goddamn new year

As I sit here on the cusp (appropriate term given this is indeed the pointed or barbed end of the year) of New Year's Weekend I am struck by the utter waste that has been 2005. I finally tucked in to an unpleasant lab job I've been avoiding (recreating a database lost when my lab hard drive crashed a couple of months ago) and to do it, I had to go through my lab notebook for the year. Seeing all that work, most of it unsuccessful, has been depressing as hell. There's little for me to celebrate this weekend -- as my family's been saying, it'll be good to see off 2005, and hope next year'll be better. But don't I feel this way every New Year's?

once bitten and twice shy

For two of the last four nights I have dreamt that my career as a graduate student was in jeopardy because I was a successful contestant in a reality show singing competion å la "Making the Band" or "American Idol". In both cases, I had made it to near the end of competition, but the stress of trying to get lab work done was preventing me from getting dance routines down and lyrics memorized, and I was on the verge of having to quit grad school in order to give myself the best shot at impressing the shadowy P. Diddy character running the show. In the first dream, there was a vignette my dreamself witnessed in which one of my labmates explained to Zena why I had not been in lab a lot recently, to which she responded, "Why does no one tell me these things?!?".

Last night I hostessed (?) my third lab Christmas party since moving to SF. Unlike past parties, this time I made just about the right amount of food, but grossly overestimated the amount of drink...I guess people are more responsible now, or are simply disinclined to get tipsy on mulled wine and schnapps-laden cocktails? As a result, I now have a ridiculous amount of alcohol in my place, complete with a liter of Grey Goose that is too big to shelter in any piece of furniture I own. I suppose I will have to have another party of hard-drinkers soon, lest I succumb to alcohol poisoning in an effort to decompress my liquor cabinet....

december tidings (a.k.a. rushed ramblings)

December is probably my most frustrating and exhilirating month of the year. I've got my birthday, my brother's and grandfather's birthdays, Christmas, New Year's, and this time, the meeting of the American Society of Cell Biology, my brother's graduation and mother's annual holiday shopping stay all in one month.

My birthday was lovely -- commencing with a great French dinner in Palo Alto with Hannah, I went ice skating at the Embarcadero Center (starting off with Chevy's margaritas doesn't hurt), went for Moroccan food at Aziza (fantastic "specialty cocktails"), did some shopping, and some very foolish people gave me some very nice gifts. Ever practical, the gift from my family was a new microwave.

My apartment is about 60% decorated for Christmas. The tree is nearly done but there are some lights yet to be put up...I love having my apartment filled with colored lights and candlelight and warm scents of nutmeg and pine.

Last night I would have done more decorating but after consuming pizza and pinot grigio at Zena's two-story suite at the Marriott, I ambled to my favorite scuzzy MUNI stop at 5th and Market, waiting for the #27. We let the first bus go by when one of the first passengers to board discovered a large pool of sticky blood at the back of the bus. Yum. I then got caught in a remarkable conversation with one of my stop-mates, a diminutive looks-older-than-she-is "half-Irish, half-Scotch" "forensics student" who bore a shopping bag with what appeared to be a stuffed whale inside, tongue lolling. I'd try to describe her further but I'm afraid it'd end up reading like a Zagat review, peppered with incredible phrases bounded by quotation marks. Suffice it to say, "Jenny" the "one-time rock n' roll singer" who "knows Keith Richards" but also "taught Anthropology" and now "can't keep a retail job" but finds ways to "travel to all the Ren Fairs" (I assume she means Renaissance?) kept me "enthralled" all the way to Sutter and Leavenworth. "We'll meet again, I'm sure."

Tonight I am very much looking forward to meeting up with Susy (it's been a year and a week, I'm afraid) for dinner. I was so surprised to get her email on my birthday that I accidentally swallowed my gum. Not only am I looking forward to catching up with her, but I can't wait to see how her Edwardian has shaped up in the last year.

a fine bouquet

I have long planned to publish my treatise on the wiles and wisdom of scotch, but that'll have to wait until I'm actually drinking scotch and posting at the same time. However, I thought I'd share a little revelation: if you happen to leave a little bit of scotch in your glass and leave it out overnight, the next day take a sniff at the sludge left behind. Seriously. It's fascinating...you'll smell the "notes" of the scotch. Mine had distinct smoke, chocolate, and what is probably best described as dirt odors. It was lovely; not that I'm not aware of these components while I'm drinking my favorite fine beverage, but freed from the warmth and luxuriousness of the liquid itself, it's easier to name them. I might just have to test several kinds of scotch to see if I can detect their differences....