A Holiday Chat: Planes, Trains, Automobiles

Happy holidays, we love you all.

MEGAN: Hey hey it’s not Friday, it’s Wednesday, oh my god we’re chatting!

NICOLE: Hey hey! Happy Wednesday! We’re going to be taking the next week-and-two-days off, and will be back on January 2. But we’ll also be running new features every day, so don’t stop reading The Billfold just because I’m not babbling about how I got my glasses adjusted or whatever!

Also, that was less for you than for our readers, Megan. 😀

MEGAN: Hahaha, I got the sentiment. Yes, dear readers, do not stop coming to the site, because we love you, and never fear, the restorative week and two days off will surely provide lots of fodder for 2017 and the incoming Trumpocalypse.

Blergh, ok, let’s not. Nicole, what are you doing with your time off?

NICOLE: Traveling everywhere. Tomorrow I leave for Iowa to help my folks get some household stuff done, then my parents and I will fly from Iowa to Maryland to celebrate Baby’s First Christmas with my sister and her husband and my baby nephew, and then I will fly to Los Angeles for a very Happy New Year with friends. Wow. Too much traveling. What about you?

MEGAN: I am exhausted for you as a result of all that traveling you just listed out. As for me, after we finish this chat, I’m going to go make food, do some more work and then for the holidays, I am so happy to be not going or doing or travelling. My sister and I are going to see La La Land on Christmas Day and eat Chinese food and then on Christmas Eve, we’re probably going to eat…more. Something. My dad’s coming down to the city on Monday and then the rest of the week until the New Year, Im interested in reading a book. Many books. I haven’t read a book in what feels like a long time, so I would like to spend most of my time off on the couch. For the actual New Year, ughugkshdfksf. I think I’m just going to a friend’s house to smoke pot and drink wine, honestly. Nice and easy, the way I like it.

NICOLE: It sounds really nice!

MEGAN: Are you excited to get on all the planes and see your fam?

NICOLE: I am not excited about the planes, but I am excited to see my nephew! He is adorbs.

MEGAN: A tiny Christmas angel! That’ll ne nice. Is there anything else you’re particularly sad or happy or mad or thrilled or blergh about this fine holiday season? I was wracking(IS THIS THE RIGHT ONE)my brain and I couldn’t think of shit, except for blessed silence.

NICOLE: I’m excited about my New Year’s Eve outfit, which is going to be sparkly AF. I’m anxious about the upcoming Trump Administration.

MEGAN: Love a sparkly anything, really. And…yeah. The Trump administration is something that I think about every other day or so. I descend into panic and then usually tell all my friends that we’re about to enter a fascist state so DON’T GET TOO COMFORTABLE. Then I fall asleep.

Quite healthy!

NICOLE: It’s going to be a hard balance to figure out; how much to just live our lives and how much to call our representatives and speak out and how much to… I don’t know, go to town hall meetings? Be civically active? It’s something that’s on my mind all the time.

But I’ve also told myself that it has to wait until 2017, that I can figure it out when I write my 2017 Best Self Goals.

MEGAN: Yeah, part of what I’m trying to do is allow myself a mental and emotional break. I’m excellent at compartmentalizing, but when I lift the lid off the Trump box in my brain, a billion snakes screaming “WE’RE FUCKED” and spouting CNN headlines pop out, soooo…

I’m trying to ready myself for what I can and will and should do in 2017. For the last gasps of this ridiculous no-good-very-bad year, I’m going to just try and prepare. Do a lot of sheet masks. Teach myself how to use hot rollers. Read. I’ll need all of that for the incoming revolution.

NICOLE: To 2017, then. *raises imaginary glass*

MEGAN: To 2017! *toasts my computer with this piece of cheese and grape that I’m about to eat*

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