Appalachia Year

New Year's Day is Friendsmas in my circle.

Ana makes a neverending spread for brunch and we all power through our hangovers, drink heroic amounts of coffee, and pack so many people into her kitchen that it'd be uncomfortable if it weren't so damn cozy.

My return to Athens draws nigh. The thought of waking up in my meat locker of a bedroom again is daunting, but with a workhorse space heater at my bedside and a plan for earlier bedtimes, I should be able to make that courageous leap out from under the covers every morning.

It's been excellent to see my boyfriend every day, to be unapologetically idle for a few weeks. People keep insisting that I have somehow "earned" the right to go two days without wearing pants-with-hardware just because I survived a quarter of classes, and I guess I don't care to disabuse them of the notion. Lenny Briscoe, we had some catching up to do. And the Idiot Box ain't gonna watch itself. That said, I've felt increasingly restless and parasitic, mooching off the guys' hospitality and taking scalding hot showers every day. I like to earn my showers and my sleep, and January has found my body in a state of atrophy and lethargy.

2009, I expect that you will give me a Master's degree, send me to Africa, and maybe even find me completing a triathlon. I'm timid to put these goals, among all the unspoken, mostly impossible goals that I have for myself, out there for the public to see. Maybe that will hold me to them. Pie-in-the-sky is the name of the game, right?