12/30/00

I feel like such a slacker--I've been back in San Francisco for two full days now, and I still haven't been in to work. Instead of working, I've been spending my time catching up on sleep and exercise and getting ready for my party. I have no idea how many people will actually show up--I only know of four people who will definitely be attending, but I'm trying to err on the side of having too much stuff rather than too little. So, I've spent much of the last two days lugging heavy bottles of liquor and groceries back from the store in small batches. But I think I finally have everything I need.

My sleep schedule has been all messed up. For one thing, I'm jet-lagged from having spent nearly a week on the East Coast, but then also my flight home on Thursday night was delayed for two hours due to mechanical problems with the plane (they ended up putting us on a different plane) so we didn't land here until after 2 a.m., and I didn't get to my apartment until about 3, but then I woke up Friday morning at 6 and couldn't fall back asleep. I made it through the day Friday just fine, but today I've been feeling pretty tired.

So, as you probably know, last week was Christmas. I flew home on the afternoon of the 23rd, after a hectic morning spent doing a 10.5-mile run and finishing up some stuff in the lab. The flight was filled with small, fussy children (as flights tend to be this time of year) but was otherwise uneventful. Both my parents came to pick me up at the airport and drove me back home. Both of my sisters and their boyfriends were already home, but one sister + boyfriend set had already gone to bed by the time I got in, so I spent the rest of the evening doing laundry and talking to the other sister + boyfriend.

It was cold at home, like it was at Thanksgiving, and the ground was covered with snow, which is somewhat atypical for Christmastime in Massachusetts--the serious snow usually starts in January. Despite the cold, I actually managed to force myself to go running on three of the five days I was there. Luckily, my sister Alison gave me a warm running shirt for Christmas, and she lent me a hat, so I wasn't too terribly miserable during my runs except when I was running into strong wind and felt like my face was going to fall off.

But those few runs are pretty much the only virtuous things I did while I was home. I spent most of the last week watching MTV (I now know the names of all three members of Destiny's Child and the entire career history of Britney Spears) and eating Christmas goodies. My mom is an elementary school principal, and every year she brings home scores of food gifts she gets from kids and teachers at the school. I had no idea that people gave gifts to their school principals, because our family certainly never did. But anyway, even though my mom had decided not to make any Christmas cookies this year, the kitchen table was covered with nuts and dried fruit and chocolates and breads and other unhealthy snacks, and we were able to polish off nearly all of it in the week I was home.

This Christmas was a slightly scaled-back one, due to my mom's deciding that she wasn't going to "do Christmas" this year, but we still carried out all the major family Christmas traditions (going out for Chinese food on Christmas eve, opening one present on Christmas eve, waking everyone up on Christmas morning by playing the "William Tell" Overture at top volume...) A burgeoning new Christmas tradition in our family is the stealing of other people's presents that you feel would really be better suited to you. This has happened to some degree in the past (like last year, when my mother received the first two Harry Potter books and my dad and I read them before she did), but seems to happen more and more every year. This year, my dad purloined a hat I'd given to my mother, but which she didn't seen to have much interest in, and I started reading the copy of Cryptonomicon my sister's boyfriend had given to my dad (I didn't really steal it, though, because I left it behind when I came back here). Also, my dad decided to give my sister a book he'd seen on my Amazon wishlist, because he thought she would like it better. I guess it all works out, though, because if you give someone in my family a gift, even if they don't like it, someone else will probably want to appropriate it for themselves.

I did get quite a few nice things, mostly from my aunt, and also some from my parents, sisters and sister's boyfriend.

While I was home, I also saw quite a few old high school friends and shared all the latest Amherst gossip. Other than that, though, I didn't do much. It was too cold to do anything, and most of the time I was there we were short on cars so I couldn't have gone anywhere even if I wanted to. I didn't see any movies, because although the local theater just went from being a 6-plex to a 12-plex, none of the movies playing were ones I wanted to see. I did go shopping at a mall in Connecticut with my mom the day after Christmas, which was a harrowing experience, although I did emerge from it with two new sweaters and two skirts, all of which were on sale.

Anyway, while it was great seeing everyone, being back home is kind of a relief. For one thing, it's been sunny and warm ever since I got home (whereas my parents are in the process of having 6 inches or more of snow dumped on them). I get to sleep in the bed I'm accustomed to again. I don't need a car to go places, and I can walk places without putting on fifty layers of clothes or worrying about slipping on ice. There's no big smelly dog here just waiting to slobber all over me. And all the movies I want to see are playing. And I think I might just try again tonight to see "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." It can't still be selling out every night, right?

The forum: How often do you see your parents?