Peppermint & Sugar Plums & Jelly Bracelets & Iphones
I'm at my sister's house, getting ready for Christmas. I'm still nursing a very persistent foot injry, but it's not getting me down, b/c my holiday shopping is complete, for the most part. And the tree is finally up in all its festive, glittery, lit glory, and a baking fever is about to hit as I mix up some cookie dough this afternoon. It's true that the laptop I so wanted to leave at home ended up having to follow me to Colorado b/c I really, really want to (i.e., have to) get this article submitted to a journal as soon as possible after going back to school in January.
BUT...the reward for all my hard work this week (amidst the holiday rush) will be that in one week, I'll be (HOPEFULLY) able to leave this computer and all associated work behind when I shed my winter clothes, jet off to a warm destination whose name I shall leave undisclosed for now, put on a swimsuit or even a bikini, and sit on the beach with a coconut or other fruity type drink in my hand, and swim (or surf?) in some clear turquoise blue waters. Mmm...warmth!
That aside, I'm relaxing a lot and keeping my fingers crossed that the snow they are forecasting for the Denver metro area later today really does come through. I'd like to see one nice powdery snowfall that I can fullly enjoy from indoors, with a hot mug of tea or hot cocoa, knowing full well that since I'm on vacation far from home, I don't have to drive out in it to go to work or school.
In a note unrelated to the holidays, I am totally loving the fact that, I've finally gone and done it--I wised up and decided to go off of birth control pills and am now using the Nuva Ring instead. Why did I wait so long to discover this? So far, it seems right on so many levels. Goodbye weight gain! Goodbye menstrual migraines!
Now don't laugh: I have to admit, the Nuva ring kind of reminds me of the jelly bracelets I wore in 1985, when I was 11 years old, and a precociously developed, but skinny pre-teen who towered over her classmates at 5'1, not knowing she was only destined to grow about one more inch, at most, to reach her full adult height. It was an age when I sometimes dressed like Madonna, but in an innocent and probably slightly dorky pre-teen/"tween" kind of way b/c the skirts and shirts were accompanied by plastic jelly shoes, friendship bead pins, permed hair, and all that. In 1985, I had braces on my teeth and wore glasses. It was the year I first watched the movie "Back to the Future". It was the period in my life when I used to dance in my bedroom to "Into the Groove" as I was getting ready for school, and listen to my Duran Duran record, and write in my paper and pen diary, and gossip about boys to my friend Kimberly over the phone. And oh boy did I have a crush on a boy named J@son R00ney (what was I thinking?!?)... and boy did it make me angry and jealous in that unfettered, intense, pre-adolescent way that a teachers-pet, "perfect" girl in my class named Britney liked the same boy.
But, back to the future (no pun intended), I'm relieved to be on vacation. Even if it turns out that I don't get an iphone or a new Macbook Air laptop for Christmas this year, that's 100% okay. This holiday is shaping up to be pretty sweet.
