December 29th, 2002. Sunday
Haven't updated from home in a long time. Haven't updated at all in a long time, now that you mention it. I have a bit of quiet time to myself, so I figured I'd do this for a bit. Back in Greenpoint in Brooklyn after a short trip home to PA for Christmas. Pretty much the standard family Christmas, minus youngest brother Galvin, who is in Japan. But we were able to say hello to him via a modest video teleconference over Yahoo messenger. Truly a wonderful age we live in. I used to do that for a job, setting up video calls, and now any yahoo (no pun intended) with a 50 dollar web cam can do the same thing. Anyway, we were talking to him during our Christmas get together, so all the relatives could see him as well. Then, after a while, most of the kids went and played Nintendo. After a few minutes, my dad came into the room we were congregated in, yelling that the computer room was empty and Galvin was still sitting there going "Where'd everybody go?" I guess the novelty wears off pretty quick.
Anyway, it's been a pretty tame holiday season. I've been trying to come up with a gift for Miss Charming Melodee, but I haven't really produced one yet. Originally, we said our trip to Niagara Falls would count as our gift to each other, since the expense of the trip was well over our collective heads, and that we'd just make modest gifts for each other. That sounded good at the time, but as the holidays drew near, I didn't really think I could make anything, so I decided to buy something. And then we went back and forth on the buying or making debate. So now I still have to come up with something five days after Christmas. I've actually gotten some components of the gift together, but I'm not nearly done. I'm just a terrible, terrible person. I feel like I need to come up with something grandiose, and that's just making it impossible. So now I'm expecting a polite thank you, some feigned enthusiasm about the gift, and then it'll be gathering dust in a corner shortly thereafter.
As far as the holiday movie season goes, Ms. CM and I caught Lord Of The Rings before we left for the holidays. I liked it a lot, but it was almost impossible for it to live up to my expectations. I hadn't been that excited to see a movie in a long time. I didn't even really love the first one until I saw it on DVD a few months ago. I'm sure that upon a second viewing, I'll appreciate the movie a lot more. I also received the extended version of the film on DVD for xmas. It's over four hours long now I think. And Geoff got me the Back to the Future trilogy set. So I got a total of seven dvds. I sure like to watch tv. Anyway, on Christmas, we were snowed in, so we couldn't fulfill our yearly tradition of going to the movies. Then our power went out shortly after noon. There we were, a house full of new gizmos and movies, and we couldn't use any of it. So we broke out a board game and amused ourselves with that, and that continued for the rest of the time at home. The next day, we went and saw Catch Me If You Can, which was a rousing and thoroughly enjoyable film. It was a lot of fun, and never got boring. Just a pleasant movie going experience. I highly recommend it.
The most notable part of the time at home was my utter lack of any sort of self restraint as far as eating goes. I literally couldn't stop eating. I'd say no more than 40 mintes of my waking time passed without me eating something. Chips, cheese, and triscuits made up most of the food. We just spent so much time in front of the tv, either playing Nintendo or watching movies, that it was impossible for me to stop. We watched Glengary Glennross, and I ate a bag of Tostitos. We watched the first season of the Sopranos on DVD, and I had a bunch of triscuits and cheese. Some yogurt and some grapes for Back to the Future, Part II. And a few succulent Harry and David pears thrown in there. Then of course there were the slushies. But after all that, I still left home a half pound lighter than when I showed up. I expect it to catch up with me soon though.
I also wrote an application essay for my cousin. I did this a few winters ago for another cousin, and it made me a good little bit of money. this one I did for free though. I was a bit concerned that, being so far removed from college, that it would be obvious that a 26 year-old had written the essay. the most absurd part of it was that I was writing the essay for Bryn Mawr. So it was a real stretch for me to figure out why I wanted to go to an all-girls school In the end though, I was fairly happy with it. and it was surely better than the original essay I was given to edit, which geoff and quickly scrapped. I don't know what they're teaching kids in school these days, but it sure isn't grammar. I'm a real stickler for the "not only...but also" rule. Nothing irks me more than when people forget the "also." Goddam kids. And the whole essay was just a series of empty cliches and slogans and sounded like they'd been lifted from an essay writing guidebook. Sentences that didn't go anywhere or say anything, paragraphs that were only two sentences long, the list of offenses went on and on. I was actually somewhat amazed about how such a short essay managed to squeeze in so many errors and displays of vapidness and how it could be so thoroughly and consistently bad.
And now, I am back in Brooklyn. It's good to be back, though I do miss Ms. CM being around. All in all, very happy on that front. It's nice and easy in all the right ways. Anyway, it's nice to have a few days just to myself, although I've accomplished woefully few of the tasks I've set for myself. Like unpacking. There's the clean laundry, spread out on my bed. Hell, I haven't really finished unpacking from my move in September. I still have pictures I've been meaning to hang on the walls that are sitting in the closet. And the place is a mess. And I had some 4-track recording that I really wanted to do. But here it is, well after midnight. And i'll I'm doing is trying not to eat anything.
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