the clanking of crystal...explosions off in the distance

I really actually just checked my phone and said out loud "hey, did you know it's New Year's Eve?" The last 2 days were spent on a long drive that directly followed a too-short trip to Georgia so today has been a relaxing day of making messes and enjoying being home. To offset 2 days of road food, Jeff and I made food with two o's (marriage shorthand for nutritious food, as opposed to mac and cheese dinner, which we refer to as füd) then watched Elf. He has developed a significant mancrush on Ron Swanson and is now hacking away at a piece of wood that will become his first project. Diego alternates which human he'd rather share a room with and gets called a traitor by the other human. Right now I am winning.

This year has been the first one wherein I feel like a grown up. Sometimes I wear nice pants to work. I never wear my t-shirt with the skeleton torso on it. I have thrown away shoes when you can see my socks through them and I have exchanged business cards with older people. I try to look older (having been told multiple times that I don't look old enough to have a Ph.D.) but feel frumpy when I let my hair grow out. My visceral reaction to becoming a career woman was to learn how to sew. I make curtains and lopsided bags and have a couple of pillows. Since I don't need any more lopsided bags, I haven't done anything in a while, although I have my eye on fixing the bare living room windows. They face the neighborhood and some curtains would relax my constant worry about the free, low-budget reality show that our neighbors have 24 hour access to.

This year has been the second one wherein I've been married. Living with someone who is funny and goofy and smart and egalitarian and supportive is really wonderful. Having lived alone and "being your own captain"* for the 11 years following high school steepens the relationship's learning curve a bit. We and our are pronouns that sometimes fit like new shoes. Fortunately my husband is patient and doesn't take things too personally.

It's been a slow start but I've made a couple of friends here that I would like to keep and am finally feeling like this place is home. Word from the wise: it takes a year, or a little longer if you stubbornly spend a few months wishing things were the way they used to be. This is a tough environment to be human since most people I am in contact with are just as busy and transient as I am. My workplace is fairly antisocial and my nebulous status guarantees I will be ignored. A visiting scholar from Italy became my contact with humans for the last 3 months of the year and was an absolute blessing.

Places we have been: Last New Year's Eve was spent in New York with Jess (come back to this side!!) then later in January was the weekend in Maine spent at Sunday River where the temperatures were brutal and so was the snow. We are indeed spoiled from snowboarding in the Wasatch. February through May is a stressful blur since teaching a course outside of my field and trying to make progress in research is a combination that turned me into something less human, more tired fragile robot. However, I am not dead, so I can only assume that it made me stronger. In July, we traveled back to Utah for Jeff's brother's wedding and I got to drive to LA with my favorite academic ally as she moved into her ivory tower. September saw us drive to Niagara Falls and October demanded a lazy Saturday drive through Massachusetts and Vermont to look at nature and visit northern Appalachian mountain towns. The last road trip of the year was to Georgia for Christmas, with stops on the way back in Helen, GA, Gettysburg, PA, and every McDonalds from Atlanta to Boston to participate in a Diet Coke/Dr. Pepper exchange program. They really do have the nicest, consistently clean bathrooms on the open road, along with very very large sodas. Evil geniuses.

Hooray for the new year! This last one has been tough and unbalanced and my plan for 2012 is to seek balance, work smarter and not harder, and survive the Mayan-predicted apocalypse. Also, did you know Isaac Newton predicted the end of the world in 2060? He was apparently a bit of a secret alchemist (get your nerd on).


* When I told a very old female relative that I was getting married she shrugged and said "eh, if you want to... right now you're your own captain." I had been living in a very marriage-centric place for the past decade so her comment was particularly surprising (and awesome).