Debra Pickett

I actually did as threatened this weekend and baked a serious quantity of Christmas (holiday?) cookies. There's something therapeutic and lovely about spending nearly an entire day in the kitchen: mix stuff, put stuff in oven, wash mixing bowl, remove stuff from oven, wash cookie sheets, mix different stuff in bowl. Alien invaders could have landed on my block and I wouldn't have noticed.

In fact, that was sort of the theme of the entire weekend, now that I think about it.

I was buying Christmas gifts and groceries when I heard about the whole secret spying-on-Americans program. And, while I was -- dutiful civil libertarian that I am -- incredibly outraged by the whole idea (because having secret courts that use secret laws to issue secret warrants really just isn't secure enough; sometimes you really have to sneak up on those potential evil-doers), it was remarkably easy not to think about it.

In the happy bubble of Target and Dominick's (each one with its own Starbucks; what a country), I focused on picking out great gifts for the kids on my Christmas list and wonderful food for all the guests we had over, and I guess I experienced that whole ignorance-is-bliss feeling of losing myself in minutia and trivialities.

We entertained friends on Friday night, I cooked all day Saturday, entertained more friends on Sunday afternoon and, on Sunday night, wrapped gifts.

I ignored the Sunday papers and missed the first half of the President's speech because I was too focused on squishing a large blanket into a not-quite-large-enough gift box.

This is, I have to insist, totally unlike me.

I'm usually a geek of the highest order. I like to rant and rave at political news and I view the Sunday morning talk shows as an exercise in audience participation.

So what's up with the happy housewife routine?

My working theory is that I'm going through some sort of "nesting" phase, settling in to a new life and home and all that. And, eventually, I'll get my actual personality back.

But what if I don't, I wonder.

What if this is who I really am -- someone more concerned with the stuff I bought at Target than the state of the world. And what if, more frighteningly, most everyone else is like this, too . . . .