If You Want to be Happy in a Million Ways

In just a few hours I will be returning to my friendly neighbourhood international airport, where the lines will hopefully not be insane despite the baggage scandals going on. I hadn't heard anything about it until Mum told me, but apparently there has been some skullduggery with lax security over Thanksgiving, so now they're going to make up for it by making travellers' lives extra-miserable now. Oh joy.

Thursday night I slayed my economics exam, or at least wounded it. I'm fairly pleased with how it went. But then when I got home there was nobody around because Jacob is in Mexico (lucky fool), Katherine was out with Jordan, and Emily is usually asleep by 10:30, so I did some Christmas cards for the folks at work and watched TV. Woo.

To make up for this lameitude last night was extra-fun, for I attended a party at Matt's place. His housemates and friends all seem very nice, and a few of the choir folk (Laure and Louise) were there. I still don't understand the "raid dance". Apparently it has something to do with hard drives and the fact that they are read in a circular motion, so you have to have multiple people dancing around making circles with their hands. Just when I think I'm a geek, someone has to outdo me, and with choreography too...

Finally, I would just like to note that the new Fall Out Boy song currently on the radio sounds eerily Backstreet Boys-esque in the chorus. My inner teenybopper likes it; the rest of me is determined to mount a vigorous resistance.

Garden Statement

And so I return. It has been quite a while; it must look from the vantage point of the Internets as though I have disappeared into a pool of justified rage. And I have, if by this we mean "I have written a geography exam and then gone to New Jersey for a weekend with the fam". Both of these things went well, despite some justified rage at Continental Airlines and NYC-area air traffic control for trapping me in the airport for nearly five hours on Thursday night. Flight delays, bah humbug! I was confined in a Tim Hortons-less zone for interminable hours, with only bad tuna wraps to sustain me (I seriously have no idea what they did to the things; they tasted awful). My poor cousin John had to pick me up at the airport at 11:30 at night when he'd thought he would be home by 9:00.

The rest of the weekend was much more pleasurable. Friday I went into the city with Nina, Aunt Marie, and Lauren, or "baby Lauren", as Sophia calls her. We tripped around and did a little shopping, saw the Naked Cowboy, etc. Good times.

Friday night Aunt Marie and I babysat for Lauren so that Dan and Nina could go out for dinner. We watched the last half of Braveheart on TV, thus warping Lauren's tiny mind forever. If she is Scottish when she starts to talk, we will know why. If she commits treason against the king of England, we will also know why, though this will be difficult to do as she is not actually a British subject.

Saturday Nina took me into the city again -- she said she was very happy to do it, as it let her relive her Manhattan days, but it was still very nice of her! We went to see the Frick Collection, which is marvellous and is housed in a very beautiful building in the Museum Mile. It is right across from the Met, but so is everything in the Museum Mile because the Met is eleventy billion blocks long.

This was in the window at Carolina Herrera and I lust after it. There are lots of brocade coats in the shops at the moment but this was my favourite. The embroidery is just extraordinarily beautiful. So, you know, Christmas is coming up... who loves me?

The George Washington Bridge at the end of the day

Sunday was the big dinner with the family. Aunt Ronnie, Uncle Jim, and Jenna came up from South Jersey. Aunt Marie's three sons and their families also came, as did Aunt Elizabeth, Evelyn, and Linda. The babies were, again, a real highlight. I hadn't seen Sophia since she was about three months old; now she three and a half or so, and is full of energy. She's very sweet with her new little brother and with baby Lauren. Lauren loves her back, and went power-crawling across the floor to greet her when Michael, Marian, Sophia, and John arrived. John is only three months old and is reputed to wake up only when he is hungry. Nevertheless, he seems very good-tempered and darn cute. Most of my photos didn't turn out great, though there are a few I like. I was going to get Jenna to send me a few of hers, but in the meantime here are some that look OK. The photo I tried to take during dinner was not really a success; I should have known better! Anyway, the food was great and it was lovely to see everybody.

Monday Ruth was going to come by in the morning and take me to meet Father Brian (your friendly neighbourhood priest and a longtime friend of Ruth's) but unfortunately her truck's alternator broke and she had to spend some time in the Ford dealership on Route 17. In the end, we skipped out on Father Brian and cut straight to our traditional fare: lunch at the Park Tavern, home of the best pizza ever. Mmm, New Jersey bar pizza. Her sister Leslie came along, which was very nice indeed. It is lovely to spend time with Ruth but afterward my jaw always hurts because we both talk so darn much.

Later that day, John kindly trucked me back over to the airport. We were delayed about a half-hour, but that's how it goes with evening flights, I guess. Customs was uneventful, which is GOOD. This was, after all, my first solo international trip. And now I am all familied out and have to go study for my economics exam, which is tomorrow (gah). And then it is back to the airport, which is becoming my home away from my home-away-from-home. Hooray for Christmas!

Doormatitis

Today I realized something that is new about me, and is something I have been trying to believe for a long time and hadn't really realized until this week. I realized that occasionally, it is OK to be mean to people. Sometimes, as long as you don't go overboard and do any interior design involving femurs. This is extraordinarily liberating. It doesn't mean uncontrolled anger is my new modus operandi, but it does mean I am free to be curt if that is how I feel.

Wow.

So expect a lot more discriminate rage from me in future, mmkay? Enjoy.

Sculling About in the Quiet Pool

Yes! Papers done! Business presentation done! Now for exams...

The weekend was largely taken up with my econ paper and business presentation. Some of the gang stuck around after our meetings Saturday and there were shenanigans. I dropped in from time to time (being largely in my room writing) but didn't really participate.

Monday was completely insane. I was as short with people as I have ever been in my life. Having insulted the product of hours and hours of work, I then threatened to decorate the display board with the entrails of one lucky contestant. At the time, I felt kind of powerful and red-misty, but in retrospect kind of like a big meanie. Our presentation actually went reasonably well, despite all the precedent carnage. Then I came home, and Kyle and I went out for coffee and broke up. But it's OK, we sat in the Timmy's downstairs and talked. It was probably the least dramatic public breakup in the history of time. This is facilitated by my heartlessness and incapacity for significant romantic attachment. This is what I say to myself, not what others say to me.

My economics paper is done and finished, and I'm hoping the prof doesn't notice that it's not really about economics at all, but rather about how stupid economics is in its belief that material production can be expanded almost indefinitely. One of the Fraser Institute papers I checked out for it was talking about the "demand" for environmental quality, as though that's something humans alone control, on a day-to-day market basis. "Well, deciduous trees are up 10 points today, but I'm seeing stagnant watercourses under 5 hectares are down another 15." This may be a gross oversimplification of their position, but really: good freaking luck putting the natural house of cards back up once you've knocked it down.

Work yesterday was fine -- it was the office park's Christmas party, so there was tonnes of food and I inadvertently ate some chicken salad, which tasted kind of weird given that I was expecting it to be tuna. This is not the first time this has happened. All I can say is I'm glad it wasn't horseradish this time.

Today was Christmas shopping, to supplement the start I've made on Amazon. I recommend that everyone start making overtures for presents now, because there are lots of cool things out there. Even if it is just something small, it's nice to find a present that you know the giftee will like. At least, something you think they will like. So Mom, I hope you enjoy the bolster I have bought you. You should be particularly excited to hear that it is four feet long, extravagantly scented with amber musk, and shaped like a tabby cat. Sorry to give away the surprise, I'm just really psyched to have found it.

And so, to geography studying. Tah-rah!

"Like the Christmas Spirit Threw Up"

The essay-writing adventures continue. I'm trying to write about NAFTA right now, but it keeps turning into an environmentalist tirade about the folly of viewing Earth's resources as basically infinite and mobile, without any regard for the balance of natural systems. I suspect I am also going to thoroughly castigate the Alberta government for deliberately being poor planners.

Last night was December first, which means ritualistic excess in the form of Christmas decorating. Notl, Emily, and Nate came over, and by the time I got back from choir rehearsal it was pretty well insane. We were going for a somewhat revolting amount of tinsel, accentuated by coloured lights, bows, etc. I think we've achieved it admirably. Plus, we did groceries on Friday, so now there is actually, like, food in the place again and we aren't trying to figure out what you can make with remnants (viz. penne, chutney, dijon mustard, canned kidney beans).

And now I'm afraid I must get back to work. Though Katherine seems to have made eggs. Maybe there are some for me? I shall investigate.