Coal in their stockings.

You know the holidays are approaching when Rachael Ray is on every channel hawking spicy doughnuts and olive oil, and the Post is headlining with women's hips-to-smarts ratios.

But, oh, Blueprint, how you make me yearn for hostessing abilities. This is the magazine I'm giving my newly-nuptialed or homeowning friends this year. UPDATE: Apparently, this mag was way ahead of its time. Like many before it, it's folding, but the website it staying. Guh.

Got a mag you're gifting?

The rest of Gen Y wants to kick my shins.

I am afraid of LinkedIn.

I am afraid of yet another social network in the way that I'm afraid of getting a GAP credit card: I already have a Banana Republic one. And an Old Navy card. I use them occasionally (enough to get the birthday coupons), but don't especially need the impetus to spend more time and resources on more stuff that's novel but not all that exciting. And if I cave and get another piece of plastic for the same monolith company, I'm basically committing 90% of any future purchases of tissue t-shirts to one of three stores. (Out here in the woods, it's slim shop-pickings, for sure.)

It's late and my metaphors, like this plum wine here, suck. But it's like this: I already have a moldy Friendster account, OK? I MySpace a couple times a week. I accept the requests from people I met once at a friend's friend's barbecue, and then wonder, when they post new haircut photos, if I have ever actually met this person at all.

Isn't life too short to spend time confirming the existence of the art assistant you never actually spoke to from three jobs ago?

(To muddy this tirade further, what if LinkedIn goes the way of that schmancy Forth & Towne, the Gap too-hip-for-its-own-good brand that tanked badly last summer? That is: What happens to all those webs of friendships and colleague relationships when the au courant network is abandoned like ponchos from four years ago? Do we re-seek all those folks again when the next network launches? Moreover, what does it mean if we don't?)

Because Facebook didn't exist when I graduated and was student-only until recently, it's a site that I just cannot navigate or get jazzed by enough to have a personal account. (Where's all the glitter?? What about my tickers?!) But when you work on the internet, you have job-based accounts for everything online, and Facebook's about to fall in line for me, as well. (I have another post in me about the debacle of merging personal and professional profiles on social networking sites that don't allow corporate accounts (or pseudonyms, say irate Canadian bloggers)—thanks for nothing, Facebook—but that'll be for another day.)

LinkedIn, though? Another place to virtually nod in the direction of some people I don't speak to but once every two years, at most?