So it’s New Year’s Eve again - my fifth since moving to New York. I’ve spent the recent ones staying as far away from Times Square as possible, but even before I moved here I wasn’t really one for New Year’s parties. It’s always seemed like such a non-holiday to me; I think I tend to get all my it’s-another-year-already reflection and nostalgia out of the way in September and October, perhaps because that’s when the academic year starts. When I was younger I tended to stay in with a couple of friends and a couple of movies and order Chinese. We’d watch the ball drop on TV usually, but that was about it. Nothing much has changed now that I live here - last year I stayed in with Chris and a couple of movies and ordered Chinese. We watched the ball drop on TV. (And played an awful lot of Vice City.) That’s pretty much the ideal, as far as I’m concerned. No crowds, no cold, a couple of movies, and optional booze.

The one really exciting thing about the approach of January, of course, is that it means my birthday arrives in a mere three weeks. I hope you’re all prepared.

I’ve mentioned my nutsy downstairs neighbor before, but last night reached new heights - she got shitfaced and tried to beat me up, which was exciting. I have a split lip and a torn shirt, but since she got to spend the rest of the night hanging out with the police, I think I probably got the better deal. Needless to say, I anticipate spending most of my time at Chris’s for the next couple of weeks until the Big Move - there are worse ways to spend an afternoon than spending it reading the OED and napping with the cat.

Buckeroos and buckerettes, you sure do have me pegged. I seem to get a heap of new books every Crhistmas (along with all the other fantastic stuff), and this year’s haul is no exception. A few that I’ve already started sampling, with the understanding that there are many more to come:

Revenge (Stephen Fry):
I haven’t read a new Stephen Fry novel in years (probably because he hasn’t written one in years), but this one looks to be worth the wait. I’m not far into it yet, but it’s the kind of thing I might end up reading in bed all day and then put it down finally when it’s already dark out and I’m still wearing pajamas. His stuff is perfect vacation reading - it’s light but not stupid, and endlessly entertaining.

Reason, Truth, and History (Hilary Putnam): I’ve been sort of embarrassed about not already owning this - I’ve read most of it over the past few years in one context or another, but it’s one of those books that philosophy majors are just supposed to have. I’ve even written two half-assed undergraduate papers on the damn thing, thanks to the copy at Bobst, but I’ve wanted for a while to have one of my own. And now I do!

The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Book of Going Forth By Day (Raymond Faulkner, Trans): Chris and I saw this edition at the Met a while back, and it’s really impressive - images of the Papyrus of Ani are placed above the corresponding English translation, and I can spend hours just looking at it. I had a friend years ago who was obsessive about Egyptian history and had a version of this that wasn’t nearly as nice (but cost a great deal more). I’m not quite as into it as she was, but I can completely understand the appeal.

The Simarillion (J.R.R. Tolkien): I’ve already read about the first fifth of this from a much-abused mass market paperback copy I found at the Strand - that’s when I realized that something like the last third of the book is missing, so I tossed it. Now that I have this much nicer edition, I can feed the dorky Tolkien fangirl within once more. Of course, I could always just re-read the entire series, and I probably will, but it’s nice to have something completely new (even if everyone else has already read it).

Persons, Animals, Ships, and Cannon in the Aubrey-Maturin Sea Novels of Patrick O’Brian (Anthony Gary Brown):
What with the number of Patrick O’Brian fans in my family, it’s not all that surprising that multiple copies of this were ordered for multiple people this year - but I ended up with one of them, so I’m pretty pleased. It’s the definitive reference to pretty much everything in the canon, fictional and historical, and it’s got me itching to reread the entire series again.

Stitch ‘N Bitch: The Knitter’s Handbook
(Debbie Stoller): For Christmas this year, my brother got me everything one needs to learn how to knit - needles, point protectors, yarn, and this book. I spent an awkward forty minutes learning how to cast on and do a few rows of stitches, and although there was a lot of swearing (and asking my mother why on earth anyone would want to knit), I think I’ll get the hang of it soon enough.

Since Chris and I just got back from our second viewing of The Return of the King, I suppose now is as good a time as any to point out Andy Serkis’s new book Gollum. It’s your typical behind-the-scenes thing, but it’s only ten bucks and I found Gollum’s role interesting enough that I’ll probably shell out for it. There was an interview with Serkis on NPR last year when Towers came out, but I wasn’t able to find a link to an archived version of it (if there is one).

I’m back from the folks’ house and still getting my bearings: despite the fact that I was gone for almost exactly a week, I feel as though I’ve been away for a (perhaps unusually long) weekend, and that today is Monday. It’s also a pleasantly disorienting feeling to be using a Mac again - the parental computer is an ancient laptop running 98. My own keyboard feels strange and too big, and it’s taking a little while to remember all my hotkeys. Incidentally, although I got Panther for Christmas, I haven’t installed it yet - that’s one of the many, many things I’m supposed to do during the three weeks I have left before classes start again.

Other things I have to do during this time include three different freelance web projects, and one non-freelance top secret web project that I’ll tell you about soon. I have to plan and execute my move back to Manhattan (which includes the actual packing and moving, of course, but also the cancelling and opening of various accounts, changing of addresses for everything, and so on). I have to do some furniture shopping associated with the move and figure out what to do with some other furniture that doesn’t need to be moved. I really ought to start working on my thesis, although I’m not kidding myself that that’s likely to happen over break. I have to get my Massachusetts license transferred to a New York license, because seriously I’ve been here for almost five years now and my MA one expired a while ago.

Things I had to do over break that I’ve already done, however, included those dentist and optometrist visits and getting a haircut. I also needed a new pair of shoes, but thanks to a post-holiday sale at Berk’s in Cambridge I now have a new pair of shoes, two new pairs of boots, and a replacement pair of Danskos. I also badly needed a break from the city, and I’ve certainly had that. But it’s good to be back in Brooklyn (for another two weeks, anyway).

I also noticed the disappearing wishlist item thing about a week ago, but in my case the mystery was solved this (particularly rainy) Christmas morning: everything that was flagged as purchased but hadn’t shown up was in fact bought by my parents, who had cleverly pretended not to know that I had a wishlist at all. So along with some other things, I got some gifts that I had been particularly wanting but certainly not expecting from the family, which worked out really well.

Christmas at the Story house is more or less over, and while we lacked a Christmas anteater this year, we more than made up for it with a Christmas pelican. We had the usual fantastic, stomach-popping dinner with the local extended family, and everything went pretty much perfectly. I did burn an entire tray of Christmas cookies yesterday, but since we made about five anyway, they ended up serving as particularly festive dog biscuits.

I’m going to go disappear into my brand new Shorter OED for the next (say) six months, but I’m sure someone will find me eventually.

It’s looking like this is going to be the week of short, content-free posts: I’m being just about as lazy as it’s possible to be, so I haven’t got a lot of news to report. Today was perhaps a little less restful than yesterday or the day before; I went to both the dentist and the optometrist, so I spent most of my day being poked and prodded and at least half of it numb and drooling, but I’m now minus the first cavity I’ve had in years and plus a brand-new prescription for my glasses. (I’m hoping that one day I’ll actually reach a point where my eyes just won’t be able to get any worse, so I won’t have to keep getting new lenses.)

We made more cookies, wrapped more presents, drank more wine: and it’s only the 23rd. My wrapping is, however, completely done, so I’ll probably spend tomorrow doing freelance wrapping for others. And making more cookies (as there are always, always more cookies to be made).

The least Monday-ish Monday I’ve had in a long time: made wrapping paper and Christmas cookies with my mother, got my hair cut, had fish and chips with the neighbors, and read on the couch for hours on end. More weekdays should be like this. While I dig the school thing to no end (and will be sad to leave in six months, assuming all goes well), there’s definitely something to be said for not having a single paper to write or journal to read at all this week.

It’s a pretty definitive sign that the semester’s over and I’m visiting at my parents’ when what wakes me up is not my 6am get-up-and-study alarm, but instead a pack of coyotes howling in the middle of the night. Apart from them, it’s amazingly quiet here. I guess I don’t notice the fact that you can hear the subway go by my building every seven minutes until I’m somewhere where you can’t even hear cars (and there’s no such thing as public transportation less than two towns away). I expect to sleep a lot this week, and I’m looking forward to it.

Chris and I finally got around to seeing The Return of the King yesterday. While I did the midnight showing thing when Fellowship came out, that wasn’t really an option this year, as both Tuesday and Wednesday night fell smack dab in the middle of finals. The movie was great, of course. Chris and I are big dweeby LOTR fans, but not the kind who sit in the theatre whispering angrily about every alteration from the books. Sure, we would have been pissed off if Shelob had turned out to be a fluffy teddy bear, but we don’t sweat the small stuff. I liked it more than I liked Towers, but then I liked the third book more than I liked the second book so that’s not all that surprising. The film was three and a half hours, but it didn’t feel like more than two (unlike Towers), and of course I cried like a baby at the end, as I always do when I finish the books.

I’m heading to my parents’ today, and I’ll be there until next Saturday, so updates may be a little sparse. Rest assured that I’ll be up to my eyebrows in Christmas cheer, even if you don’t hear about it.