Question: What's a gift you gave yourself this year that has kept on giving?

This year, I got Aliyah addicted to knitting socks. This is a Good Thing™ because it means she knits socks for me now! And she knits socks for herself so I don't have to be the sole source for her hand-knit sock collection. She also has a new-found appreciation for sock yarn so I have someone to share my angst and delight with. The investment ("You know you want to knit socks..." x 1000) has generated great returns because it has resulted in shared delight.

I'm a kid in a candy store, a pig in (bleep), a very happy SW. Miss M is with us! First time EVAH. Okay, technically El Hubbo got to spend a Christmas with her when she was a baby but it's MY first Christmas with her!

First Santa! First morning mayhem! First first first! I don't even care that I've missed them all before -- I've got it now and it's good.

I don't get to keep her all day but I'll share.

Merry Christmas to everyone here, hope they're having a day like me!

Question: It came into your work flow this year and now you couldn't live without it. It has simplified or improved your online experience.

Not Farmville.

Question: What's a business that you found this year that you love? Who thought it up? What makes it special?

Rather than finding a startup this year, I lost a startup. There was a new restaurant in Chambersburg that tried to be everything to everyone; and it just couldn't make it. I feel bad, because the owners were so earnest; and the food was so good! Aliyah and I loved Food Palace with a passion, and we gave it our business as often as we could. For a town without Indian food, their Indian menu wasn't just passable...it was stellar. They also had good salads, fries, and falafel. Yum.

Food Palace, we were sad to see you go.

Question: She came into your life and turned it upside down. He went out of his way to provide incredible customer service. Who is your unsung hero of 2009?

I live on a freshwoman hall in a freshwoman dorm; there are a whole lot of new faces in my life come August. But the best new face is actually someone that's an old face around Wilson. There is a woman named Serenity in the Women With Children (WWC) program on campus that didn't really cross in my path until August, either. She's been at Wilson for at least a year, but I've actually never seen her. This year, she's an RA with me and someone I trust deeply.

When the world fell apart for one of the freshwomen, Serenity helped put it back together. She also helped put me back together. I appreciate the path she's cutting, and I'm glad it cut across mine. She really does live up to her name.

"Controversial display shows Jesus hunting down Santa, Rudolph".

With a shotgun, no less. The creator of the display said, "Christmas isn't about Santa; it's about Jesus," he said. "It's an expression of my repressed creativity."

His repressed something.

I'm not sure what Bea was doing when I last went in for hair. Bad day? Alien abduction? The color fried my hair and is already fading and the cut? Weird 6 ways to Sunday. I've been trying dilligently to get it to do anything and today I just gave up.

Surfed the web for a nearby salon that had decent reviews and could fit me in immediately. I ended up with a gal with the same name as me. She was... not unlike Carol Kane's character in Scrooged.

My hair is not great but it's significantly better. I can work with this.

I take it back, this is turning out to be a great cut.

Question: Online or offline, where did you spend most of your mad money this year?

I hate to admit this, but I'm going to anyway.
Despite buying several pairs of shoes, multiple dresses, and a coat, it was not J. Crew.
Despite buying two computers, it was not Asus.
Despite feeding the pigs all year and me all summer, it was not Giant.
No, the largest percentage of my money went to Gap this year. Again.
Sigh.

Question: A word that encapsulates your year. "2009 was..."

scattered.

In the past 24 hours, I have cleaned the playroom, made a bed, helped my mom around the house, bought someone a Christmas gift they never dared ask for, written thank-you notes for gifts already received, picked up the tab for a table of strangers on a date, visited with my (crazy) grandmother, covered last minute trip details with Aliyah, and lumped for a while.

It's been a good 24 hours, to say the least.

Miss M: I can't decide, I'll probably be the old drunken gramma telling dirty jokes or you know, a quiet old woman like grammy.

Me: Wait... Is my mom the drunken old gramma??

We had a good laugh over that one.

Question: I can taste my favorite tea right now. What's yours?

Maybe it's Gamla Stan. Maybe it's Kärlek's Te. Maybe it's Jordgubbe och Champaign.
In any case, it's tea I purchased in Stockholm. It keeps me just a little bit there.

Tummy bugs stink. But making mac n cheese and watching Cold Case Files on tv isn't the worst way to spend a sick day.

That is all.

Question: Did your headphones come in a sweet case? See a bottle of tea in another country that stood off the shelves?

Some of my favorite packaging this year came from Etsy. For example, the ever-wild Alisa Starr always sends her cards in manilla envelopes that have been plastered up and down with poems, stories, bizarre pictures, and profane ads from Craigslist. There were also a lot of very thoughtful, pretty packages from the smaller sellers. Things wrapped in stiff paper with soft ribbons and crinkly tissue that makes you feel good to give to cherished friends are always a treat.

Things I want to rope Aliyah into doing:

time with marisynos

The heat in the house is sort of shaky - it's coming on, but not like clockwork. I'm nervous about leaving this place alone for too long for x-mas. Have to ask mda to call Thermo-Dynamics today!

Hey! I want to send you a holiday card! And this is your very last chance to give me your address so I can do so. And it will make me happy. So do it.

So go here and give it to me.

(Yes, yes, I've been terribly absent lately. I've been crocheting like a madman. Handmade Christmas presents suck balls.)

So I went to the hospital as soon as they opened at like, 8 today. I wasn't sure what department I ought to be seeing, so I asked the reception desk. "Excuse me," I said. "The left side of my face is paralyzed, and I didn't know what kind of doctor to see."

"You don't LOOK paralyzed," said the nurse.

"I know," I said, "I look a lot better in Japanese than English. But, um look. I can't smile."

( This is my face not doing anything. This is my face when I try to smile. You'll see what I mean. )

"OH," she said. "Was it sudden or gradual?"

"Sudden," I said.

"You'll want otolaryngology!" and off she sent me with a form to apply to see a department I hadn't been to before at my usual hospital. I made it through reception pretty quickly, bopped up to see the ENTs, and was generally impressed with their quickness and efficiency compared to say, the psych department, which operates like molasses. I was called in pretty promptly, explained the onset of my symptoms and demonstrated my half-assed facial expressions and the doctor concurred with adania and Wikipedia and pronounced it Bell's Palsy.

( 3/4 surprised and 1/2 worried )

So ok! Diagnosis correct. I am smrt, the internet is helpful. The doctor explained that the treatment is usually steroids but that steroids can have some really nasty side effects, so they have to do some tests to make sure I'm a good candidate. Some manner of bloodwork and a test to see if the swelling of the facial nerve (which runs past the ear) has affected my hearing. I bopped over to another part of the hospital to find the 採血室, where as the kanji literally state, is the blood-taking room. There was a charming red line on the second floor of the north wing guiding me to it. It was painful and I handled the blood draw possibly even worse than I usually handle blood draws, which is not well. I took a break, bought some pastries at the hospital snack shop, and then went to get my hearing tested.

The upshot of the tests, the doctor informed me when he called me in next, is that my blood is fine and so's my hearing, so they are going to give me the steroids. OK! Yay! Treatment! thought I. Then he asked me if I can come in every morning for the next nine days so they can [wordIdon'tknow] me. I'm confused but assume [wordIdon'tknow] is probably a good thing so agree. (Bad idea people. Should've asked immediately about [wordIdon'tknow]. Don't be too proud. Don't be me.) Finally, he pronounced that they're also going to [wordIdon'tknow] me today, so can I please wait by room number 8 for my name to be called?

(He tells me all this in a VERY LOUD VOICE. Everyone in the ENT department speaks VERY LOUDLY, which is particularly noticeable because the average Japanese conversational volume is MUCH LOWER than the average English conversational volume. That these people are loud by my standards means they are LOUD.)

OK, then.

I entered room number 8 and finally worked up the courage to ask to the nurses, "Um, excuse me. I've never heard [wordIdon'tknow] before. Do you think you could explain to me what it is?"

"OH," they replied in their very loud voices. "YOU'RE ABOUT TO FIND OUT!"

No one wants to hear that like. Ever.

The word, ladies and gentlemen, was 点滴 (tenteki, IV): turns out the hospital wanted to administer the steroids to me directly, and not only that, but POUR THEM STRAIGHT INTO MY BLOODSTREAM. And now I get to get up for this pleasure early, every day, for the next nine days.

...

Yeah.

Um, the upside: I can tell the steroids are having beneficent effects upon me, since the POUNDING HORRIBLE PAIN AT THE BASE OF MY SKULL is almost gone. The downside: a whole world of side effects: crazy euphoria (kept texting jimparadise "OMG I AM SO HIGH. SO HIGH. OMG. I AM SOOOOOOOO HIIIIIIIIIIGH."). Nausea like whoa. Headache. So, um, I think I am going to be taking. it. easy until Hong Kong. This will be good though. I can catch up on my fieldnotes and do transcriptions and translate my paper into English and it'll be awesome.

Or I could also just chill and watch a lot of tv, but I think the temporarily paralyzed and definitely emotionally traumatized get a week or two of free passes on productivity, right?

So that's that.

I never realized that Puffed Rice is "the only cereal shot from guns". They just told me that on a commercial for "The Challenge of the Yukon".