Longer than I meant
Ooops. When I paused for Christmas, I got on a roll. A roll of pauses, one seamlessly linked to the next, in what ultimately proved to be nearly three weeks of pauses. In general, as anyone who's known me for more than a week can attest, I'm better at pausing than moving. (I like to believe I can fake it for a week. If you want to get together for a week, I will be a veritable blur of activity and efficiency. I will be witty. I will bake things. I will loan you interesting books to read while I--please excuse me for just a few minutes--update my blog. I will take you to shows. Then I'm going to need you to go away so that I can watch television as God intended. On second thought, let's call it four days. I can fake it for four days.)
If you had had the nearly two weeks off that I had, you probably would have accomplished amazing things. You'd have climbed a precipitous slope, or fashioned a quilt from your vintage apron collection, or adopted an orphan, or made a documentary film or something. I recognize this and applaud you. But in the spirit of friendship and goodwill that lately infused the holiday season, let us agree that it takes all kinds. Some of those kinds are like you, while others are like me: pausers.
What I Did Over my Winter Vacation
- Spent many days loafing about in my parents' home.
- Baked not one, but two chocolate cakes.
One for Christmas and one for New Year's Eve. The first I served to my family, as is traditional, but the second I took to a bar and served at midnight, mostly to strangers, which proved to be a very festive and cheerful thing to do. I recommend it. Hot tip: It helps to know a few people at the bar who can vouch for you to their friends; otherwise, you're just a stranger passing out free cake in a bar, about which people may be justifiably wary. Also, obviously, dress up. I think the dress helped boost my credibility. Or maybe it didn't, but I enjoyed wearing it. - Ate more than my fair share of leftover chocolate cake.
- Saw the Hockney exhibit at the De Young, which is lovely and worth seeing.
- Watched many, many hours of a terribly quaint British period series, the name of which I will not even tell you because you will laugh at me. There is a postmistress involved. I know.
- Saw American Hustle and The Wolf of Wall Street on the big screen (not simultaneously, nor, indeed, on the same big screen). The former I cannot recommend enough and the latter you can skip if you want to. Or, alternately, if you're curious about what it might be like to work in an office where you were routinely provided with prostitutes, then go see it.
- Read The Luminaries, which I liked very much. Additionally, I'd like the record to show, that it won the Man Booker Prize and is very, very long. Ha. And you thought I'd not accomplished anything.
- Wrote an copious number of emails to my laughably distant boyfriend (I mean in terms of miles, which, now that I think about it,, makes for a nice change. In the past, I have written copious emails to laughably distant boyfriends who lived ten minutes away.) Emotionally present boyfriends are the must-have accessory for 2014. If you can get them to live in the same city, or, hell, the same time zone, so much the better.
And that, my friends, was that.
Happy 2014 to you. I feel good about it.