Updates from Me

I'm on break. You knew that. Christmas was alright. Spent with the family at Stella's new house, which is surprisingly close to ours. Nathan is looking a lot better now and no longer has red rashes on his face, but he still looks fearful whenever he sees me. He doesn't do that with anyone else, just me. Even though they aren't terribly rational creatures, it still is a bit depressing to have a baby be scared of you.

Have finished the Da Vinci Code, which Stella gave me for Christmas. The writing is sucky but the plot is at least interesting, even if the 'riddles' are ludicrously easy. As for the 'big secret,' I don't give a damn either way.

Went out to Annapolis for New Years with Jeremy, for Annapolis' 'First Night,' a non-profit non-alcoholic set of New Year's Eve events. Basically, different public places in Annapolis, such as churches and schools, had performers scheduled to put on something every half an hour. It took approximately fifteen minutes to get from one site to another, so at best each performance we actually attended would be interspersed by another half hour of dead time consumed by walking/ waiting in line. And since many of the places were overcrowded, if you didn't get there within twenty minutes of the show starting the auditorium would be full, so you'd have to find another place to go, and that would eat up a whole hour. The performances themselves weren't spectacular. We listened to a calming, haunting, and aesthetically impressive, if not very exciting performance on Native American flute, saw a pretty stale comedy show and attended a jazz concert, the exuberant talent of which was muted by the presence of a non-smoky, fully lit room of unmoving middle-aged white people.

Which is not to say I didn't have fun. What really entertained me more than all the performances put together was the mad scavenger hunt nature of rushing from point A to point B, and having the whole of East Annapolis as your playground. Annapolis has 35,000 residents, as of the year 2000. Compare: Rockville has 47,000, and she's only a county seat. Annapolis is clearly not a booming metropolis. It is, however, capable of spawning twisty alleys, brick roads, colonial houses and taverns, knicknacky handicrafts shops, eye-boggling confectionaries, old style ice cream parlors, infinite varieties of small and cozy bookstore-coffeehouse hybrids, and everything strewn with wreaths, banners and Christmas lights. Add to that the domed State House, the governor's mansion, St. Anne's Church, and the meticulously manicured complex of the Naval Academy within its dignified walls (Hell to live in, but majestic to look at). Annapolis also hosts Maryland's Republican headquarters, being ritzy and upscale in a Georgetown kind of way. Across the street is the Christian Science Reading Room, but I don't want to think about that.

Strange story, this: One of the men at the Naval Academy called me 'ma'am.' That was weird. I've never been called ma'am by anyone.

Around midnight Jeremy and I thronged towards the city docks which were cordoned off by city fire and police, where everyone was gathered, oogling the sexual tension between the scantily-clad fire-eaters, or posing for photos in front of the state Christmas tree, calling home excitedly on cells, setting off sparklers and firecrackers, tooting on noisemakers, grabbing at balloons, crowding to get into the plethora of "Irish," floor-shaking-subwoofer pubs, and popping open bottles of champagne under black lights and disco balls on board of moored boats-turned-floating party platforms. Following a procession of bagpipers, firedancers, clowns, and partygoers, someone important up ahead gave a speech, and at eleven fifty-nine, although there was no clock and no ball, from up ahead the chant picked up at... 8...7....6... the chant spread out quickly through the crowd as they realized what was going on, and at zero, several thousand people all released their balloons at the same time, and some fairly generic fireworks exploded out over the water.