On Tuesday, I met Adam at my favorite cheap pizza place. After our initial hellos and whatnot I reached in my backpack and pulled out a wrapped gift for him. (His birthday is tomorrow.) I made him a hand painted journal inspired by journals I saw on Kurt Halsey
Frederiksen's site. My journal was not as beautiful or artistic as his, but I was pretty happy with my results.

Adam asked when my birthday was and I told him it's in a few weeks. He asked if I've ever put my Amazon wish list on my blog to whore myself out for gift. I said no, because I have this odd obsession with balancing the scales when it comes to gift giving. If someone gives me a gift, I feel I have to reciprocate and give them something. For me, it's just easier to not get any gifts. Keeps me sane.

"Did I ever tell you about last Christmas?" he said. I told him no. He tells me last year, he posted a link to his wish list for his family to have easy access to. Eventually he starting getting packages from names he didn't recognize. A lot came from the same person. A tea pot. A camera. Other stuff too.

"Huh. That's weird," I said. "You didn't know who it was?" He tells me no. "There return address was a couple miles from where I work, but I don't know any one named ______."

I look up slowly and say, "What his last name ______?" Adam's eyes get wide with a "how do you know" expression. " Adam...that's Bachelor Number One."  

"NO WAY!!!"

"Way."

"Was his screen name ________?"

"Yep. This is very strange." Adam never met this guy. Never chatted with him. No emails or phone calls. Nada. Eventually the generous gift giver IM'd Adam asking him for coffee, but Adam declined. "It was already too weird."

"That's kind of creepy. What a small frickin' town this can be," I said.

"I know." He looks at me and says smiling, "You should have gone out with him again. Maybe you would have scored some gifts."