Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all! It kinda sucks that I'm writing this from work, where I arrived stuffy-headed and sneezing and tired at 10 this morning, but at least it's definitely going to be a slow day. And if I'm lucky, my boss will go home early, and then I can slip out after she's gone and nobody will know the difference. ;) Anyway, this past weekend was a blast--definitely the most fun (or at least the most consistently fun) New Year celebration I've ever had. In the interest of procrastination, I'll tell you all about it.

It started out a little uncertain; there was confusion about where Becky and Katie and I would sleep if we went to NYC on Friday night, which we'd been all ready to do--brought our bags and stuff to work, and everything--so for a while I thought we weren't going to do that. But finally Becky and I did go, and Katie ended up chilling out at home, and we met up with Julia and Lilah and Chelsea and went back to Julia's for the night. Which was great, we had Christmas presents (including a St. Sebastian pincushion) and gingerbread cookies, and decided that even though Julia's parents had prepared one whole mattress/sleeping thing for each of us, we definitely had to make more efficient use of the space we had. So we pushed three of the mattresses together and all slept in a semi-puddle. I think it's fantastic that one thing I always look forward to when visiting with lots of friends is the sleeping arrangements....

Anyway, the next day we went to meet up with Maddie in the city, and then went to Katie R's sister's place, which is beautiful, and which she always so generously makes available for us! Yay Jess! Anyway, we had really delicious sandwiches from this deli nearby, and we had more Christmas presents, and memorized all the verses of "Auld Lange Syne", and generally had a lovely and sleepy time until around 8, when we finally went out again all dolled up, ready for dinner and partying. We ended up having dinner at this diner, Joe Jr, or something like that, which was extremely fun...we all smushed into one booth, and got free samples of soup, and free dessert, and the guys working there were really funny and nice, and there were shiny decorations all over the ceiling for every winter holiday imaginable...or, really just Christmas and New Years and Hannukah. Which reminds me that we also saw a procession of cars with huge menorahs on their roofs, and some big vans that said things like "Menorah Mobile" and "Mitzvah Tank"... It was astonishing.

So after this encounter with holidays and food, we walked on to Beauty Bar, which is this really fun place with pretty cheap drinks, for the amount of alcohol they put in them, where the decor is like a salon, with old hairdrying chairs to sit in and stuff, and a back room that they opened up later for dancing. We had much, much alcohol, and Lilah's boy came to meet us, and we all got very drunk and took lots of pictures with the theme of Affectionate Women, and sang Auld Lange Syne really loudly and obnoxiously and with much jumping up and down and laughing, and left drunken messages for anyone who wasn't there with us. And, in fact, some people who were there with us. ;) And I played phone tag with Alex all night, but at the end we did finally talk to each other twice, a bit after midnight on each coast. And then we all went back to the apartment and collapsed in a sleepy drunken stupor, as you might imagine. I think I was out within five minutes of curling up on the couch.

The morning was slow and lazy and full of good food that Jess kindly provided and we happily cooked, and then we went out to the movies to see Casanova, which was really really fun, though I was more into Brokeback Mountain when we were deciding what movie to see. I think it was a good choice, in the end, very amusing and fun. And then Chelsea and Lilah and Maddie and Julia left for Irvington, and Becky and Katie and Jess and I went out for Chinese food, which was delicious, and then Becky and I wound our sleepy way home.... And here I am, exhausted but feeling better after reliving the exciting weekend, and counting down the days until the 8th!

And I just realized that everyone who reads my blog already knows what we did, with two exceptions...but that's ok. ;)