So, once again my journal seems to have been passed by events. Or as a (the only?) reader said, “I keep going there for updates, but all I see is that silly pirate.” Well, umm… yes. Jack Sparrow is indeed a silly pirate, and I am indeed, behind on my writing, having consistently failed to post updates since the September 29, 2006 posting that features master Sparrow so prominently. Still, here’s a proposal of sorts for 2007 (this is in fact somewhat after the fact, since this entry is actually being composed on Jan. 21):
– More frequent updates
– Better writing
– Fewer words
In short, less of the quotidian and more of the variety, or at least less emphasis on the fact that I always go to bed late, get up late, and am invariably somewhat behind in one class or another. We can take these as givens, and move on to the other stuff.
The motivation for this change stems from two things actually. Firstly, writing consistently boring stuff is depressing, and in any case, I get plenty of practice doing that with my classes. Secondly, my two favorite bloggers have quit (Billmon of Whiskey Bar and Michael Berube of his blog by the same name), so the quality of potential distractions has taken quite a hit. Long story short: expect either great things here, or an overpopulation of giant North Korean rabbits. Either one should be an improvement.
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The New Year is one of the many holidays I am ambivalent about, mostly because the weather precludes my preferred holiday pursuits (hiking in the Sierras, traveling to underpopulated areas, intergalactic snooker), but also somewhat because me and my folks never do anything all that exciting. In fact, I’m pretty sure that up until the point that I was 15 or 16, I regularly slept through the New Year without thinking anything of it.
In that grand tradition, 2007 actually began quite well, with me not merely conscious, but engaged in heated disagreement. It was the sort of argument that one can only really have after about 11PM at night, provided that one has gotten into the habit of going to bed before 10. Consequently, I think we (me and The Parents) didn’t actually notice the ’06-’07 changeover until at least two or three minutes after the fact. Quel dommage. A few minutes later, I returned to cursing my seemingly newly dead iPod (revived upon subsequent reformatting) and ditched 2007 for a world of immediately forgettable and forgotten dreams. Such is life.
The real day in fact began sometime around 8 hours later and probably meandered on for another 15 or 16 until it collided with Jan. 2, at which point it was rudely retired to some place farther west. As for me and The Parents, we wound up spending the daylight hours disrupting banana slugs and staff-length sticks at the Purisima Open Space preserve. It’s amazing how much more exciting a place can become when visibility can be measured in miles, not feet, and everything isn’t tinted gray. I’m also a big fan of the color, which has an unfortunate tendency to leave these parts between, oh, about July and December. Me like springtime. Even if in January.
Following shortstanding tradition, we also had a sort of special dinner/gift exchange doohickey in the evening. Consider it the poor atheist’s version of Christmas. No tree. Few decorations. Just a big dinner, and some gifts not sporting red and green wrap. Helps to spread holiday spirit and whatnot. I may have to rethink my policy on fireplaces though, as the living room was positively hot by the end of dinner. There is such a thing as too-effective heating. Even around Half Moon Bay.
Having manifestly gone beyond the limits of brevity imposed at the outset of this post, that, my friends, was how we welcomed 2007.