Miscellaneous thoughts I had while walking through PDX at dusk on Christmas Eve.

You might be a prude at heart IF... you wait until the "walk" symbol lights up on every crosswalk, even when no cars are within a two-block radius.

When I lived in Clackamas, my most frequently-told lie was, "Aw, your baby/puppy/outfit is adorable!" Now it's "Sorry, I'm not carrying any cash."

A random guy said, "How you doin', sweetheart?" as we passed each other on the sidewalk. While it may be  a rampant problem that intimidates and demeans women in places like New York City (or so YouTube tells me), the occasional "catcall" is, in my opinion, a nice spirit-lifter, as long as it is verbal only, and not accompanied by a physical approach or gestures.

The Portland Streetcar is surprisingly empty on Christmas Eve. The toy store at the mall is unsurprisingly chaotic.

At the Safeway Starbucks, I chatted empathetically with the barista about closing alone on busy nights. As the milk steamed, the barista enthusiastically talked about a new job about to start. There was laughter and smiles and "Merry Christmas"s all around, and it wasn't until I had left the building and saw his eyes shining at me as I passed the window by his kiosk that it occurred to me that he was a very attractive young man. Usually, I can't interact with any man, even those I'm not attracted to, without at least considering, somewhere in the background, the "question" of sex, and all that it might possibly encompass. But this time, despite him being, on reflection, gorgeous, I saw him purely as a PERSON, and not as a sex object. Since seeing men more as people and less as sex objects is something I've been trying to work on in my personal growth, this was an exciting realization.

A slightly dirty young man with a dog and a traveler's backpack paused to wish me a Merry Christmas on the corner of 11th and Taylor. Something about the tone in his voice, the shape of his face, the tilt of his old-fashioned hat, and the way his large, hand-rolled cigarette hung limply from his mouth was so perfectly reminiscent of a vagabond or newsie from a century ago - yet without looking out-of-place in 2012 - that I couldn't help staring back at him as he walked away, wondering what that bit of magic was, and momentarily thinking goofy, fairytale thoughts about the street urchin and the college student whose love overcame classism. But then I remembered that his face was grubby, and the image of kissing him was hastily discarded.

I get tired of being a mommy at times, and I often look forward to my breaks, but I adore those little girls, and never do I miss them more than when they are with their dad around the holidays. I love Ariel's brilliant, calculating, ambitious mind and Felicity's sweet, relationship-oriented, in-the-moment spirit. I love that when I first asked them what they wanted for Christmas back in October, Ariel listed a doll and art supplies, while Felicity asked for a boiled egg with salt and pepper. That is so quintessentially THEM. And I love it.

I passed a young Asian guy photographing another Asian guy, standing back and framing the shot carefully. The subject was holding a Starbucks cup and posing with the storefront of the Pioneer Courthouse Square Starbucks in the background. If you're a tourist (which people who take these types of pictures usually are), why Starbucks? They were at Pioneer Courthouse Square, "Portland's Livingroom," with a giant Christmas Tree in the center, but they used the Starbucks as a backdrop? Last time I checked, pretty much every city in the western hemisphere had a Starbucks. People are strange.

You know what else is strange? The way a whiff of good cologne just makes a girl melt, even if she can't tell where it came from. I need to identify some of these swoon-worthy fragrances and acquire not-quite-empty bottles to sniff whenever I'm feeling lonely. That doesn't sound pathetic, does it? Maybe while I'm at it, I'll buy a boyfriend pillow, Fifty Shades of Grey, and a... well... you know how that sentence was supposed to end.

A lot of people in Portland have Santa hats which they apparently just walk around wearing on Christmas Eve. Next year, I should obtain one of these.

Is it weird that I can comfortably walk around Portland in short sleeves on December 24th? I remember being so freaking cold when Katie (my high school bff) and I used to come down here at Christmastime. Then again, I weighed 80 pounds less back then. That might have something to do with it...

It's awkward enough to run into little people during the rest of the year, but around Christmastime, I CANNOT make eye contact. My thought process goes something like this:

wait that person is little are they a child or an adult? i'll just glance at their face quickly - okay it looks like they are an adult, oh my god that must be so frustrating around the holidays - think about how many little people are cast in movies and other things as santa's elves around the holidays - i wonder if they get approached by people making movies - i wonder what percentage of them have taken those sorts of jobs because it's one of the few jobs easily available to them - oh my god what if something in my eyes is saying that i'm thinking about little people dressed up as elves CANNOT MAKE EYE CONTACT OR THEY WILL KNOW THAT I AM THINKING ABOUT ELVES why do we call santa's little helpers elves anyway? aren't elves human-sized nimble forest people with excellent archery skills? i could see calling them dwarves, or more recently midgets, or most recently and politically correctly little people or vertically challenged people but why elves? are there branches of folklore in which elves are like midgets and others where they are more tolkien-esque or is one the more historically accurate while the other is a more recent fabrication tied perhaps with marketing much like our image now of santa as a fat man dressed in red and white which was imposed on mainstream society by norman rockwell and coca cola and oh good they finished walking by so I don't have to be afraid of making eye contact now but i wonder if my lack of eye contact was conspicuous and perhaps made them feel more ostracized oh dear oh dear...