Home for the Holidays

Our Holidays (that means "holy-days" for all you heathens) in Santa Cruz have been other-worldly. Santa Cruz is, in many ways, somewhat extraterrestrial at times and the Holidays in SC are no exception.

New Years

On January 1, I drank so much (homemade wine, smirnoff raspberry drinkything, and heffeveisen) that I threw up twice. The first time, Phil (this is how I know he loves me) cleaned it up. It was PURPLE and CHUNKY and the man CLEANED IT UP. And while it can't be compared to this story, I was and am very impressed. The second time, I was outside a restaurant trying to procure breakfast with a group of people I didn't know very well. Oh the memories.

The night before (that's New Years Eve for all you prudes) we drug a Christmas (that's CHRIST mass) tree through the streets and onto the beach, over a river, and through the woods, until we reached the tree's final resting place. We lit that motherfucker on fire and watched it burn. To this day (yes, 6 WHOLE MONTHS LATER) Phil claims that he will never be in the same room as a Christmas tree, ever again. It was charred and smoldering after a few short minutes of burning which entailed flames shooting 15 feet into the air and a roaring sound that seemed to be coming from the vast, angry ocean or my alcohol drenched belly--a toss-up. As it glowed we sang patriotic songs and got weepy. Don't let anyone tell you I'm unAmerican.

Independence Day

Apparently, in SC, there is a city ordinance which requires every human and humanoid to leave their home, get drunk in the streets, and stumble to the beach to watch THE MOST FUCKING INSANE DISPLAY OF DISPOSABLE INCOME EVER. We literally saw tens of thousands of dollars in illegal fireworks go off for over two hours, directly above our heads. It was unreal. These were like, movie-quality fireworks; twinkly, erratic, glowing, effervescence, luminescent bursts of sound and spark. The entire beach and all of the beaches as far as we could see (which wasn't far because of the smoke) were filled with Americans in desperate need of an excuse to party.

We all looked up and across the water, past the boats hovering on the shore and the falling embers, towards the other beaches where people just like us did the same thing. We were all so entertained by the sounds of war. Don't let anyone tell you I'm unAmerican.