December 18–25, 2001 — A week at home

Any span of seven days that begins by keeping me awake all night (because I feel less awful on no sleep than on two hours of sleep) is off to a shaky start.

Some may argue that I didn’t really need to stay awake all night. But those people would not be taking into account the extent to which my sleeping habits had been warped as of last week. Waking up before 7:00 am with a disposition that was anything less than homicidal just wasn’t a possibility.

So I didn’t sleep at all. Johnston and I left for home in Ottawa early in the morning. I nodded off a bit on the subway and I bought two bags of Combos and a bottle of orange soda before we got on the bus. Combos and orange soda are enough to put anyone in a decent mood.

Then I called Combos a snack amongst kings and bought a return bus ticket even though I was getting a drive back to Toronto from my parents.

I really needed to sleep.

But I didn’t sleep much on the bus. Maybe an hour. They played a movie about talking to animals and a movie about weddings. It was a long bus ride.

We arrived in Ottawa sometime in the afternoon. My mom had driven to Johnston’s house to drop off some cookies for the Christmas party that Johnston and I would be attending that night (since I wouldn’t be going home until afterward). Johnston’s parents drove us to Manotick and we left for the Christmas party (which was taking place in Metcalfe) soon after.

We were late for the party, but we were also the first ones to get there. Johnston said something about the people who travel the furthest always being the first to arrive. I muttered something incoherent and stumbled toward Jess’s house. I was starting to feel a bit more exhausted than I’d hoped to feel. I probably have no one to blame but myself, but I think that somehow my landlord ought to take the fall for this one. (Whenever I need a scapegoat, I find that saying something vague about my landlord being evil and waving my hands around a lot generally does the job. You’ll have to imagine the hand-waving this time through, though.)

More people eventually appeared.

I wasn’t expecting there to be much that I would want to eat for dinner (since I’m picky about everything and I hate food), so I put my cunning plan to fill up on cheese and crackers into immediate effect. Nathan showed up with frozen, plain-cheese pizza, though, and he was willing to share. So things turned out quite nicely, really. Impromptu crowd-surfing in the kitchen aside.

Adam and Angela eventually arrived, and we exchanged generic presents after a set of overly complicated rules had been decided upon. I had wrapped my present in black and referred to it as the demon present. Dave ended up getting it, and he asked me why I had played it down so much. But really, it was a rather all-or-nothing gift — I’d bought the Ghost World graphic novel, and if the person who received it hadn’t seen the movie, I couldn’t really hope for much more than feigned interest. I got Laura’s present: body paint soap that smells like bubble gum and a matching soap crayon. I plan to spend the next week (before Johnston and Andrew are really at home all that much) wearing pink war paint in an epic battle with the stench coming from the kitchen. (But more on that later.)

Johnston and I had hoped to see Lord of the Rings that night, but we decided that we were too tired. So we stayed at Jess’s house awhile longer watching Lock Up and playing charades (with “Movies Starring Sylvester Stallone” as the only category).

Then Johnston drove me home and I slept in my real bed for the first time since September.

I’ve seven more days to write about and that’s a journal’s worth of writing already. I think I’m going to need to pick up the pace a bit from here on out.

Anyway. Johnston and I went to see Lord of the Rings on Wednesday afternoon. It was fantastic and you should go see it. And I’ve decided that I want to be an elf when I grow up.

Meanwhile, Piebald were playing Ottawa on Thursday. Johnston had promised to make the trek to Richmond for a third time, so I got a drive downtown from my sister (for those who haven’t been following along, I can’t drive because I tend to drive into things and to have things drive into me) on Thursday night and went to the show.

The show was late starting and the people who owned the venue stopped the music after three or four Piebald songs. A bunch of people had come from hours and hours away to see the show, so it was especially upsetting for them.

I’d like to see Piebald play a complete set someday.

The rest of the week is a bit of a blur. I took out my Super Nintendo and played “The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past” all the way through without dying (although I can still only get 19 hearts). I finished Christmas shopping. I heard a lot about how I needed to eat more and about how thin I was getting.

On Christmas Eve, we ate dinner as a family after I’d spent the afternoon watching movies with my dad. Patriot Games and Terminator 2, mostly. He kept asking me if I’d seen Stalingrad (I have, more than once) and telling me how excellent a movie it is. It was like I’d never left home. In a good way, though.

We watched most of It’s A Wonderful Life after dinner and eventually went to bed. It took forever for me to fall asleep.

My parents woke me up at 9:00 am on Christmas morning. Stockings were emptied and presents unwrapped. I mostly gave books and CDs as gifts. There weren’t many surprises for me this year, but the endless amusement provided by the main surprise gift that I received, a talking Boo (of Monsters, Inc. fame) doll, more than makes up for it.

Then we packed the car and started on our way to Toronto.

We went to my house first to drop off luggage. Either I’m finally not used to it anymore or the smell in the kitchen has become much, much worse since I left; either way, it is quickly nearing the point of being gag-inducing. I took out the garbage, but the smell remained. My mom recommends thoroughly cleaning the entire kitchen. I guess that could happen, maybe? Someday?

Anyway. We went to my grandmother’s apartment. We wanted to go out for dinner, but nothing was open. So I was dropped back off at home for the night.

I’m still not sure what I’m doing tomorrow night. We were originally supposed to go to Peterborough on the way to Toronto so that I’d get dropped off at the end of the trip, but now my family’s going to Peterborough tomorrow and it’s still up in the air as to where I’m going to be.

But yes. That more or less brings us up-to-date. Not a very balanced entry, but I’m rather keen on getting some sleep at this point.

After I listen to my Boo doll babble a bit more, anyway.