New Year's Day 2006

I spent the early part of New Year's Eve walking around downtown Toronto with my friend. We ate at this amazing Korean bbq place where I burnt my arm on a stone bowl, and then we couldn't figure out what to do.... there were a ton of cool stores where we explored for a little but since the weather was so cold we ducked into this movie theater. I don't know why, because so many people go to the theater on New Years and Christmas, but EVERYTHING out was lame shit from Lamewood. So yeah, cough, I ended 2005 by watching a Jennifer Aniston movie.

Then we went back to our hotel where there were hordes of people checking in. The two days prior were pretty quiet. Later that night I ended up being the only girl in the sauna with a bunch of undergrads from Ohio State. "So are you a student?" one asked. "No I'm actually a teacher, what about you?" I feel bad for thinking they were cute.... they were probably in 4th grade when Kurt Cobain died. Ew! Then I started talking to the other guys.... yup, they were all minors. I didn't put it together then, but I realized its because the drinking age in Canada is 18, so its a somewhat close/affordable place for American kids to go to drink legally.

All the restaurants were booked that night, so we went to the one area with many great restaurants, fun parties/people and available seating.... the gayborhood. And after a heavy dinner, a few glasses of champagne, and dancing, my mind could only think about one thing -- my pjs.

The next morning.... New Year's Day, I left the hotel at 8 a.m. and people were still staggering in with alcohol breath, caked-on makeup, rumpled clothes, and tangly hair. For a brief moment I wondered if I was jealous of them .... jealous that I didn't have their stamina. The feeling passed.

So it was about 10 a.m. at the airport and I still didn't have a resolution.... I killed time at the bookstore. And as I was browsing, this short Woody Allen type with a sweater and black leather jacket pointed to this book and said "you HAVE to read this!" He went on passionately about how it will make you look at the world differently because it connects everything back to economics. "An economics book for the plane ride? No thanks" I thought. But after he left, I picked it up and after a few pages I was hooked. The book is called "Freakanomics" and although I wouldn't recommend it to serious people like Crazy One, who actually study the subject, I recommend it to people like myself, who got Cs in Macro in college. It makes economics "fun." So yeah, the mysterious sweater dude helped me come up with my New Year's resolution, to read more non-fiction about things I don't know much about.



The thing on the bottom right is my favorite Canadian fast food "poutine" which is like cheese fries, but instead of Whiz, it has chunks of cheese curd covered in hot gravy.

Once I got to Philly, I took a train to NJ and went to my friend's bridal shower. Now as a Space Cadet, this was one of the coolest earthling-hosted events I been to. Only people with vaginas are invited... there is lots of food and chocolate, you wear whatever you want, and its way cozier than the wedding itself. We got split up into two teams and had to make a wedding dress out of only toilet paper. The other team made a toilet paper lehanga, which I thought was clever, but we made a traditional one, and we WON! Aren't these the most stunning toilet paper brides you have ever seen? (sniff sniff)