8:41 p.m. - December 23, 2001
holiday cheer overload
If there is such thing as insanity, and I am ever destined to encounter it, there is no doubt that it will be in this house in Ithaca, New York, surrounded by screaming amounts of perfectly wrapped gifts and carefully embroidered stockings and the three cats, Cici, Tina, and Tuxedo, meowling around and around my feet.
These aren't necessarily bad things, or they wouldn't be if my aunt had not specifically said to me on the phone, long distance, last night, 'Hannah, we're trying to tone down on the Christmas cheer this year. On the present front, anyway.' So I didn't buy that much this year. Then I walk in the door and fall on my face because I just tripped over this vast overload of gifts spilling on the living room floor. I'm talking expanse, here... the kind where you can't tell what color the carpeting is. Well? I did mock my aunt to her face later, asking her if I'd heard her correctly. (Toning down? Excuse me?) She seems to think she has. I do laugh. There is a cat attacking me. No, there is. There is a cat attacking me and its (declawed) paws are at the moment batting at my jawbone with the back legs wrapped around my neck. (Beetch? No! She is very byooteeful.. ((much scratching and hissing ensues)) tsk! tsk! tsktsk! your cat IS a beetch!) ignore that if it isn't abundantly clear, and it only will be to a precious few.
I have just been invited to a Jacuzzi; however I did not bring my bathing suit. If this were a strange town with no one I knew in it, I'd just go commando; however, these are my cousins, and I have no desire to be known as even more of an outcast in my own family than I already am. (in addition to the fact that being naked in front of my cousins is not appealing in any way; in fact it gives me the screeching willies) 'it's just the human body hannah, what is your problem?' says the un p.c. me (or super p.c., depending on your viewpoint). Shut up, I say to both. I'm still not going.

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