Terrace Hill is the governor's mansion in Des Moines, so it has some "local flavor".

Ok, I opened mine! My Secret Santa lives in Highlands Ranch, CO. Is that you SuziQ?

Homemade Chocolate Chip cookies, 2 boxes of them! And Hot Cocoa mix...how did you know I was craving some? Mulling spices-in an orange rind and with a reindeer in spices embedded in brown sugar!

Speaking of brown sugar, there is a jar of Sugar Butter for the Body in brown sugar & vanilla! It smells wonderful and I can't wait to try it!

there is a bar of Sea Salt Dark Chocolate! I can't wait! I'd eat it now but the dark chocolate would keep me up!

then there is a holiday dish in red with a xmas tree and a lovely ornament of red beads!

Oh, and a lollipop!

Thank you, Suzi!

OMG, the cookies have chocolate and butterscotch chips! Yum!!

Long, Derpessing post about 2011:

The Ugly:

I’ve been in kind of a holding pattern in analysis for a while. I’m never really going to make progress until I talk about the abuse I went through. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to talk about because it’s all so fuzzy to me. The constant emotional abuse over most of my childhood makes it hard for me to pin down specific details, and makes it very easy for me to pretend that it wasn’t as bad as it really was, and also makes it easy for me to blame myself for what happened. My analyst frames it in terms of me still trying to protect my parents, which is guess is true.

Analysis has been extremely successful in making me realize how much I can’t stand being alone. It’s been less successful at motivating me to put myself out there and take risks. I’d still just rather hide, in spite of all the consequences.

The Bad:

I’ve always hated my job; this year has been mostly intolerable for me. The boss that I like has been fired. His replacement, and most of the people surrounding him, have been doofuses. I got a bad job evaluation for the first time; my bonus this year ( a large portion of my salary for a Wall Street bank) was less than half of what I received for any of the previous eleven years working for this firm. Meanwhile I’m working for a company that is overlooking Zuccotti Park and OWS. While the cops were outside arresting people my coworkers were cheering the police on.

The fact of the matter is that I’m completely burned out working in IT. I loathe getting support calls overnight, and I often have dreams where I imagine my work phone going off, and then I wake up with my heart palpitating. I just see the business getting more and more complicated. The people around me just want to by more expensive software products to help do their jobs; the software doesn’t actually make anything simpler, it just hides the complexity behind a façade. If I try to talk to my colleagues about actually reducing complexity I’m just met with blank stares; they have less of a grasp of how unmanageable things have gotten than I have.

I really need to quit my job; I just can’t imagine interviewing somewhere else for the same kind of job that I have and sounding enthusiastic about it.

The fact of the matter is that I want to quit my job and do something else. I just have no idea what that “something else” would be (see: The Ugly. I’m more concerned about avoiding stress than actually being happy). I’ve paid off the mortgage on my co-op and I have money saved up. It’s just so very tempting to me to just quit my job and take six months or so off. My analyst is worried that if I don’t have a job to go to I will just withdraw even more than I already have. He’s probably right about that.

The Good:

People actually came to visit me in New York! More of you should do that! Thanks to ita !, Scrappy and javachik!! I also had a wonderful time in NC visiting Calli, amyth, smonster and amych in the Spring, and then visiting Drew, Kristin, ita !, kat perez, javachik, Perkins, Consuela, megan walker, Beth, Matt, meara and Barb and the Zmahyem in Los Angeles, Seattle, and SF in the Fall. If the Buffistas weren’t around, I don’t know how I’d be able to cope. I just love you all so much.

I also took some a few good pictures this year.

2012 looks to be a milestone year for me; if for no other reason except there’s no way I will be able to stomach what I’m doing for a living for much longer. There’s also the fact that I need to confront my parents about what they did to me and bring my anger out into the open, which could happen as early as tomorrow. (Don’t count on that, though).