Let's try this again

I wonder how long you can leave the Drano doing its magic in the bathtub before it begins to eat through the pipes...?

Anyway, I had already written and posted a lengthy entry this morning, but the more I thought about it, I realized that it's completely uncharitable, not to mention sort of evil, to rant about how much my mother annoyed me during Christmas break when she just spent all that money buying me nice presents. Even if every other sentence was yelling. I mean, she never actually yelled at me. Just my father. And my brothers. And the cat, and the dog, and most likely a number of inanimate objects. But never at me. Because I am perfect angel who never does anything wrong. Or something.

Also, a good chunk of the same entry was devoted to detailing exactly how drunk I got on Christmas Eve, all of the myriad ways in which it wasn't my fault that I got that drunk, and all of the hilarious and embarassing things I said and did while being that drunk. Which, really, none of you care about. You've probably all seen me that drunk. One thing I will say for myself, though, is that while at first I thought that I could not possibly ever have been that drunk before in my life, a few incidents from freshman year and the Graduation Party Tequila Bar Scenario came to mind, and I decided that it was just the largest quantity of alcohol I've ever successfully held. Successfully in the "I didn't puke" sense, of course, not in the "I kept my wits about me and behaved completely rationally" sense. But you knew that.

All in all I did have a fairly nice break. I did a lot of laundry. I played Guitar Hero into the wee hours of the morning. I cooked a lot by request, as usual, since apparently all anyone ever eats when I'm not there is grilled cheese and tuna fish. I perfected my penne alla vodka, which was exciting - apparently using a mixture of sweet and hot sausage instead of all hot keeps it from becoming completely taste bud-obliterating. And I made some freakishly good buffalo and barbecue chicken pizzas for the game on Sunday.

Christmas would have been more enjoyable had I not been afflicted with the mother of all hangovers, but Santa was good to me. I got a Kitchen Aid stand mixer, which I've been wanting for years but couldn't figure out how to get without staging a fake wedding and registering at Macy's. I got a seriously badass coffee maker that has a timer so I can set it to greet me with the scent of freshly brewed coffee when I wake up in the morning, which also alleviates the difficulties associated with making coffee before one has ingested one's caffeine. I got a really nice quilted black leather carry-on size suitcase, which will enable me to make short business trips in style. Then there were a bunch of other, smaller things: an iHome, a couple of pairs of flat shoes (I'm kind of warming up to them, after all that bellyaching...not that I've given up on heels altogether), a new version of Cranium for me to continue my lifelong undefeated streak with, a few cookbooks, including Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook, which pairs nicely with the mixer and means I can stop plotting to abscond with my mother's, an assortment of jewelry, several small kitchen gadgets including a Martha Stewart Collection Salad Spinner and a handheld food processor, and some other things that I'm probably forgetting. It was really rather nice, particularly now that people have realized that I am all but guaranteed not to like any clothes that I did not pay a role in choosing. There were a few items on my list that I didn't get - and before you go being all appalled that I made a Christmas list like an 8-year old, I was forced to by my mother because I am apparently impossible to shop for, and it took me almost two full days because I couldn't think of anything I wanted - but I got some money too and will probably just go out and buy them. Because know that I know that a hot pink tool set exists and is widely sold at Target, I don't think I can live without it.

So I hope everyone else had as lovely a holiday as I did, and moreover, that everyone else's holiday wasn't overshadowed by the ghosts of Christmas Eve beverages. Unfortunately I had to work yesterday, so my parents drove me back to Somerville in the morning. It sort of sucked to not have the day after Christmas off, but since there was virtually nothing to do, I was able to devote my time to long overdue tasks such as filing ancient expense reports and cleaning out the marketing closet, which, thanks to the boxes and boxes of holiday cards and calendars strewn indiscriminately about, looked like it had possibly fallen victim to a very localized earthquake. Then, since literally no one I know was back in town to distract me from my productiveness, I was able to put away all my laundry and my Christmas gifts yesterday, and today am cleaning as much of the apartment as I can because, though it is generally tidy, it is not what I would call clean.

And now that we've come full circle, I'm somewhat plagued with concern about the bathtub/Drano situation - seriously, we are talking about a clog of epic proportions - and ought to go take care of that.

Happy holidays!