So about Christmas... Part 2

Having acquired a Wii, I played it only a little, and calmly boxed it up and put it in my suitcase. I knew that if I dove in all the way, I'd spend my entire vacation playing Guitar Hero. This was one of the few times I can remember successfully exercising willpower over videogames.

There really weren't any adventures with my family in Springfield. That's actually exactly how I wanted it. I definitely miss going on trips with them, seeing places, and other monumental things like that, but what I miss more is just being around them. The same thing happens with my close friends, too--the better I know someone, and the more I like them, the more I enjoy just sitting around with them.

I've been keeping a mental list since August of all the food I miss. Near the top of that list has been Pizza Hut. More specifically, Pizza Hut lunch buffets. For $4.99 you get warm--not piping hot--pizza, which is how I prefer it, and Mountain Dew to boot. I thrived on that for lunch last summer during my 14,000-mile cross-country journey, and man, I miss it. It's the perfect travel meal, too--cheap, amazing pizza, and you can be in and out in 10 minutes. So as soon as restaurants opened back up after Christmas, I made a beeline for the nearest Pizza Hut and gorged myself.

I also promised myself back around October that I would feast on movies at the theater when I came home. Prepared to go by myself if I had to, I actually lucked out and got my family to go with me. We saw American Gangster, I Am Legend, and National Treasure 2. I liked all of them, but then, even Transformers was beautiful to me, so starved was I for mother culture. I tend to like almost every movie I see anyway.

Toward the end of my visit, I met up with the lovely Mary, and while we were downtown at the Mudhouse drinking our Elvises (peanut butter smoothie = heaven), she stopped to say hi to a high school friend of hers. Glancing at the other people at the table with this friend, I did a doubletake at one guy in particular, just as he did the same to me. Come to find out, this was Nick, another high school buddy of mine. He had blue hair and wore duct tape pants back then--thus the hard time recognizing him.

I also caught up with two people I hardly expected to see: Brian and Eric. We were buddies senior year, mostly due to Mr. Sly's, Mr. Fotsch's, and Mr. Collins' calculus, programming, and AP English classes. We skipped lunch more or less every day spring semester, bringing little wide-eyed freshman Mary along to Taco Bell, Pasta Express, or Lucy's. The summer after graduation, as Brian, Eric, and I were preparing to ship out to college, we hung out at my house. We wound up talking about random deep things--my favorite kind of stuff to talk about--until about 3am, standing at the foot of my driveway. This time around, we went to Mud Lounge, Steak & Shake, and Jimmy John's, then wound up back at my driveway at about 3am. This time we talked a lot more about politics and ecology, and it was every bit as much fun as last time.

Every time I go back to Springfield, if it's during the school year, I make it a point to sneak back into Glendale to visit any teachers I can find. This is my way of getting back at the school for becoming ridiculously uptight about security while I was there (ID badges and such), but mainly to catch up with my teachers. The only one I found this time was, as it turned out, exactly who I needed to see--Sensei. She has a real name, but when you learn Japanese in a Midwest high school from a Japanese woman, "Sensei" suffices.

Oh, and what visit home would be complete without seeing Buster, Todd and Cuddles?

I went to bed at about 10:30 on New Year's Eve. Exciting, I know. On New Year's Day, however, I watched football aaaall day with Dad. As the savvy among you know already, the day's festivities culminated with the Georgia-Hawaii Sugar Bowl, at which Georgia beat the ever-loving snot out of Hawaii. This marked the first UGA football game I watched all season. Watching Georgia football on New Year's Day with your dad is something everyone should do at least once.

All of this got done in about 10 days. After a dentist appointment (at which I found out there's a pretty good reason Japanese people brush their teeth after every meal--rice sticks to your teeth something awful, and will give you two cavities despite your brushing twice and flossing once daily), I packed up, slung my Gibson over my shoulder, and set off for a brief stop in Georgia...