I've been having a difficult time getting into the holiday spirit this year. Even now, as I'm listening to holiday music via Comcast's OnDemand "Sounds of the Seasons" radio station, I'm feeling financially desperate and a little hopeless.

Money's tight. Work's a nightmare. Life's lonely and difficult. I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. It's a strange sort of accounting that I'm taking right now of my world. I generally try to focus on all that is good and hopeful, but then there are times such as tonight where I have lost all sense of direction and feel supremely island-esque.

From what I understand, this is not an unusual sentiment for this time of year, so I experience it all in a well-seasoned fashion: with multiple colors and sizes of grains of salt.

I've been thinking a lot about Ex-Friend lately. I went to this gingerbread house construction party. EF's roommate (and life-long friend) was there and told me that EF had been saying that he misses me. Roommate had said this the last time we hung out, too, and for some reason I just didn't want to let the sentiment slide once again without rebuttal.

Here's sort of how the conversation went:

Roommate: "Yeah, whenever you name comes up, EF always says how much he misses you."

Me: "No, he doesn't."

RM: "Yeah...he does."

Me: "No, I'm sure he misses the friendship we had in the beginning, but not what it became in the end. I mean, he'd told me on more than one occasion that he's not even sure if he likes talking to me or being around me. So he doesn't really miss me."

RM: "All I know is that he says he misses you whenever we talk about you. The rest of it, I don't know, but that's what he says."

Me: [feeling like an asshole for having this conversation at all, much less at a holiday party] "It doesn't matter. It's all right. I'm gonna get another beer; you want one?"

RM: "Uh, no, I'm good."

Me: "O.K."

*sigh*

And, of course, I'm seeing all kinds of signs now, too. For instance, just as I began writing this post tonight, Neil Diamond came on the radio. Why is this significant, you may ask? Simple: Neil Diamond is EF's favorite childhood music artist. As a matter of fact, EF used to sing Neil Diamond songs to me all the time when it was just the two of us. (O.K., not all the time, but at least once, and he often talked about his love of Neil Diamond.)

I need to find a new job. I mean, I have another, say, eight or nine months left in my commitment to where I'm at right now, but I think it's never too late to start looking. I want to be consistently happy in some part of my life. I think work could be the place to start.

[Not to change the subject, or anything...]

I miss G-ski. For all of the moaning and groaning I've done over EF, G-ski was really the one man that I think could have been the great love of my life. (I just like to pine over EF 'cause he's so fucking gorgeous and complicated; it makes me feel superficially smart that I "get" him.)

G-ski lives in Australia -- Perth, to be exact. He's in love with this woman who's a single mother of a sweet and loving daughter, and if I understand G-ski correctly, they actually have been living together for a little while now.

That being said, he's actually "on the road" right now, just him and his BMW motorcycle. He read this book recently that made him take a serious look at what his life had become, and he felt lost (must be a theme). He told me he needed to find his head space, which I completely get. Knowing G-ski, this is not a strange thing at all, to suddenly want to up and leave those you love to go on a cross-country motorcycle trip, with no real idea of when you'll be back or what it is you're trying to find or figure out.

This is why I love him.

G-ski told me once that there was something about me and the way he feels about me that he doesn't quite understand. He said that there are so many things that I do or that I am that in other people just drive him crazy. But there's something about me that makes him not care about those things. He doesn't have to forgive them in me; he simply doesn't notice them.

Isn't that extraordinary?

And the physical chemistry between us is crazy. Although we've never made love or touched inappropriately or even so much as kissed on the lips, we have danced very, very closely, and he would often wrap his hands around my waist, making me feel enclosed and embraced without being trapped. Have you ever felt that way? It's simply delicious; it's subtly erotic and comforting all at once. Amazing.

God, I hope I feel that way with someone else some day.

Oh, and Universe? While I'm at it, could you throw Bryce my way again? And let him be as into me as I am into him? Or make me realize the next time I see him that he isn't so great? That'd be super; thanks!

O.K., late evening rambling completed. Suena con los angelitos, queridos.