So, the end/beginning of the year has created an odd rhythm of working a few days and having a few days off.  I kind of liked it, since I don’t think I ever had to work more than three days in a row, but as usually happens when I get a little time off, I feel like it ruined me just the tiniest bit, too.  What’s going to happen on Wednesday, when I realize that I have to get up early for a fourth day in row.  That just seems indecent.

This year, I decided to opt out of New Year’s Eve parties, settling instead for a movie night with pizza, beer, and my friend Julie.  Say what you will, but it beats the hell out of all the years that I spent barhopping up and down Dickson Street in uncomfortable shoes and cute, but not terribly warm tops looking for the right place to spend the eleven seconds or so that the holiday is all about.  I wouldn’t even object to a party with people I know, but for most of college my friends and I somehow seemed to end up at parties where we didn’t know more than a few people.  Sometimes it turned out interesting, like the time that we rang in the New Year at someone’s parents’ house.  At midnight, his mom came down and gave us champagne and made us all eat 12 grapes before 12:01.  Another year, I wasn’t so lucky and got stuck at a party that was so bad that I pretended to smoke cigarettes on the patio just to have something to do.  There were some drunken charades, and by 11:30, my friend Autumn and I decided to just go home.  If we timed it right, we could be on the couch in our pajamas when the ball dropped.  It’s a real hit-or-miss holiday for me, is what I’m saying.

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I did go to a brunch on New Year’s Day, where I ate as much bacon in one afternoon as I normally eat in a year.  No black eyed peas, though.  Through a weird coincidence, most of that delicious bacon was cooked by a girl who was one of my residents at Arkansas Governor’s School several years ago.  I was her R.A., which made me feel just the tiniest bit old.  It wasn’t as awkward as the time I ran into one of my students at a party, where, in order to avoid a girl who was ranting angrily about I can’t remember what, my student and I drank beer and discussed The Price is Right.  Still, I spent a few minutes thinking about what the age difference must be if I was, in essence, her camp counselor.  I remember her being a really sweet, really great student and she seems to be the same in that respect.  Her boyfriend (now husband), whom I also knew from back in the day, is still a good egg.  The guy carries a periodic table of elements around in his wallet, and I just have to say, I think that’s awesome. 

In this weird little string of days off, I’ve also finished a couple of books, discovered that Pop Rocks comes in holiday flavors, watched a few minutes of He-Man while I was browsing at Hastings (dude, that show is terrible), and I just found Clue playing on TV (God bless Madeline Kahn).  I’m not ready to go back to work.  I think we should maybe be allowed to ease back into a regular workweek.  We could start out working 25 or 30 hours a week, and just add 30 minute increments, until sometime in mid-February, we’re ready to work 40 hours.

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