december 26 2001    |    3:35 a.m.

happy day-after-christmas.

my parents and i celebrated on christmas eve, as we always do, and as we always do we had the traditional catalán dinner: cava (spanish champagne), chorizo and manchego cheese, escudella i carn d'olla (soup and broth-boiled meats and garbanzo beans and potatoes). turrón and holiday pastries and more cava for dessert. you have to eat it to believe it -- absolutely delicious.

it was the first christmas in which i've been able to buy presents with my own money, and it was so selfishly rewarding. i got my dad a box of godiva -- his favorite -- and these gorgeous shoes for my mom, and other little things, and i loved every tear of the wrapping paper.

and my parents got me a little nokia cell phone. holy cow! my first cell phone. i'm both horrified and ecstatic. no, that's a lie, i'm most definitely overridingly ecstatic. i haven't played with it yet because it's been charging, but i can't wait to play with the ringtones and the text messaging and all the other cell phone trappings. what can i say. it's a mini-milestone. and my first real bill. (which is where most of the horror comes in. but also not.)

today i didn't go to roly's present exchanging party like every year, because mom and i went to the movies. and saw vanilla sky. which was fucking mind-blowing (and not a mind fuck -- there is a difference). i can't shy away from the word: it was brilliant. i can't remember the last time i wasn't disappointed by a movie, or so elated that tears just rolled down my face with the end credits. it played like a dream i might have, appropriately enough. one of the best beginning sequences i've ever seen, and end scenes, too. and the music! i could go on and on about the music. all of it pieces of a perfectly chaotic puzzle. go see it. and tell me if you want to talk about it -- i'm still reeling. anyway, i'm really curious to see the original alejandro amenábar version now.

i got home and was still so floored that i went to my room and sat and listened to sigur rós ("svefn-g-englar" makes a little cameo in the movie) and smoked, and then went to sleep, which is all i felt like doing, and it felt delicious. woke up three hours ago and finished reading a girl's guide to hunting and fishing by melissa bank and continued feeling . . . i don't know, charmed, as in a spell, or something.

i worked on christmas eve from eight-thirty in the morning until five. it was hectic but good -- i did five billion transactions and when i counted my drawer at the end of the day i was only one cent over, which earned me rare praise and christmas wishes from the asshole manager.

so on my break my new friend julio (we just met the other day and had impromptu lunch -- he's sixteen and also works at the gap and is an overachiever and a sweetheart) who works at the café made me his specialty, a caramel macchiato, with a shot of espresso so i'd wake up. i took it outside (we're in an outdoor mall) and sat on my usual bench by the north entrance and smoked cigarettes and listened to the holiday lite-hits playing through the mall intercom, or whatever that's called. so i'm sitting there listening to an r&b version of rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and barbra streisand and all this nauseating poop, and suddenly, like a nod from (bobpollard?) above, rudolph transitions into "harvest moon." there i sat, with the cigarette between my fingers, drinking my drink, chilly breeze, neil young in my ears, and god that song is so beautiful, my eyes welling up. it was a Moment, and that's why i'm writing about it. thank you, life, for Moments. and thank you, neil young, for existing and deciding one day to write songs.

i hope your holidays were happy, too.