January 2
I'm 31. Yep. This is the face of a 31 year old on the first day back to work after a long break. Next, months of horrible winter. Possibly death. Also, I hate HATE this haircut, and am never, ever cutting it like this again.
I'd not planned on staying away so long intentionally, but kind of knew that I'd never actually sit down to write an entry when I wasn't at work trying to pretend I was busy. Did that make sense? No, not to me, either. Let's move on, this is longwinded.
Here's a Day To Day Breakdown of a Christmas Holiday:
22nd: Um. Hum. I don't remember. I think, no, wait! I did some last minute shopping. After purchase of final pair of Christmas Pants, declare self done, out of shopping patience and money.
23rd: My mom shows up. We, uh, talk or something, I guess. Nick and I bake stuff, ugh, that's right, I baked the FUCKING bread again, and it's worth noting that of the two loaves, I was offered not ONE SINGLE SLICE. Nope. Nick and I go over to Grandparents house later that evening to gather mother, greet newly arrived Aunt, Uncle and Cousins. We go to see Lord of the Rings, which, I found both extremely boring and extremely cool at the same time. Looking back on it now, boring is winning out over cool. Burning need to pee began at Hour 1. Gah.
24th: Christmas Eve with my aunt and cousins and everyone here was a bunch of laughs (note: heh, how insincere did THAT sound? It's true, it was very nice!). Nick and I spent the day over at Eleanor & Angelo's house. We did the shrimp dinner thing (for some reason, there's no meat allowed on the night before The Baby Jesus' birthday. Meat makes babies gassy? Who knows?) and ate cookies, shot the shit, and then opened presents. I've not a clue how it happened, but everyone seemed to like what I gave them, including the ANSWERING MACHINE for Eleanor and Angelo. Imagine, all these years, they've never had an answering machine. Imagine, too, the look she gave it after opening. "What is this alien machinery?! Does it connect with the mothership?! Is this one of those new fangled talking boxes I've heard so much about?!"
I'm pretty sure I've mentioned the yearly Old Spice/Angelo tradition. I'm not positive how or why it got started, only that I've been giving him Old Spice for as long as I can remember. This year, there was all this other stuff going on, and he and I were kind of across the room from one another. He opens the package, and our eyes meet. He gets all choked up and teary eyed and says SOMETHING I can't remember now, but it ended with "I love you, thank you so much" and we shared this perfect moment that NO ONE ELSE IN THE ROOM noticed. Thinking about it now is making me all weepy like a little girl.
25th: Nick and I exhange our gifts. He got me a bunch of super cool stuff, including a Rio I'll do my best not to destroy, some movies I'd asked for, a Learn Japanese CD, which I suspect will be easier said than done. What he got me seemed much cooler than what I got him, but clothes are always nice! No, they are. Shut up, everyone needs clothes.
After we got organized, we packed up the food we were bringing over to Wally's house (gorgonzola beef wellingtons, yom, and a German Chocolate Cake, which will unfortunately cause you to metamorphasize into a Shit Monster within 45 minutes of ingestion. There's a pound of butter in that thar cake). We stop in at Angelo & Eleanor's, and I make plans with my cousins to take a trip to NY to see some sights. Spend the next several hours with Wally and assorted kids. A few fights. Some tears are shed. All in all, a fine Christmas! We get home, my mom comes over (she's staying with us, in case you'd not gathered that) Nick goes to bed, she and I stay up and talk shit about the ugly bedroom some poor couple wound up with on Trading Spaces. Har.
26th: Um. Mom left. Some other stuff happened, but damned if I remember what.
27th: Okay, Susan and Megan and I were SUPPOSED to go into NY today, but they are forced to go visit my insane nutbag great aunt and uncle in Staten Island (Angelo's brother and sister). Apparently, it was time they will never, ever get back. Unfortunately, again, I don't even REMOTELY remember what I did. You'd think I had been smoking crack or something. I hadn't been. In the nighttime, I get hold of Megan. We plan to make the trip the next day. Good thing, too, because I was MAD when I thought it was going to fall apart.
28th: I arrive at Angelo & Eleanor's at 9:00, to gather Megan and Susan and head off to the train. They are in various states of undress when I arrive. I learn that they're supposed to sit down to the table and eat a hearty breakfast before they leave. I inform my family that they will not perish if they eat a muffin on the train rather than the whole retarded family let's sit down and eat three square meals a day Brady Bunch thing. I am then lectured for 6 full minutes about the dangers of New York. "Where was I born?" I reply. "Why are you telling me these things?" "What city did YOU YOURSELVES leave not 2 years ago?!" We (my cousins, really) are warned not to smile at or talk to anyone. Not to accept gifts or drinks, etc. We escape, barely.
The train ride is unremarkable. We arrive and go to the Hyatt to pee (note for the uninformed: if you're ever around Grand Central and need to pee, hassle free, go to the Hyatt next door. The shitters are clean, and plus, if you're super early for your train, they've got a nice bar. Or so I've heard.) Subway down to Delancey Street, we walk to Chinatown and eat lunch. The next few hours, we window shop. We do some touristy stuff. We stop at a bar. We have some dinner. We decide that it's important that we go back to another bar. We make friends and play pool. There may have been some dancing involved. Repeat, Repeat, repeat.
We arrive back up at Grand Central a little over an hour earlier than the last train, thinking we'd be able to get home more quickly. We are staggery and loud. We are self amused. We have headaches. We buy gum and water. We learn that we are, unfortunately, a little over an hour too early because there IS no midnight-time train. Find track 16 and collapse for the next HOUR AND A HALF until the 1:35 train leaves.
Do you know the 1:35 train, my friends? Do you know it? The fact of the matter is that no matter how drunk I am, I am NEVER the drunkest person on the 1:35 train. If you added together the drunkenness of the three of us, we'd STILL not be the drunkest on the 1:35 to New Haven. The 1:35 train to New Haven is creepingly, haltingly, terribly local. It stops at every. single. stop. The ones in towns where I'm not too sure people actually LIVE. The 1:35 train does not pull into New Haven until 3:50. That's how long it takes.
We all pay several lurchy visits to the vile bathroom. Perhaps we are vomiting. It's not your concern! We sit down, we fall alseep. We wake at the same time. We groan words to one another. We laugh about our night. One stop before New Haven, I call Nick. "Milford" I grunt. "Ugh, be right there" he replies. Like a knight, he is waiting for us when we arrive. I'm sure we smelled delightful. Megan, ever polite "thank you, Nick, for getting us." We drive to Angelo and Eleanor's house. Yep. I have to LET THEM INTO THE HOUSE. Heh. I do. It's 4:20. We hug, smooch, proclaim love, and I DART, I shut the door behind me and never look back.
29th: I sleep until 3:30. At 4:00, Wally calls. "I just wanted to let you know that I might not be around next year." I am hung over, I am confused. "Not be around? Huh?" "Well, YES!! Noah tells me that next year, I'm going to get some special powers! The first power, I will be able to fly! The second? I will have X ray vision! And the third is the really special one: I am going to turn into a woman. But not just any old woman. Cindarella." I am amused enough by this to get out of bed for a little while. I hork one last time, for good measure, the last of 2001, and crawl back into bed with a book. I sleep again until Nick comes home, who has come down with The Plague or some Plague-like Death thing. He undresses and falls into bed, but his being there and being legitamitely sick when I'm just a shitty boozehead makes me feel like a gigantic turd. I don't recall what I did about it. Probably nothing.
30th: I leave the house only to venture to the supermarket. Nick alerts me that we are getting the hell out of New Haven the next morning, and to ready myself.
31st: "Drive South" he says. And I do. We end up in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, also, apparently, the City of Titty Ass Cold, at an absolutely lovely Mariott. I am not only surprised at my birthday journey, I am delighted. Getting out of New Haven for my birthday is a super cool and sweet thing. Nick is still violently sick, but this does not prevent him from walking all over the place. We walk to Chinatown, where we're treated to our first taste of Philly: a homeless person, in a cardboard box, being covered with a sheet. The Final Cover, if you know what I mean. We are grossly interested, and gawk nastily for a few moments before carrying on. "Good thing he had that box, there!" said Nick. Heh, we're totally going to hell.
We try and go to the Mint (a long standing thing, I am obsessed with the Mint. I know not why. I can not explain). It is, sadly enough, closed. We cross the street and wait on line to see the Liberty Bell. We are frisked and searched. I take some photos. We listen to the speech about the bell. I find myself extremely moved, and pretend not to be crying. Damn you, 2001.
We re-bundle and go back out, looking for a place to eat. We pass all of these super hip looking places, all readying themselves for the party to come, later. It's a weird time, so we can't really go anywhere nice nice (and we're dressed kind of like slobs, heh) and find ourselves in a bar type place called, I think, "Rotten Ralph's". The food was fair-to-middling, but we were sitting next to a window, which was extremely unpleasant. We decide to walk back to the hotel to warm up and get ready for the fireworks at midnight.
That's right! Fireworks! Nick planned the whole trip because, well, it was something cool, and because there were fireworks, which is utterly different than what we'd ever do in New Haven on New Year's Eve. Besides, I LOVE fireworks.
Back at the hotel, we lounge around and shower and warm up and have coffee. We go down to the sports bar (this is a good 4 hours later, mind you) and have a pre-fireworks 10:00 snack, (and a Long Island Iced Tea). We go to the lobby (see the lobby link in the link above to share in where I was) and have some more drinks (me: cosmopolitan, Nick: rum and coke). We mock all of those around us. We drink.
We get some kind of towncar thing down to Penn's Landing (Penn's? Penn? I don't remember). The driver tells us many, many things, not the least of which was that it was his birthday. I have the vague feeling he's full of shit. He lets us out, and we walk the remaining 3 blocks down to the water to claim a viewing spot.
Remember I said it was titty ass cold? Well, multiply that by 8 zillion down by the water. I, by nature, am not a hat person, but I was thanking the great lord that I'd had the foresight to grab one off the floor of my car (heh, the floor of my car is GROSS.) We hop up on some ledge behind a family, and await the fun. Soon, joining us on the ledge are about 40 South Americans, screaming and hooting and hopping up and down and ashing cigarettes in our faces. A member of the family we were standing behind, my new hero, yells "Hello! HELLO! I AM NOT INVISIBLE!! STOP PUSHING ME!!" The gang of South Americans, being both too drunk and too jolly to even care, ignore her merrily. Nick and I snigger. This starts a long power struggle, between the girl and the photograph taking, jumping, jabbering in a language we do not understand posse. Amusingly enough, when the radio station plays "Born in the USA" they all sing along at the top of their lungs. With that, the definitely from South Philly family roll their eyes a lot and try and gain Nick's and my united "WE'RE the American's here!" snorty laughter. Only Nick is trapped into it, I have wisely kept my eyes diverted. I am here only to see fireworks.
At 12:00, the Ben Franklin bridge begins exploding. It is the coolest thing, ever. They string fireworks all along the bottom, and when they're lit, it looks like a curtain of fire, hitting the water. Super cool. For the next 15 minutes or so, there are fireworks. Did you know that there are SMILY FACE firworks? HEART shaped fireworks? Me either. I clapped like crazy, and again, found myself all choked up, and I come up with my soon to be famous catch phrase for the New Year. Are you ready? You're going to be saying it like crazy, soon: "WOOOOO, 2002!" Rock!
The music the radio station played was absolutely insane, all having to do with cars or driving or travel (Gripe: Why does Rod Stewart sing a cover of Downtown Train? Leave that shit to Tom Waits or Bruce Springsteen. And more, any time I or Nick talk about Rod [which admittedly is not often] it's always prefaced by "Pants. Pooped 'em!", funny only if you watch South Park, or are retarded like me.) We are HUGGED by one of the South Americans. We laughingly notice that he does NOT attempt to hug the South Philly girl, who has threatened him at least 4 times during the fireworks display.
When it is all over, we clap like crazy, and hop down off the ledge. We start back for the hotel, with 1000 other people. Eventually we are alone on the street, listening to the far off screams and hoots of merriment, until we're joined by a guy who's drinking a beer (dig it! no container law in Philly?! Sweet!) he explains to us how much business he's done in Connecticut, specfically Hamden, and how much he loves living in Philadelphia, and we part company, convinced that we have gone to the friendliest city, ever, and vowing to the world that we will be back in the Spring.
We hit the hotel bar again, and sit shivering and sipping drinks until we realize that we are adults and are allowed to go back up to our room. We turn on HBO, and I watch my first EVER episode of Sex in the City, before falling asleep. No shit, are those the ugliest women, ever? Just wondering.
1st: Which is actually my birthday, in case you were wanting to send me good wishes. We awake to the Mummer's Parade outside, which is random and cool and wonderful and if it had been 35 degrees warmer, we might have stayed longer than we did. Seriously, though, it was ODD. For those of you who don't know, info about it is here. I can't be sure, but I suspect that a great deal of alcohol is involved. The parade goes from 10 in the morning until 5. In the cold. Very cool!
We check out and attempt to get the truck out of valet at the exact same time as the 100 pompous fatheads who'd been in a wedding party, up in the Grand Ballroom the night before. They are with women who roll their eyes and whisper as people they know walk past. The men clutch crumpled tuxedo jackets and half consumed bottles of rum. They are All Horrible. Were you at the wedding this weekend? You were horrible. I hate you. 17 hours later, my truck is delivered. We quire about a place to buy gas, and are sent through the ghetto. I don't mind so much when I see how much they're charging for gas: Move OVER, Jersey Turnpike, The Ghetto Gasstation only wants 97 cents per gallon. NINTY SEVEN. Again, it is a sure sign that my 31st year is going to rock and roll. I stand and pump (heh, a funny sentence if ever there was one...) so that Nick, who, by the by, STILL has the Plague, perhaps worse than ever, can stay warm, and as I'm, uh, FUELING, a little kid comes over to me on a bike. He asks me the most random question ever: "Can I pump your gas for you?"
Now, I understand WHY he asked. He wanted me to give him some money for doing it. That's cool, I'm all for making a buck or two, but why ask me when I'm already more than halfway through? Not that I was going to let him touch my truck in any way, shape or form, but still. If I hadn't had like a 10th of a gallon left to go, he might have had better luck. Though, no, probably not. I'm fairly sure he cursed at me as he pedaled off. Whatever, no little street urchin was going to harsh my 97 cent gas bug.
We get back on the highway, where I am again reminded that people drive at speeds way faster than in Connecticut, on 95 around the city. I am passed doing 90. It's a beautiful thing. About a half hour later, we show up at Mike & Linda's house. They are my in-laws, and have kindly volunteered to cook us dinner, which they do. We hang out for a couple hours, and head back to 95.
I am embarrassed to admit to you all that I got lost in NY. To be fair to me, we'd just spent almost 35 minutes waiting to pay the SIX DOLLAR ripoff toll for the George Washington bridge. I get onto 87 heading for Albany just fine, but somehow manage to miss the entrance to the Saw Mill and am on 9a, heading south. This is okay because Nick professes a pee need so urgent, he is holding the seatbelt off his lap. I pull into a diner, he is relieved, we drive around Yonkers, an entirely creepy town in the dark.
The rest of the trip is unremarkable. We are tired and happy, and I am beginning to dread work the next day, which brings me to now. The day after my 31st birthday, which was perhaps the best I've ever had.