A Girl...

Spanking New

Hello! Happy New Year!

For me, looking forward to the new year has meant looking forward to no more working on The Book from Hell, no more scrambling around trying to get the basics done--dishes, laundry, armpit shaving--and no more hopping on a plane every three weeks, which, altough a recognized luxury (especially when the destination is a swim-up bar) is still a hassle and a stress and four to eight hours under the influence of various motion-sickness pills and patches that make me itchy all over and from the inside out so that by Hour 2 I'm trying to peel my skin off using my lower eyelids as starter tabs.

Now that I no longer have to think about all the big holiday hassles, I can fret over smaller, less time-sensitive things, like getting new glasses, a new car, home internet and *gasp* cable (for the first time in my life), and also probably a trip to the dentist, hopefully another space heater, and most definitely a visit to the ladyparts doctor to refill my anti-baby prescription so nothing goes fucknutscrazy and requires the purchase of not one but four pregnancy tests like waaaaay back at the beginning of November. Did I not tell you about that? Oy, what stories lurk in these hallowed halls of this hollow mind...Which is to say I've missed you, 'Nets. Missed chronicling the minutia of my days for your amusement if not also edification, and missed making you fall backward in your chair because PREGNANCY TEST? WHAT?!

But that's a story for another day, pets.

In brief, our holidays were spectacular. We ate, we slept, we skiied, we shopped, we watched movies and played virtual guitar and hugged and kissed and sang carols and laughed and almost cried, in the good way. Simon and I came home with eight new drinking vessels (bringing our grand house total to sixty-five; anyone want to come over for honey martinis in vintage highball glasses?), and, to my surprise, my big Mormon extended family survived another year without someone giving someone else the symbolic baby rattle of successful fertilization on Christmas Day. One of my cousins was pregnant out to here, though (due this month), so that counts for something, I guess.

We celebrated Christmas Morning #1 on December 24, followed by Christmas Eve #1, on its proper day. Then we had Christmas Day #1 on Christmas Day, of all things, before we got on a plane, flew southerly, got off a plane, motored to another terminal, got directly onto another plane, flew westerly, got off a plane, and then prepared to celebrate Christmas Eve #2 and Christmas Morning #2 on the 25th and 26th, respectively, although the way it turned out we didn't actually get to either until the 27th and 28th, respectively, after which we got on a plane and flew northerly to celebrate an extended New Years at home with the cat, passing three days sleeping in late, drinking champagne, eating chocolate chip cookies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and watching more movies per day than recommended by the Surgeon General. Despite the apparent hole in the Holiday Space-Time Continuum, Simon opened his gift from me on Jesus' actual birthday (right...), when we were several hundred feet above Phoenix and I should have been positioned upright, like my seatback and traytable, instead of bent double with my head jammed into my backpack, which was jammed under the seat in front of me and stuffed with new drinking vessels wrapped lovingly in dirty socks for padding. I did not get my gift from Simon on Christmas Day but instead on December 17, when we picked it out and bought it together in Chinatown (photos to come), and of course, our BIG present (new computer) was brought home sometime in November, and finally I just bought Simon his other present yesterday at Target while we were picking up dish soap because I'm extra romantic during this magical holiday season. It's no wonder I can't tell what day it is or which end is up.

Now that the new year is officially here, I struggle between feeling all get-up-and-go ("Let's reorganize the filing cabinet! Let's paint the bedroom!") and just wanting to lay in bed under the electric blanket until noon, which we've done since we got back in town on Friday, save that one day we laid in bed until 2 p.m. A four-day weekend coming off a seven-day vacation is the most heavenlyawful way to spoil onesself into worktime wheel-spinning, and it's a wonder I'm getting anything done at all. Thank you, those of you who blogged only once or twice while I was away; you're making my life easier and more productive.

But now that I'm busy again and staring down the barrell of a 300-page book that needs to be proofread by Monday, I look forward to it all, I really do. Even the drudgery. Because when it comes right down to it, 2007 is not just a new beginning but a continuation of the good old year(s) that came before. And even though it isn't always unicorns and rainbows, I'm the first person to recognize how incredibly lucky I am to have done the things I've done and been the places I've been and to have spent the closing weeks of 2006 with many of my favorite people. Here's to another year of stories and to cookies for breakfast more than just once in a while.