Jour de l'An

January 1, 2007 -- about forty minutes past midnight -- CasaBanana, outside upstairs bathroom

"Honey? Are you in there?"

"Mmmmrrrrrhh."

"Is that 'yes'?"

"Yeeesssssssss."

"You want me to leave you alone?"

"Yes, pleeeeease..."


January 1, 2007 -- 4:05 a.m. -- same location

"Sweetie? You still in there?"

(inarticulate groan)

"You're lying against the door, so I can't get it open more than three inches. Are you still alright? Do you want a glass of water?"

"Noooothankyouuuuuuuu..."

I peek in as far as possible through the slit in the door. "Baby, where are your pants?"

I would later learn several key pieces of information.

--While I was dealing blackjack in the kitchen, there was a champagne drinking
competition going on out in the garage. There are no real winners in a champagne drinking battle. There are only those who lose less.

--Plastic tipped darts meant for an electronic dartboard will sink readily into a traditional bristle board. They will also stick cleanly into drywall.

--The bath mat in the upstairs bathroom does not make a good pillow.

--My friends kick ass. All of them. Those who didn't participate in the champagne-dart tournament helped me clean everything, down to the last glass and dish. The champagne warriors? Really damn funny to watch, which was just as important.

--Sometimes the only way to take off your shoes is to pull your pants over them and hope the shoes slide off your feet during the struggle.

There is a point, and if you've had more than a sip of alcohol in your life you probably know of this point, where you realize that you're about to round a corner. You were having a good time, but it's soon to end and there's nothing you can do to stop it. That last gulp was one gulp too many, and you can't undrink it. It's a sad moment in an evening, when the nausea washes over you along with that sickening regret. Poor Accountant Boy. He was having a rollicking good time right up until that point. I found his unfailing politeness during the situation to be endearing. "A.B.? Are you going to sleep on the floor?" "Yes, thank you for asking..."

Monday sucked because I was in a funk. I'm nervous about work, and my stomach's all burny with the stress. Staying awake until 5:00 a.m. on New Year's Eve by myself, playing "Knights of the Old Republic" while I waited for A.B. to emerge from the bathroom so I could get to my toothbrush was kind of depressing. I wouldn't have traded places with him, mind you. Poor bastard. It's just that two New Year's Days ago, he and I went to the gym and ran a sprint triathlon. I look back on that and remember feeling young and strong, totally confident, like we could take on the whole world. I didn't feel that way on New Year's Day. My job felt overwhelming, and I felt really out of shape, and all I wanted to do was watch 'COPS', and A.B. couldn't help me break out of my funk because he was fighting the worst hangover he's had in a decade.

Today is January 3rd, and things are looking up. I'm going to consider this the first day of the new year. Happy New Year!

Here are my resolutions, because as long as everyone else is making 'em, I might as well join in.

1. Get back in shape/lose weight -- I'd like to drop about ten pounds and/or five percentage points of body fat. I'm going to a wedding in June, and I'm going to be able to choose my outfit based on my whim, not based on which of my dresses best camouflages my back fat. It's a wedding in Central California in late June, and it's probably going to be about 100 degrees outside by then. I do not want to have to wear a shawl to cover any unsightly rolls or bulges.

2. Run in a 5K benefitting breast cancer research. I'll never meet the vague goal of "Run a 5K", but if there's an actual event, a target to aim for, I'll hit it. I want to do this one.

3. Be a better programmer, and finally learn how to express myself as one. I have an art history degree. I ended up being a programmer by doing the work and making up my own vocabulary for it. As a result, I can often see what I want to happen in my head, but I don't know how to say it in the right way. "That thing sends a message to this program over here, and then it does its little thing, and then bippetyboppityboo over in this, umm, section, and...you know..." That works great if, like me for the last eight years, you program in Progress, a language that isn't used much, and isn't too terribly complicated. Windows development with C# and .Net and all of those abbreviations and acronyms? Holy crap! Part of the reason I've been here for eight and a half years is that I'm secretly afraid that I don't know what I'm doing, and nobody's noticed yet, but I'll be exposed as a complete fraud if I have to leave. This year, I'm going to step up and take responsibility for my career and education. This year, I'm going to be a more confident, competent programmer. This year, I will not refer to anything on a database diagram as "thingy".

4. Knit from stash. Yeah, yeah. Everybody says that. I mean it. I made a pact with my friend Daisy. We're going to Stitches in February, but neither of us are going to let the other buy yarn. We're going for notions and patterns ONLY. No Interlacements booth, no Knitting Studio super-clearance grab bags, no complete kits from White Lies. I still have too much of that stuff from last year. And the year before. And some from 2004.

5. Call/Write/E-mail more often. We're both really bad at that. Here's an all-too-typical conversation between Accountant Boy and our old friends. "Hey, how's it going? Really? When did THAT happen? She's WALKING? And the other one is due in a month???" That's what happens when you let three years slip by without calling. Your friends suddenly have entire families that you didn't know about.

6. Meet other knitters. I've been informed that there is a knitting group that meets at my local Borders. Must get more information...

That should do it. There's nothing too outlandish on the list.

It's going to be a great year.