One Week Vacuum

The bulk of the end-of-year holidays are over, with one big one looming over the horizon: that of New Year's Day. In the period between the winter solstice and January 1st, there'll be immense amounts of 'best-of' lists, retrospectives and reminiscences of the year just past and resolutions that everyone promises to keep but forget about in a few months. Or maybe I'm just projecting my tendencies onto everyone else. :)

The holidays went very well. Met toob's family, who were amazing -- all warm, friendly, accepting and genuinely fun. They had a very cool home that they opened up to anyone who entered, and almost everyone was mature, talented, and more-or-less easygoing. Wow. Despite the low-level intimidation that comes from hanging around people who have it more together than you do, everything felt fine.

Somehow (hint hint, Toob and joshuwain) I went from having no Terry Pratchett books to having seven of them to wade through. I also got a book of Zen poetry, another on Asian religions (thanks a lot, russ_da_roo!), the new Alison Krauss + Union Station CD (thank you, reahkitty!), quite a few more CDs (Thanks again, Russ!), The Book of Exalted Deeds (which is bad-ass), The Quintessential Paladin, a shamanic drum, and a variety pack of sinful Milano cookies. :9 Oh yes, and a box of chocolates. Really, I kind of made out like a bandit this year for Christmas. I'll spend the better part of next year buying random gifts for people to restore karmic balance. :)

Saw lots of movies over the weekend: "Dodgeball," "Hercules," "Magnolia," "Anger Management," "Lemony Snickett's A Series of Unfortunate Events," and "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou." It's really awesome to have a boyfriend who loves movies. And a car. :) Also, Toob and I had a bit of a talk about Boomer Express, and it's brought out a lot of the problems I've been having with it, namely lack of any kind of creative vision for it and really foggy grasp of any and all characters. I've been writing all weekend about it, and I'm going to be working a lot to right the situation so that by the time the next storyline starts, I'll have the world and the characters more firmly grasped.

This week, in addition to work and writing for BE, I'd like to write an essay or two (on New Year's resolutions, for example), call my mom and chat with her, do laundry and pack for the trip up to Minnesota, clean and vacuum my room, and do a couple of things for both Odis' and Nick's games. I also have a hair appointment and Nick's game this Wednesday. Looks like I'm going to be pulling a couple of late nights.

The latest in a series of worries is the idea that I'm a bit of an unintelligent bore. Compared to who I was in high school, and several folks I know now, I'm...of average intellect and questionable eloquence. I'd really like to sharpen my brain in the New Year. I think that's my biggest goal; not to 'become smarter,' but to apply myself towards the craft that I've been wanting to learn for as far back as I can remember. I've taken a few good strides with writing this last year, and it's time to start pushing myself further.

As always, there's a lot more in my head that I don't have the time or words to put down on paper. With Toob gone back to be with family until the New Year, it kind of feels like an arm's missing and I have to get used to being without it again for a little while. He makes me more motivated to change and improve than I've ever been. He's never asked me to, but it's all a part of the blossoming, you know?