I've finally got a chance to sit down and blog after a couple of madcap weeks cavorting around the eastern seaboard. There's a lot to report, and Chris is working on getting all the pics uploaded (I didn't take any this time around, and really he took enough for both of us).

We spent New Year's Eve in Wildwood, a faded New Jersey resort town that almost completely shuts down in winter. Of course we were instantly drawn to the desolation -- we wanted to be as far away as possible from the millions of raging assholes polluting Times Square, and since we're both introverts repelled by crowds of any sort, we found the empty beaches and abandoned motels very tranquil (in that eerie ghost-town-americana way we like). Pretty much the only sign of life, save for a few restaurants and liquor stores, was the swanky Starlux motel, a retrofuturistic work of kitsch-vomit Jetsons genius designed in tribute to the doo-wop architecture of Wildwood's older motels. (Yes, we stayed there; within two weeks of finding out about their New Year's package back in October, I had my $100 room deposit down.) Our New Year's dinner (the only bum part of a package that included a two-night stay, a $70 Italian dinner for two, a couple of free breakfasts at the local diner, and a bottle of champagne) was unspectacular prom food, but the rest of the night was just great -- we went back to the hotel and feasted on pumpkin doughnuts, sweet potato fries, black russians, and champagne, and watched the Iron Chef Battle Tokyo X by the light of the room's orange lava lamp.

More commentary to come...