So this is the New Year...

...and I don't feel any different, she says, quoting a Death Cab song...

Actually, at the moment I feel roughly 10 pounds (probably closer to 6 in reality) pounds heavier, like I'd really, REALLY like to exercise a whole bunch and like my liver could use a break. The last of which entertains me because this was the first New Year's Day in ten years (literally, the first since 1999, which was before I'd started drinking) that I woke up sans any sort of hangover at all.

Since then, however, there has been rather too much in the way of dranks, and I'm looking forward to getting back to PA to rest my chemistry (to quote an Interpol song). Except for the wine tasting we're apparently going to on Saturday.

I'd love to have some sort of big "this is what I've been doing" type update, but the truth is that there really isn't all that much. Reason: SNOW. Like, SNOWMG or SNOWPOCALYPSE NOW or SNOWMAGGEDON or something to that effect. Also, REALLY EFFING COLD. Mostly we've all been hiding indoors because the outdoors has been murderous. At this moment there are roughly 18 inches of snow on my parents' deck, and this is after two days of bright sunshine and one day of hitting maybe 22 (tropical, really) degrees, which caused icicles, which means there was some melting. The windchill on Friday morning was -32. Hence the aforementioned lack of exercise and accompanying overabundance of dranks - there really hasn't been much to do.

What I have done: I got a chance to hang out with bridefriend and chat with her for a while and I think we might be going to look at bridesmaid dresses tomorrow. I've gotten to have dinner with Favorite Priest (who performed my marriage ceremony), seen Favorite Aunt twice, found out that my grandmother has Alzheimer's (not, I repeat, NOT a surprise) and have reaffirmed for the hundredth time both my inability to comprehend the amount of porcelain in my grandparents' house and my dislike for antiques.

The thing with antiques is this. My grandparents' house has always been more of a museum of antique French porcelain dishware than it has been a liveable house (in my memory at least - according to my aunt, they got like this at some point after all the kids had moved out). I've been to their house twice during my seven years of grad school, and before that, I don't think I'd been to their house since I was six, which was when they summarily banned visits from kids because they were worried that a dish might get broken. Once they banned visits, my brother and I saw them for birthdays and Christmas for a year or two, and after that it was down to Christmas and Thanksgiving only. As far as I can tell from our interactions, I didn't have much meaning to my grandmother from the age of six until I showed up with a fiance and a ring on my finger. Am I bitter? A bit, yes. Do I blame them? Partly, I suppose. Mostly what I really blame are the damned antique porcelain dishes on their hooks and shelves and and hangers and tables and covering every wall and every surface in the entire two story house, including the former rooms of my dad and his two sisters. So while I'm sad to hear that my grandmother has Alzheimer's, I feel like a bad person because I'm more sad that it happened in a general way (as in, it's a terrible disease and it's hard to see anyone go through it, or even to imagine anyone dealing with it) than I am that it's happening to MY grandmother in particular. I'm mad at myself for that, but I feel like I was never allowed the chance to get to know her, all because I might have accidentally broken a plate.

I have an irrational hatred of flea markets. I've been called a snob for this more than once (most memorably by the Bastard, who took me to several flea markets in an attempt to make me "get over myself"). It isn't snobbery at all. I know there's some seriously cool stuff to be found at flea markets, and that going could probably be a lot of fun. But I hate it anyway because of those stupid porcelain plates.


Blogging is strange and wonderful in some ways because I get started and end up writing about something that I hadn't been thinking about at all before I began.