Enter 2011

Now that I'm no longer in grad school and can experiment in various ways with living like a normal human being, I go to return to the classic form for New Year's Eve: instead of going to bed early and rising early to write – which, I suppose, might have been useful – I honored tradition by going to a friend's get-together, drinking and eating and drinking and drinking for motherfucking hours, and having fun.  (Although I will admit that 'fun' in this case actually involved a heavy load of shop talk with said friend.)  I don't know how I managed it when I never even had a second cup of coffee yesterday, but I got to my friend's house at 7:30 last night, and rolled outta there at 6:30AM today.  The memory is hazy, but I believe that the assembled guests went through at least four, and perhaps five bottles of wine, and a number of beers as well.  (Thank heavens we had the vestigial restraint to avoid the hard liquor!)  In spite of all this, and the paltry three hours of sleep I got before rising late this morning (sigh), I only had a mild hangover today.  Granted, I still have it, but at least it's not debilitating.  No mean feat when your friend is egging you constantly: "Hey, your glass is empty!  Let's finish this bottle and then move to something else!  Come on, you've gotta keep up!"  As I noted to hir at the time, I'm slightly amazed that we're really no more mature than we were lo those many years ago when we first started hanging out.  And zi is still a bad influence on me, although at least I'm aware of it now, and can put the brakes on when necessary.

I decided that I'm within my rights to spend January 1 schlepping around my apartment in my pajamas, unshowered and unshaven, doodling on the internet and accomplishing nothing useful.  I'll go back to being a responsible young postdoctoral scholar tomorrow.

Happy new year, all!