What I Did On My Christmas Vacation   I did not keep my journal up while I was gone.  I had every intention of making entries on paper every day, but I made exactly one, and that one was very lame.  Fact is, everything that was on my mind was something I didn't want to be on my mind, and writing it down just reinforced the fact it was on my mind.  I spent most of the time running from myself, seeking out distarcations, and hanging onto the phone.      I might put up that one entry, maybe.  Depends on if I feel like it anytime soon.      There really were some very good times.  My kids adore all their grandparents, and it's very mutual.  I love seeing that.  The gifting was good, not too out of control.  My mom loses it some years, and you just about need a dump truck to cart the stuff home.      Watched a lot of movies.  My dad has an extensive videotape collection and my mom has the satellite dish thing going, one of those leetle beety ones.  Thing is, it did distract me, got me thinking on mortality.  Well, in a lotta movies, somebody dies.  Watch a whole lot of them and just try not to think about it.  The guy who called himself Sommersby willingly died to let a lotta people keep thier land and let his family keep their honor.  Minor character in The Shawshank Redemption hanged himself on account of his failure to adapt to freed life, and another guy got offed for knowing a bit of the truth.  Lotta people in LA bought it in a variety of meaningless and surprising ways in Volcano.  I still dunno if I am afraid of death or not.  I keep thinking I'm not, then I think again...      The high point was seeing Rain, though.  I looked at her and saw a sister and a friend and still felt an attraction, too.  Lotta layers in her, can't help but love her.  Sweet giggly girl, passionate woman, sad, content, gleeful.  How can you see so much of someone in so little time?  Couldn't decide if I more wanted to kiss her or noogie her head, hehehe, or just hug her all day.  First face-to-face meetings being what they are, I was pretty cautious, restrained.  We ate a great lunch, played the slots, sat around in an opulent bar and talked and talked.  It was really wonderful.  Oh, and we learned the hard way that when a sign says "No photography in the casino" what they really mean is  "No photography anywhere near the damn boat!"  Now I know what having an armed escort is like.      The long and the short of it is she is a beautiful, beautiful person, inside and out.  It would be terribly easy to fall hopelessly in love with her, and I better understand the people who have done so.      The busy parts were ok, going places, doing things, talking with people.  The quiet times were murder.  I missed my Brooklynguy so damned badly, still do.  He won't be back until next week.  Neither of us has been able to get alone with a phone often enough to leave anything but the most infrequent and brief messages for each other.      I tried to imagine him in that world, where I grew up.  Tried to guess what he'd like and what he wouldn't.  But for all that I know him, he still tends to surprise me at every turn.  I think he'd still have great fun there though, just not sure exactly how.     It's a whole different world there, you know.  Rural Mississippi.  And even my version of it is different from the way a lot of folks there live.  Everything moves slower, including the water in the tap.  Everything is a little muddier, a little grungier, a little warmer.  Propane heat, hand-hewn panelling, dogs loose in the pasture racing the horses, double-wide trailers, redneck romantic dramas, both kinds of music - country and western.     I'm a black sheep, dontcha know.  Hate soul food, prefer a shower in the morning to a bath at night (most of the time), can't stand steel guitar or tabloids or daytime tv, lots of stuff like that.  But then again, I do like to hunt, though squirrel is a lot more fun than deer, in my opinion.  Love to camp and go four wheeling.  My family perceives me as something different though, something refined.  They always give me these elegant things, like the cigarette case and satin pajamas I got this year.  For some reason they think I am classy.  Hell, I like to get muddy in overalls.  But I've had big dreams for a long time.  I've been up and coming for over a decade now; when are they gonna start wondering when am I going to arrive?  And of course, wanting to move to Brooklyn doesn't do anything to change their ideas.  That's City.  That's slick.     All disparity aside, I really did feel comfortable there, I mean really comfortable, for the first time in years.  Wouldn't wanna live there, though.