12:43 a.m. Yeah, well. I've mostly gotten the stuff yanked off the tree and all. Geeze. I'm very tired and somewhat surly. I've got pine sap on my hands and tiny little scratches everywhere from the aptly named needles.

Needless to say, I've basically spent the day properly and everything. I took some photos to prove myself to ... well, to whomever needs proof.

Once again, the journal community has experienced and unmasked another journal impostor. This time the culprit stole bits from two of the best journals around: the supremely wonderful Kristin's Shiny Surfaces and the mighty Kymm's daily Sweetart Hedgehog Tales.

Much mumbling has ensued and torches have been lit. AOL has been notified. Some people take this task seriously and stay up late into the evening constructing careful essays; some people derive great pleasure from reading the thousand or so legitimate journals online.

Pranksters and plagiarists threaten the fragile fabric of trust we weave on the web. Instead of spinning a viable array of links and pages, these poorly wrapped individuals leave gaping rents in the whole through which the unwary can plunge, with neither warp nor woof to break the fall into useless mayhem.

We have to be stronger than our weakest links. We have to forge ahead with the truth in these pages. Who are we and are we who we say we are?

Lucky for me, I already know the answers. I've now been online for six months and I can report that the percentage of weirdoes to absolutely normal people is holding steady at the same real-life percentages you encounter every time you step foot into the local mall.

But it shakes me up a little. Thus the photos. In the top picture you have a bag 'o balls and a few balls 'o lights, in addition to a bowl 'o baubles. In the second photo: a basket 'o tree. That's what it's come down to, you know. Just a nice pile of pine bits.

Did you know that you can make something really nice from these bits? It's true. You take some really heavy, quality cloth -- say, some cotton dish towels of the sort that they're always selling at a store like Pottery Barn or Williams Sonoma -- and you make a little pillow out of it.

Or, you find a tiny existing pillow case ... or maybe a pouch. I happen to have a pouch collection, but that's neither here nor there. If, however, you stuff said case or pouch with these pine needles and sew it up, you will have a nice little fragrant thing to play with.

Every single time you pick it up and squeeze it, you will break a few of the needles inside. Then you mash it into your face and take a big hearty sniff of it. It makes you feel happy. Takes you away. Makes you remember Christmas. It's a cheap vacation from stress and anxiety.

And you know what? The darn thing keeps working and releasing that scent for years and years and years. I know this is true because I've had one for a really long time and it's still working, only a little more faintly each time. Just like the stressed individual squeezing it.

So, I'm saving some branches and I'm planning (in spite of what I said yesterday) to make some piney pillows. Then, when I start to feel anxious about not getting enough done around this place, I'll just squeeze the thing and mash it over my nose and bliss will surely ensue.