Monday, January 06, 2003

Happy new year

All in all, it was quiet start to the new year. I'd had a mild stomach complaint that pretty much drained me of enthusiasm for much hoo-hah, so I spent New Year's Eve lifting a glass at a friend's 60th birthday party and then, to everyone's astonishment including my own, departed before midnight.

If I had driven a little slower, 2003 would have arrived while I was on the road home but I pulled up to the house about five minutes before 12. I shed my suit, pulled on a snuggly sweatshirt and jeans and watched the First Night fireworks from a few blocks away.

The new year showed up while I was chatting with a dear friend in California, and we talked long enough that the tape-delayed Dick Clark special hit him before we said so long.

All told, 2002 wasn't that bad hereabouts — travel, fun, meaningful rewarding work, time with friends old and new — although the last few weeks were a rotten end. You just keep reminding yourself that lifetimes are made of years are made of days are made of moments, and you focus on the good ones out of each.

On New Year's Eve, I got champagne, comfort and companionship, and on my own terms. Not a bad beginning to the next 364.