A Creepy New Year's 2012

For New Year's, we ended up going up to the Catskills to stay in a friend's relative's hunting house. We like to joke about this being our last New Year's Eve (2012 and all), but for such a beautiful area, it turned out to be pretty creepy.

The area seemed deserted. We hardly saw any other people or cars, although we did hear a lot of random gunshots from hunters. Maybe we watch too much Walking Dead, but it felt like the perfect setting for a zombiepocalypse.

Many of the barns we saw were complete wrecks, which added to the mysteriousness. I have photos of an apparently newly dead deer with its bloody ribcage exposed that I decided against sharing, since it was pretty gruesome. The best part were these trees that were planted in what looked like infinite rows for hundreds of yards. All the branches were cut off except for the very top, which shaded the underneath enough so that if you looked down any of the tree aisles it would fade to black and you couldn't see how far they went. We couldn't get close to some of the coolest spots because of all the giant NO TRESPASSING signs.

All in all it was a good time though. And now we know where to go next year when the inevitable cataclysmic apocalypse comes, to get away from all the future zombies.

Craig & Justin's Holiday Party

A former CD threw a holiday party at his beautiful apartment in Long Island City.

There was tons of champagne, ginger cookies, and amazing decor. There was also a sick deck which would probably be awesome in the summer, but that night was just too cold to hang out on it (despite a pergola, pillows, and hula hoop.)

The entire place was done in my favorite design style, aka the super glam regency mod look. There were incredible details in every corner that made the whole place feel so personal and considered, versus the standard blank white box you usually see in these new construction deals. I love getting a peek into people's homes, and especially when they're so gorgeous.

Holiday Blues

As cool and cynical as I try to be on a daily basis, I love Christmas in the totally cheesy, naive way of a small child. Probably partly because I had a great childhood, and partly because inside I can be a big soft optimistic idiot, and when else can I let that out besides the holiday season? I even love holiday music (although by that I mean real, Bing Crosby holiday music, not anything by a boy band or the Biebs. Even if Bing was the Biebs of his day.)



So after four days of pestering the boyfriend to go with me to buy a tree and carry it home, we were finally on our way. "What's the big deal?" he asked me, as we were walking in the cold. "It'll be over in a few weeks, and we're not kids anymore."

I thought about it for a moment before answering. "Every day is the same," I finally told him. "I go to work, come home, the weekends blink by, and then years have passed. I've been in the same routine for nearly eight years, with ten vacation days off per year. I need something to anchor me." It was the first time I'd ever really articulated that out loud. Also, as some background info, the boyfriend is one of the privileged few who makes his own works hours and never really experienced office life.

"Wow," he said. "That's really bleak."

And then I was proud to have a bitter, sad angle on my corny holiday glee.

Why Time Goes Faster as You Get Older via Psychology Today