The Empty Spaces Grow.

Holidays: Good family time. Parents and H. came up to NYC for a few cramped days in my apartment. It was very nice in its typicalness, in its uneventfulness. As a group, we generally discuss finances, health, future and not drinking too much beer too often. Everyone seems healthy and happy -- in this case, a relatively uneventful time is as much as I can ask for in family life, and I assume my parents feel the same way, so that's good. Xmas eve, B and I continued our third annual tradition of trying to get into an absurd restaurant while the gentiles sing christmas carols around a tree and nipping at steaming mugs of eggnog spiked with rum. (Eggnog is served hot, right? I'm actually not sure, given that I basically buy a single bottle a year and drink the entire thing myself, cold.) This time, B. also invited his friend S.F., an actress, while I invited H. and Sh., although H. and I. had already had dinner 5 hours earlier at Ichi Umi, a gigantic Japanese buffet, where we gorged ourselves on raw clams and oysters. Although we tried and considered going to DBGB (Daniel Boulud) or Peels, we ended up trekking all the way across town to The Spotted Pig again. Which, as always, was amazing. We went straight in, went straight to a table for 5 (insane that it was so easy) and then proceeded to eat, drink and be merry without a single thought of God, infant or not.

Christmas was also nice and uneventful. Without any big surprises, we trekked all the way out to Flushing where we avoided both the main Flushing food court and the Golden Mall (?) food court, and found some sort of Shanghainese dim sum sort of place (Jiang (1) Zhe(4) Dian Xin, or Jiangsu and Zhejiang treats) where we loaded up on jellyfish, xiao long bao, fried scallion pancakes, frog legs, and assorted other shanghainese foods. We then stood on the street for 30 minutes while my mom looked for pirated dvds. And then we did a cursory and futile 15 minute walk around the blocks, as if there was something else to be discovered, stopped in a bakery where my father (un)characteristically loaded up full arms with baked goods and deep fried savories, and we then hopped on the 7 train back to Manhattan. Evening was nice and relaxed, with H's first experience with Xi'an Famous Foods (which still rocks), and trying to watch the world's worst football game between the Jason Garrett Cowboys and the FeelbadforFitzgerald Cardinals at a bar with no one in attendance but the plain vanilla Long Island bartender who made a few attempts at awkward small talk that did not stick. And then we came home to hang out with our parents and watch my mother undergo paroxysms of panic over whether or not they would beat the blizzard/noreaster back to Baltimore/SC (they did.) All in all, a Happy Holiday Season.

Sunday: Sunday was awesome though. Gave K. a relatively nice phone call (I think, since i hate phones) before entering a happy oblivion. Sh. and Av. came over and we had a fantastically laugh happy, absurdly hilarious evening watching David Attenborough's "Life." That's all that I can really say about it, except that I ended up laying in my bed reading "One Day" until 6:30 am before waking up again at 8:00 to go to work. That book was basically like Nick Hornby, but not as good. And with a bullshit City of Angels type of sensibility, which is utter bullshit. Actually, nevermind, spoiler alert if anyone ever comes across this, but it is fucking retarded that the author (whose name I actually don't know because i just picked up the book and read it without paying any attention to the embarrassing girl cover) decided to just kill one of the main characters in some sort of tearjerker way that was nothing else but stupid and an obvious attempt to tug at heart strings. If the book had a purpose, which I don't think it did, there was no reason for a random driver to randomly kill the main character. Of course, now it's being made into a movie with Anne Hathaway so what do I know.

Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday: So it turns out that it is awesome if the three partners who sit on your hallway all take vacation on the same day. It is also awesome when a giant blizzard results in 50% of your office not even showing up. It is even MORE awesome when you basically wake up and go to work, go out to a long lunch, go to the gym, and still manage to leave by 2 pm. Three days in a row. I imagine the fourth is coming.

Monday, I came home and spent the entire afternoon building Kristen's christmas gift while watching Get Him to the Greek. Excellent. I don't think I watched the MNF game...so I must have done something...uhh....I mean, I know I was frickin exhausted from only two hours of sleep, but I did SOMETHING. OH right, Sh.'s birthday dinner at Max followed by whiskey and drinks at DBA. Excellent.

Tuesday: I left to watch as E. ran errands and talk about her desperate unrequited love for a dude who has no interest in her anymore, even though they dated. And then Indian buffet at Bukhara grill. And then I promptly left work at 2 after getting back from a 2 hour lunch, and met up with Sh. so that we could go sledding in Dumbo. So we trekked from my apartment to a Rite Aid (the saddest rite aid in the world, btw, on 5th and First), and didn't find a sled. So we tromped over to Kmart at Astor place, boots sopping fucking wet and squishing, where we were informed that there were no sleds, only giant bins upstairs....which we bought. So after shelling out SEVENTEEN fucking dollars on a bin, we slogged through the wasteland back to the F train where we randomly ran into Sh.'s friend N., and waited for 30 minutes (watching two super duper packed trains go by) until we finally got on a train, which then *stopped dead* on the tracks for 20 more minutes, packed ass to ass face to face carrying a giant tupperware bin, wearing a full on winter outfit with snowpants in my murse. Lame.

Finally, we made it to the hill (the bottom of which is a street):

And we each sledded down the hill twice a piece, gloveless hands brutalized by the hard icy surface and acerbic commentary from the neighborhood kids ("Ya doin' that without gloves? Bet your hands cold.") And then we promptly left and went to reBar for beer, mac and cheese, iceberg wedge, penne alfredo and polenta. Which was promptly followed by tuesday night football (can't believe Vick got beaten by Joe Webb and the Vikings and that this was the game the F. family had to watch for their live experience), mom's ribs, beer and me falling asleep on the couch again.

Wednesday (Today): Left work at noon to go to the gym. Left the gym at 1. Left the office at 2. Went to Uniqlo to pick up another shirt or two. Came home and did some cleaning, watching some Always Sunny in the process, eating a little bit of mom's You Fan, and then returning to the gym for cardio, now that smoking has once again been stopped (2 weeks this time!) And came home to blog.