busy day

My boss is gone on vacation next week. She only works three days a week as it is. Meanwhile, the latest book approaching its messy deadline time — when all the design work has to be transmitted and all of the art gathered and sent ahead to the printer. This is when she usually leaves, and I'm the one who has to do all the rest of the work.

So, no real time for navel gazing right now. I'm going to have to think about things other than my self for a while and do some work, like an adult. (You're either adult enough to do the work, or your adult enough to not have to do the work and dump it on your assistant. It sucks being the first kind of adult. I wouldn't know about the second kind, but I bet it's nice.)

poker update: game 3 — bought in for $30; won $4; total for the year: -$59

(Played tight on purpose, slowly winning a little money. Was happy with the results, as I wasn't hitting any great cards. Up $20+ toward the end of the night I called Paul's all in with the nut straight. Unfortunately, he'd made a boat on fourth street. An avoidable call, probably. Also, must learn that playing tight doesn't mean making small, wussy bets. Sometimes you have to bet $10 to get someone off of their hand. $2-3 ain't gonna do it.)

short film idea

About a block away from the grocery store I go to, someone has thrown out a crummy old upright piano. Twice now — on my way to the store yesterday, and walking to the subway this morning — I saw people tinkering with it, playing it.

It'd be a fun project to get a piano (probably in better shape than the one that is out there) and put it on a street in New York City and leave it there for several days, filming from a nearby hidden location as people interacted with it. The tough part would be capturing the sound, I imagine. I guess you could hide a mic inside the piano, although it probably wouldn't pick up conversation around the piano, which would be part of the fun. If you put the piano near a tree, you could hide a mic in the branches, perhaps. Could be an intersesting art project.

Somebody get on that.

sickly

My stomach is revolting. Against me, that is.

Was up and down between the bathroom and the bed last night. Today I feel tired and groggy — slightly dizzy even — and my stomach feels like there's a cue ball making its way down my intestine.

So, there's not a lot of complicated thought to go around today, while there is a lot to write about. Some notes, perhaps for later:

1. The closest thing I ever came to a "mentor" (which isn't very close at all) died last Friday. I'm surprised and yet not surprised at how little I'm feeling in response to the fact. He was a difficult, very negative man who had a lot to teach but who couldn't get his personality out of the way a lot of the time to give it without hooks and barbs attached. Perhaps if I was more involved with the theater he ran, and of which I am a member, and I'd had more interaction with him these past years, I'd be harder hit. I don't know. Part of me wonders if this reaction is foreshadowing to how I'll feel when my father passes — a lot of that personality description above pertains to my relationship with my father, too. Don't get me started.

2. Spent three hours working on the apartment on Sunday — throwing things out, making piles to donate to charities. Poor Amy has the worst of it, as her "massage room" will become Ella's room, and she has a hard time throwing things away. But it felt good. I like clearing things out. It gives me the feeling I'm starting afresh. I used to like to re-arrange my bedroom when I was a kid. It was like sorting out my brain and allowed me to get that same feeling of "newness" I get from throwing things away. I think it also allows me to imagine that all the mistakes I've made have been washed away with the "old" me. Silly, I know, but true.

3. Holy shit, there's a baby coming and I'm not ready. (repeat x infinity)

4. I'm convinced that people can be broken down into two categories: creators and consumers. Consumers get joy from taking in "culture," however you choose to define it: music, theater, painting, opera, televised bowling, live sports, etc. Creators are people who find their joy in creating and participate in those things. I'm afraid that I've become an consumer. Or that I've always been a consumer, masquerading as a creator.

5. I had a conversation with a therapist and being amazed at how emotional I got when asked what I was looking for (it was a long conversation up to this point, and it was mostly about how I have so much going on in my brain and so many emotions about all the shit going on around me, and all that's happened before) and I came up with the word "peace." Yesterday, it occurred to me that I may not ever have the luxury of finding a kind of peace that is sustainable longer than a vacation, or a movie, or book, or an orgasm. I may just not be that kind of person.

6.While we were cleaning the other day, the song I Will Follow You Into the Dark came on and Amy and I joked about how we wanted to die before the other person did (hahaha?) and I came out with "think about it, though... with Ella around, we'll never be alone again." We both got very quiet. We will always have Ella. It had just never occurred to us in quite that way before, I don't think.

Enough for now.

comfortably dumb

Finished reading Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion this morning. I was surprisingly unmoved. I'm not sure what I was expecting — I think I wanted it to hand me irrefutable evidence that I could wave in the faces of any future religionists who wanted to argue the existence of a god or challenge the validity of evolution. I suppose it does that, to a certain degree. There are plenty of inflammatory quotes from boneheaded theologians that fly against common sense and are worthy of a firestorm of derision. There are plenty of logical arguments of why a religion-based approach to viewing the world makes no sense, and that the supposed benefits of wearing god-colored glasses are, empirically, untrue.

And yet, I didn't close the book with a satisfying thump and a smug feeling of "this'll show 'em!" Truth is, reading the book made me realize that it doesn't matter what you say — anyone who really wants to believe, will believe. Going through the book I played devil's advocate (or, well, god's advocate) and found plenty of wiggle room to refute Dawkin's rather perfunctorily constructed arguments with easy appeals to faith. ("That's why it's called faith. I feel it's true, regardless of what you say.")

Don't get me wrong: I pretty much agree with everything that Dawkin's is saying. I think religion as a force in the world has turned sour, if it ever was sweet, and we would be better off if more people would use reason to experience life, rather than faith. The use of faith as a person's primary source of light in the world dims that person's view of reality and the people he or she comes in contact with. I also believe that we are at a time in history when it is important for rationalists and atheists to stand up and raise their voices to counteract the ignorance promoted by faith-based "reasoning."

But reading this book it became clear to me how much thinking and piecing together of evidence and making connections and blah blah blah ... zzzz. It's not simple stuff. Understanding the theory of evolution is not intuitive. Quantum mechanics is not a walk in the park. Explaining why and how our brains can trick us into seeing and feeling things we want to see and feel can seem kind of mean, when you're bursting people's faith bubbles. Basically, the faith-based view of the world is easier and more enjoyable. God is the great, big, fluffy pillow to lay your head on when someone starts droning on and on about probability and the likelihood of a creator making something so complex.

I found myself looking forward to the book being over. Aside from the fact that many of the arguments were old and ones I already knew and agreed with, and that Dawkins' sloppy, casual writing style was dull at times (and some of the arguments not well supported—which is understandable, this being a "popular science" book and not a textbook), what I really craved was a story. I couldn't wait to finish so I could go back to something easier to read, something that was more enjoyable and would engage me more emotionally. This is not to say that my righteous indignation wasn't raised by reading his book, or that it didn't have me shaking my head at the quotes from those boneheaded xians, but that's not really satisfying, ultimately. I tend to alternate between fiction and non-fiction for this very reason: I want to be emotionally satisfied. And isn't that what religion does for people? It gives them a story to be part of. A safe, simple, easy-to-understand, comforting story to feel.

game on

I've not written about this, aside from the mention of RoboRally in the last proper entry I made here — but I have really gotten into board games in the past couple of years. In case you didn't know, there's a kind of renaissance going on in the board game world these days, which started about ten to fifteen years ago. It's been lead primarily by companies in Europe (Germany and Italy especially, it seems) but the U.S., ever ready to pick up on something that can make money, is has come around.
And the thing that I'm finding, over and over again, and which I'm impressed and slightly amazed by is that many of these games defuse my very competitive need to win.

Which brings up a whole other question for me as to how I can be very competitive (I hate to lose, in general, at anything) and yet be, as I said, not that interested in "the game" of life. I suspect it has to do with having to deal with, and influence other people that I have problems with — not to mention the stakes. But I digress.

I've heard people say and sign, read fiction and non-fiction, and seen movies which all try to explain to us (oh, and been to plenty of meditations about this, too) that it's not the destination, but the journey that matters. Yeah yeah yeah. Whatever. I mean, okay, we can all agree that we should stop and smell the roses and you don't know what you've got until it's gone and all that — but we're all result oriented.

So it comes as a pleasant shock to me that these games (the aforementioned RoboRally, plus Bang!, Memoir '44, Tichu, Carcassonne, etc.) all inspire fun in the process of playing them, in addition to winning them. I still play to win, and still want to win, but find that I'm getting off on the actual gameplay as much as the competition.

There's no real point to this, other than to put down in words something I was briefly ruminating on as I crossed the street, coming back from lunch today.

If you're interested in these kinds of games, check out the BoardGameGeek link to the right there.

abstention

"Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact." — George Eliot

tuesday's monday

I don't have much to say today — at least, not at the moment. But I feel the need to put a buffer, to create some distance between me and the last post. All weekend I thought about it. It felt like having an open wound that everyone could see. (Not that there are all that many people who read this thing. Although it is odd to check the stats and see how there is a not-insignificant amount of traffic from people just bouncing randomly from the Blogger front page. Especially if you post late at night — folks who are up and surfing around will see the blog as being "recently updated" and click through.) It bothered me that those were the words that were left out here, when I'd finally cooled down enough to feel distance from them.

I had a good weekend. I got to spend a good amount of time with friends, and with Amy. I spent some time working (freelance design and writing), so I didn't feel completely useless. I got to play some games. (RoboRally rules!) and we saw a really good movie (Children of Men).

I also did some painting. No, not like that — some geek painting. Friends Mike & Andrea P were coming over Sunday (to hang out and play RR) and I thought it'd be fun to paint the little figurines that come with the game. I bought the paints and some brushes on Saturday and then thought I should try it out that night — just to make sure the paint took, you understand. Just one figurine. I ended up painting three of the RR figures and one from another game. It made me incredibly relaxed — that feeling you get when you're completely focussed on a task and forget the world around you, and let go of the voice in your head that criticizes and reminds you of other things you should be doing. Geek therapy.

Happily, many of the games I've collected over the past two years have figures that could use painting...

r.o.a.m.e.r. in session

Walking to the subway this morning, crossing 8th avenue, this woman plodded through the crowd ahead of me. I came up pretty close to her, I guess, because she heard the music leaking from my earbuds and turned to look. I brushed past her, muttering "how 'bout walking a little fucking faster?" and came close to throwing an elbow at her. Apparently, I'm angry today.

I was angry yesterday, too, but it didn't really come welling up until poker. I played poorly and got behind early. Lately that's been a problem for me and I haven't been able to recover. Instead I just found myself increasingly annoyed by the whif of b.o. coming from the player to the right of me and the chatter that kept bouncing around the table while I was trying to make decisions. Most of those decisions were poor ones, and I don't blame anyone at all for their behavior — I'm probably the biggest mouth of all the players, with my bad puns and re-interpreted song lyrics. In fact I was having, overall, a pretty good time. And then, at some point... I think after losing a four-way all-in which made me buy in for the third time, I got angry.

It went downhill pretty quickly from there. Ultimately I went all in again with my last $28. A reasonable bet, considering. But, of course, I lost. The other person had the single card I was worried about (A to my K) and pulled the flush I wanted on the four-way all-in earlier, and I made a meaningless straight on the river. I got up and left; got my friend in a cab and ended up walking home — a good hour-long walk.

I figured by the time I got home I'd walked off the rage, but it welled back up again when I walked in the door — because now I'd have to/get to voice it to Amy. And I did, using the word "fuck" with several "motherfuckers" thrown in for good measure.

Apparently a semi-decent night's sleep didn't help either.

I'm pissed at myself for being the way I am — I feel like my self is on a little inflatable dinghy atop a huge sea of emotions. I have no control which way the wind blows and how high the water swells. I'm angry because I have to swallow all the petty condescentions and disrespecting remarks of my boss. From her, it isn't personal — she treats everyone like shit. Not just me. But day-in and day-out of that gets to me. There's a kid coming — and I'm not who I think a kid should have for a father. I'm horrible with money, to begin with. And I'm just not — I don't know how to put this — I'm just not interested enough in playing the game. I mean by that, that I am not upwardly mobile. I don't have a five year plan. Or a one year plan. Or a six month plan. I look at the moment and the moment after this one, but that's only when I'm not obsessing about the past and how I've failed, or the distant future when I forsee failure.

When I was in my theater lab, every year we'd have to sit in a chair "on stage" in front of everyone and grade how we did the year before; and then we'd have to say what our artistic goals were for the following year. I hated this. It stressed me out to insane levels. (As did lab in general, at times — but in a good way. It forced me to do difficult things all the time.) One year, when it was my turn, I walked down from the chairs in the risers and across the stage and to the back of the room, where there was a curtain that stretched across the width of the room. It hid all the small set pieces and boxes of props that were left in the room. I went through the curtain, closed it behind me, and then shouted at the top of my lungs "Fuck You Fuck You FUCK YOU!" I took a moment, and a deep breath, and then walked back out onto the stage, sat down, and did my thing. I felt better for it.

I need a Fuck You Room. I need somewhere I can go and vent and scream and get all the dark shit out. This blog can't be it. I'm too polite and censored here. I suppose my journal, which I hardly keep up anymore, could be it — but that's not visceral enough, not physical enough. The gym doesn't really do it (perhaps, partly, because my workouts are so easy these days) although it helps, some.

I think I'm finally coming around to accept the fact that I am an angry person. I don't know how to deal with it, but I am. At least, last night, I left when I started to get really angry. I didn't throw down my cards or push my chips angrily away. I just said "I think I should go. I'm starting to get really angry." So, that's a plus. But it's still seething and roaming around inside of me — I can feel it bubbling under the surface. I want to hit someone. I want to give someone the poison that's in me — make them feel it and hurt them with it. That's not healthy. It's not helpful. It's not good.

For now, I'll just keep smiling at the receptionist and saying a (hopefully) cheerful "Good morning" and telling bad jokes and trying to act normal. This will subside. It always, eventually does.

poker update: game two — bought in for: $90; lost: $90; total for the year: -$63.

jersey? my goodness.

Amy and I climbed into the taxi as acquaintance and co-worker Mike slid in behind us. He was continuing to talk about the area, saying which parts of Jersey were nice, and which weren't — pointing out that where we were wasn't bad, and that the area we were headed to was certainly pretty decent. He was trying to sell New Jersey to us, and specifically the area his apartment is in. He and his wife and kid are moving at the end of the month and he sent a company-wide message about the place they're vacating, and I was quick to respond. After a brief PATH train ride, here we were. I slid in first, so Amy could be on "the hump" which affords her an unimpeded view out of the window. Amy gets carsick pretty easily, and being able to see helps.

There was a baggie on the seat. Inside was some kind of envelope. I picked it up as I sat down. "What's that?" Amy asked. I pulled the envelope, which appeared to be a bank deposit envelope that was torn open, out of the baggie and looked. There were a bunch of $20 bills. About 15-20 of them, I'd guess.

My very first thought was that I wish nobody had seen me pick it up. I could have just put it in my bag. Nobody would have known. I had even thought, when I first saw it, that it had money in it. But now I was caught. "It appears to be a bunch of twenties in a bag," I said. "Oh no," she said. "The last person who was in here must have lost it."

We then had a slightly confused conversation with the driver. I quickly shoved the baggie through the partition and he took it, and told Amy yes he knew who the last rider was. Eventually we got a kind of acknowledgment that he'd hold onto the money in case someone called the cab company looking for it.

As we finally pulled away from the curb I leaned into Amy and quietly said "I think the cabbie just got a lot of free money." She nodded.

The apartment turned out to have some real great things about it, and one huge negative — the kitchen is tiny tiny. About the size of a canoe, tiny. Plus the oven looks like it was installed about twenty years ago, which was about the last time it was cleaned, I'd guess. (Not meant as a slam to Mike or his very nice wife — it was one of those things where, you know, after it gets to a certain level of disuse... what's the point?) The bathroom was about the same size. And, even though the enormous livingroom (you could play squash in there) almost made up for the kitchen, it didn't really even come close. We decided then and there not to take the apartment, which we confirmed with each other on the PATH train ride home.

It was kind of a relief, actually. If we'd wanted the place we would have had to move in a little over two weeks. Of course, if it was a great apartment, I'd have been up for it. But coming home and realizing that, for a while longer yet, we didn't have to cross that bridge and/or tunnel... we were relieved.

Walking back from the train stop Amy said "I'm sorry I made you give the cabbie that money." I said, "Oh, that's okay. I would have given it to him anyway."

Now, I like to think that I would. I'd like to think that I'd have gotten into that cab and looked at the envelope and maybe slid it in my bag and then thought better of it and said something to the cabdriver and then had the same confused conversation with him while handing off the bag. I think there's, perhaps, a 50/50 chance that I would have.

It's gotten me thinking about morality. I tend to think of myself as a moral person. Really, though, I don't know that I am. I have a lot of music that I haven't paid for, for example. I once killed a man by pushing him onto the subway tracks. Okay, that's not true. Okay, how about this — I'm a moral person, except when it's easy and not dangerous to not be. But what good is that? As long as someone isn't watching, and I can get away with something, I have no problem with acting in my self-interest? Even when it will definitely hurt someone else?

Is that what religion is for — to help us curb those tendencies? If you believe in an omnipotent god, then he's sure as shit watching you when you climb in that cab. And if you don't do what you can to return that money to it's rightful owner, then he's gonna shake his head and suck on his teeth while he picks up the phone to St. Peter telling him to take you off The List. Perhaps you'll spend the rest of eternity in Hell, chasing after a cab that has a jar with your soul in it. And every time you think you've caught the right cab, you see another one pull away that really has the jar in it. If you believe that — deep down believe it — that's enough deterrent right there.

But what if you don't? What stops you? Wanting to do "the right thing?" Being raised "correctly?" Philosophy? Belief in karma? I don't know. I'd like to think that the idea of "the right thing to do" is a strong enough chair to sit on. I plant my ass on it enough. Of course the line between right and wrong is a created one and if you hold on to the seat of that chair and hop around enough, you can find yourself on either side of it. But you have to believe in somewhere. You have to draw the line. You have to believe in something. But how much does it take to get you to stop looking down to see where that line is, so you can say you didn't notice when you passed over it?

What if that had been a $5 bill? No doubt in my mind: would have pocketed it without a second thought. $10? Same thing. $20? Yep. $40? $50? Well... now we're getting to that shady place. I don't know. I'm not sure what the amount is that makes it a small enough offense that it "doesn't matter" if I keep it. Somehow that bag, the deposit envelope, the amount... that should be returned. I'm clear on that. I should hand that to the cab driver.

Except... c'mon... that cabbie's going to keep it. Cab drivers make shit money and he'd probably had a horrible day and his kid's probably sick and his wife is probably angry at him because his job has god-awful hours and doesn't pay well enough, and he's been stiffed plenty of times driving that damned cab so why the hell not? Why shouldn't he keep the money? Isn't that karma? What comes around, goes around? Isn't this his payment for putting in the hours?

So, then, if he's going to keep it, why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't I get that XBox360 I've been coveting with the money? But that's so shallow and trivial — obviously I shouldn't steal the money for that. What if I kept the money and spent it on Amy? Took her to a nice dinner... a show... maybe finally get away upstate for a weekend like we keep saying we're going to? What if I gave the money to charity? Would that make it okay? What if I walked down the street and gave $20 to each homeless person I ran into? Does that justify it?

Of course not. And of course I wouldn't do that anyway. If I'm willing to take this money and remove the last tentative connection it has to its rightful owner — at least by giving it to the driver I'm making my link in the chain that might actually get the money back to the person who lost it — then I'm going to use it selfishly (because I can — because I am fortunate enough to be at a place in my life where I wouldn't need that money, say, to pay my rent, or buy dinner).

Maybe that's why this is even something I would consider: I don't take money seriously. I've always had enough. Sure, I've lived paycheck-to-paycheck for years. But I've never been almost homeless. I've never been without a job long enough where I couldn't eat and I didn't know how I was going to live.

Perhaps there's a basis for morality in there somewhere: a deeper connection to the things around us, and to our actions. I don't know... I'm just looking to wrap this up neatly somehow.

I want to be a good person. I think I know what that is. I think I know how a good person would act in certain situations. I also think that a good person acts good regardless of whether he or she is being watched. That's maybe a true test of goodness, and moral strength: when the only person who is watching is you, what do you do?

well played

At last night's poker game I played the best I have in a long time. I made some very good, very difficult folds (I want to play every hand! I must play every hand!) and some good calls. I ended up winning $27 (could have been around $10 or so more if I didn't loosen up at the end and start playing "hopeful" poker — i.e. "Well, maybe I'll get lucky and that exact card I need will come up and nobody will have any idea what I have and then I'll take them all for a lot of money!"), which is a good start to the year. I also would have won a lot more had I not taken two bad beats (1. lost to a runner-runner suck out to beat my flopped nut straight; 2. river suck out to a flush when I made a big enough bet that he should have folded instead of chasing it). But, hell, I was glad to win some money and really glad that I played well.

Things I learned last night:

1. Certain people are never going to fold, no matter how much you bet (unless it's a huge amount, and even then...) and you have to identify those people and play accordingly.

2. You have to be willing to expand your comfort zone in betting against anyone. If there's one thing I know I've been doing differently since my run of wins last year is that I am more tentative with my betting ("maybe $3 will push them out of the pot... I don't want to risk $8. What if he calls and sucks out on me?"). You have to push people around. Small- to medium-sized ($1-5) are, very rarely, going to push people off any kind of hand with a draw to come.

3. Always always always practice putting people on hands when you're in or out of the action. It keeps your head in the game and makes you not just stare at your cards and do probability math. Poker is more about playing the people than the cards.

4. Play the rush. If you win a couple of hands in a row, people assume you're bullying them and that you're going to win.

I'm going to keep track of my poker ups and downs here on the blog for the year. So, after one week: bought in for: $30; won: $27; total for the year: +$27.

Maybe I'll even make a cool little graphic for the sidebar.

another wednesday

Back to the daily grind of work and the argument with myself of how to spend the rest of my waking hours. Been pretty productive the past couple of days — trying to catch up on projects I've had a debt to for a long time. I'm actually going through the dvd of our wedding pictures. We finally got the hi-res files. There are about 900 pics on the disc and I'm trying to sift through and get rid of the ones that aren't even worth thinking about printing. I know that when I get this done it'll be a huge load off the psyche ("oh, and that's another thing that I've never taken care of..."). Just trying to move forward. Lots of things pinging around the old head these days. But, as promised, I have decided what writing project I'm going to work on. I've got to finish a draft of the time play. It's the one that won't go away. Whether that's because it's lodged in my brain as The Last Project I Didn't Finish, and therefore symbolizes something deep and telling about me, I don't know. I do know that I had a minor moment of realization when I told myself that I wasn't signing on to finish the play in one draft — I just am re-opening the case to see if there are any new clues I can glean by writing another draft. It'll be an accomplishment just to get through the play again, no matter how illuminating the rewrite is. So, that's the plan. And, maybe, I'll like it better after I'm done. And, maybe, it'll get me to think about writing again in a more serious-part-of-my-life kind of way. Who knows. I'm just trying to move forward, man. Just keep on keepin' on.

late night musings

Can't sleep. Not that I've tried for long tonight, but I'm just not tired at all. I found myself feeling my overful stomach and noticing the patterns of light leaking from under the curtains on the cluttered floor next to the bed. Perhaps I'm up because the new year is stretching out before me in all its possibility. Obviously a lot is going to happen this year, what with Miss Ella on her way. And I've entered this period of restlessness — probably egged on by the same upcoming event — which I'm trying to figure out what to do about. Possibility is a good word for this year. This looks to be a year of new beginnings. I have this sense that I need to shake off the dust that's settled on me — this crust that I've allowed to cover over the connection between me and whatever metaphor you feel like using for creative energy. My self, which tends toward the complacent end of the spectrum, needs, I think, to be smacked a little bit around the face to get him to wake up and start looking before he puts his foot down, or opens his mouth. Or, as I've said before and will say ad nauseum for the forseeable future, my self needs to get his increasingly wide ass off the couch and start moving forward, and to start looking ahead again. My life is going to change, as I'm being told by everyone who has a child or knows someone who has a child (do the math — that's a lot of people), and I know that. I know that. It's seeping deep in my bones. Perhaps that's the aching I feel in my chest — like a child's growth spurt —that stretching of my mind to wrap around what my new life is going to be about: which is someone other than myself. First and foremost: keeping that someone alive. Second, and equally important: making that someone into a good person, capable of happiness and fulfillment. Third and even more equally important: never letting that someone forget that they are loved.

Somewhere along the line I decided that that was job number one of a parent: to instill in their child a sense of unconditional love. The key word in that sentence being unconditional love. And I mean that in the completely ungrammatical sense of the word(s). Those two things should never be sundered, and I make that the first platform of my tenure as Father.

Alright. There's more to be said — and I had originally planned on spilling all kinds of thoughts and worries on you — but I ran into an old friend on IM and we started chatting about, well, Ella. So, I've lost a lot of steam and am starting to think I can grab some sleep. We'll talk more later.

happy new year

Had a good holiday break. Spent some time here in the city. Saw the lovely Phoebe as well as her parents on Christmas Eve and, after a late train ride home, opened our bountiful boxes full of goodies together. We spent a quiet Christmas Day together — cheering on the Jets to victory over the hated Dolphins — and then Amy worked on the 26th while I ran around did some present exchanges (for size, mostly).

Speaking of size... we spent the 27th through the 31st in Michigan with Amy's family, filling up on sugar and fat. It's truly shocking how many cookies I ate. Bad bad bad.

Returned yesterday after noon and, after a quick rest, ran up to the UES for a casual NYE shindig with some friends. I wasn't planning on drinking. I did drink. And I ate more cookies. Shocking.

I drank, and we stayed later than we'd planned, because our New Year's Day plans got torpedoed. We were supposed to start the year off right with a Lord of the Rings marathon. But, once again, as has happened every time we've tried to get together with M&A to geek out... someone has gotten ill. Last time it was me and Mike. This time it was Andrea (and Amy).

So, today has been spent putting away the Xmas decorations and unpacking, tidying the house and relaxing. The Rose Bowl game is on and I'm rooting for Michigan, out of in-law solidarity.

Hope you all had a fantastic break. I'm looking forward to 2007 and everything that comes with it. I'll have a less diary-like entry tomorrow with some New Year's plans and... what do you call them...? Oh, yeah... resolutions.