we had been doing a toy drive for charity at work and today i had to drop off the donations. the charity is based in hollywood so i figured i would stop by a couple of our locations while i was out there. the trouble is that we don't have any locations in or around hollywood. the freeways are madness right now. our locations are in malls and them malls are madness. i was afraid of how bad parking would be but it was really the roads that were insane. i was driving around freeways and streets. places not completely unfamiliar to me but places i did not grow up in. but being a child of LA, you would think something would be familiar. i just felt so out of place. even coming back towards home/work on a freeway i have driven so many times, nothing at all seemed familiar and i started thinking i had gone too far and missed my turn. no, not at all. i was just in a weird place mentally. my friends don't feel like me friends anymore. my family doesn't feel like my family anymore. i feel like myself but everything else feels weird. hard to explain. just an odd day.

after work we went and did our first christmas shopping. i mean first because we just started. i had been in debate as to whether or not even bother. for years i have wanted to stop this tradition nonsense. i don't want to get into it all but in short the point is that if i care for you then i will do things for you and buy you things regardless of the time of year. i don't need a specific day to force me to buy things for everyone at the same time. if it's forced it's not right. i prefer spontaneous generosity. there really is no surprise with a christmas gift. there is gift recycling and white elephants. not necessary.