I've come up with yet another excuse reason why I'm single. I'm not very friendly and open when I'm by myself.

This struck me at the Charlotte airport on Monday night, when a man sat down on the floor beside me and began rubbing the carpet with the palm of his hand, coming disconcertingly close to my upper thigh. Strangely, he hadn't seemed crazy up until that point, or after the rubbing.

Although my recent trip to England was the first time I spent real vacation time on my own, I do generally travel by myself. This means that I'm trying to watch all my stuff, keep track of my tickets, find gates, etc all on my own, and look reasonably confident while doing so. I have a special "travel face" that I wear, I think. And I don't think it's a very friendly face.

In fact, it's not meant to be friendly. And that's my problem. I don't want to make pointless small talk with strangers. I don't want to know where the person next to me is headed or what they were doing in the area. Frankly I don't care, and I can't bother pretending that I do. And I especially don't want to smile at you or your small child as they tear around the airport while I hope against hope that the kid isn't sitting near me on the flight.

But people who do those things, smile at strangers, talk to random people...they end up sitting next to someone on their flight and chatting and finding out that they went to high school with that person's cousin whom they later end up marrying all because of that conversation on the commuter flight to Boston.

While I haven't been keeping up with my blog lately, I have been posting pictures on flickr quite consistently. So if for some reason, you are interested in the events going on in my life, you can always click over there to the left and see a running log.

That's one 2006 New Year's Resolution that I have kept: taking more pictures. I realized that the big events, the one people generally remember to take pictures of, are the ones you'd remember without pictures. It's the little times with friends when you should really take pictures, documenting the way you were, really, most of the time. Especially now that I have a small digital camera, I nearly always have it with me. And I've gotten some great shots!

Basically, since I had gotten back from England, I'd been looking forward to my friend Ana's visit here from Austin. We went to Long Island together for a wedding. It was the best wedding I've ever been to, bar none! Maybe because we got to dress up. But mainly, I think, because Venezuelans know how to have fun, and fun means DANCING! We danced for about 10 hours straight, I swear, at different venues. I learned a lot of from the women about movement, although for most of the time, unless Ana was translating in my ear, I had no idea what anyone was saying! But oh, it was so. much. fun!





We also had a great time exploring Manhattan. Every time I go, I find more neat places...and Manhattan during the holidays is almost magical.



While we were in Long Island, one of the wedding guests told us we should see Jones Beach, so, since it wasn't really that cold, we found our way there with our friend Robert. It was an unplanned but really great day. I found out later, that I had actually been to Jones Beach with my brothers and when I was a baby!





Then came Christmas, which was quiet but lovely. Christmas Eve was still and reverent, the way it should be. And my Meggie was there with me, like she should be. :O)

And on Christmas Day, as is by now a tradition, in the evening I went over to Meg's parents house to exchanges gifts and visit with Megan, Dave, and Meg's parents as well as their "kids," the Irish Setters, Finnegan and Clancey. (The first two pictures are Finnegan, the second two are Clancey.)


So those are pretty much the highlights. Tonight I leave for North Carolina to spend the long weekend with Tim and Karen and my other favorite dog, Bailey. And in the New Year, I'm going to blog, I swear.