Just after midnight, Pacific time. We've played our games of Munchkin, I've infected Debbie with a fascination for the card game Set, and our night is done. I'm not packed, but all the Gessamans are in varying stages of bedding down for a long winter's nap.

It's time to go home.

• 12:07 AM PT: The west coast slackers have finally hit 2008. Happy new year to any of you who are still sober.
• 12:41 AM PT: I see you, @crazybutable - hugs to you and your girls.
• 1:55 AM PT: Quiet chat with @adamrg, now snuggled up under greatest blanket gift EVAR. Warm toes and hands? Happy Amy.
• 8:57 AM PT: Boiling water for tea. Soon, reading as the house wakes up.

• 11:48 AM PT: Coffee and donuts at Tim Horton's, followed by hugs goodbye. I waited far too long to see these friends.
• 11:57 AM PT: Crossing bridge in Surrey. Decemberists on the iPod, and a quiet grey sky. Content.
• 12:24 PM PT: Easiest border interrogation ever. Welcome back to America!
• 2:26 PM PT: Lunch w/a friend of Adam's whom, I learned, already knew me through my blog!
• 5:06 PM PT: [cat.net] Pacific time - http://domesticat.net/node/1434

How to put this. How to say it in words. How to damp down thought, impression, compulsion into mere vocabulary, and leave it out for the world to see.

I hugged Brad, and I made a squeaky noise. When I had awakened earlier that morning and realized that I would see him and Alice that day, I realized it had been too long since I had seen them. Years too long.

What's the fun of fulfilling expectations, anyway? Since everyone else is using the date of 1 January to look forward, I thought I'd do the very definition of a 180 and look back in the opposite direction, knowing I'll end up revealing just as much about myself but in my usual thoroughly underhanded manner.

So let's look backwards, to the day of my birth.

I know that several of my friends find astrology fascinating or deeply meaningful. I greet it with a healthy dose of skepticism—was the ephemera of my personality cemented into an ever-fixéd mark from the moment the obstetrician set my mother's C-section date? I don't know. It's the eternal question of destiny and free will. What is 'me'? Are personalities fluid or rigid constructs? Can we, fundamentally, change? Or do we spend our entire lives becoming what we were meant to be all along?

For those of you far and near, a hug and a toast. We are in our comfortable clothes, Jeff and I, me tapping out words on a keyboard while he tidies the computer room behind me. We have plans for the evening, quiet plans with a new set of friends; with PHE falling shortly after New Year's, this holiday tends to be a calm weekend of preparation for us.It's found me doing everything from replacing burnt-out bulbs in the foyer to doing initial prep work for the PHE bar. I'm best described as living in a state of constant, low-level nervousness and excitement.

New Year's Eve is a night in which, by all repute, you're supposed to post something thoughtful and pithy and resolute. Or just drunken, depending on your inclination. Instead, it's just me and Joey Negro, riding the end of my alcohol intake for the night off into the land of sleepy buzz.

2005 was quiet. For the most part, I've come into my own. Life is good, if quiet. House. Cats. Friends.

In olden days, the twelve days of Christmas were likely to bring a standard human unmanageable herds of drummers, milkmaids, lords, rings, and the ever-present partridge. However, it's with tepid pleasure that I note that the holidays are becoming a bit more inventive in their 'gifting' this year.

The "twelve days of Christmas" now refers to the twelve days that my overly-adored Jetta spent at the dealer's, having innumerable tests run upon the suddenly-quirky engine. I strongly suspect the silly thing spent most of those days cozied up in the back of the repair shop, drinking spiked eggnog with distant relations, swapping owner stories, and totally living up the vacation.In the meantime, I got stuck with a crappy Audi A4. Older. Base model.

Well, I certainly got my Christmas present today.

I should've figured out that something was up when Andy wasn't on ICQ last night. I know good and well that the only time he completely shuts down his computer is when he's not at his house.

You can probably guess who, along with Heather, showed up on my doorstep this morning. With the Christmas present (a signed copy of Orson Scott Card's book, Ender's Game) of course.So much for a quiet day of getting the house clean. Instead, we went grocery shopping, team-cooked a nice dinner, and socialized. We watched the Penguins game. I didn't do much, but I'm still wiped out.

I'd write charming pithy commentary, but my brain's starting to fuzz over from the antihistamines that I took. Hopefully they'll help me sleep, too.