My office is a complete disaster and I�m finding it hard to work. There are half-emptied boxes of Christmas decorations, a pile of packages headed for the post office tomorrow and piles of gifts yet to be wrapped and the materials with which to wrap them. I believe lass has referred to this state as �It�s beginning to look a lot like Christmas�threw up in our house.� My work is ever more squeezed into a corner of my desk. I really need to put it to rights. I had planned to do so this afternoon, but my panic over what to wear to the one swank party I must attend this weekend (on the invitation, the line about dress reads �to the nines�) sent me on a loathsome shopping trip instead.

I came home with a dress that was not at all what I was looking for, but which suits me rather well. It is made of ultrasoft black wool in that Italian fabric that seems half-knitted, half-woven. The fabric is why I bothered to pick it up, as it�s cut in a style that I would have thought would look dreadful on me, sleeveless with a jewel neckline and a drop waist, with a gentle fishtail hem on the skirt. It looks half vintage 1920s and half �60s mod (although the latter influence may have been largely due to the giant boots I was wearing when I tried it on). It fits as if it was made for me, and makes me look very tall and slim and curvaceous. But because it is black wool, it also looks somewhat austere for a holiday party. And I am at a total loss as to what to do to dress it up. It is crying for long beads and one of those bracelets that wraps around the upper arm. But I may have to make do with what I�ve got. I�ve never had much of a talent for accessorizing.

Hopefully I will be less stymied by fashion for the other holiday gathering I�m looking forward to, one with the aforementioned lass and everybody�s favorite diaryland defector fairlywell.

Could this entry be any more boring? Why yes, it could. But I�ll spare you and stop now.

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