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.

It's been one of those months, in which you start tending to long-overdue tasks just because it's easier than listening to the emptiness of the house. Not that I minded … entirely; I'm notorious for liking large dollops of privacy with sprinkles on top, but this has been a bit much, even for me.I've called it the San Francisco Project, just because I don't know its real name. It's the one that sent Jeff out to—one guess—for three weeks, and promises to possibly send him out there again come February or so. It's meant not too many dinners together, unless you count my dropping off soups and the like for Jeff at his lab, and so last night was unusual.

We have our little traditions, Friday night dinner being one of them; we go out to a restaurant we like, settle in, chow down, and talk. Not purposefully, because if it were that way, we'd be doing it wrong. Just catching up.

I remember a time in which the Great Birthday Coincidence was a novelty, a source of joking amongst Jeff's family. "What, Jeff's birthday is the 16th, his sister's [Lori's] is the 18th, and this new girl's birthday is the 20th? All in October? That's convenient. Guess you'll just have one big cake then."(Yes, once, I was "the new girl.")

I've known what the title of this entry would be for two months; even though I never could quite get around to putting fingers to keyboard to bring it into being. The word "laden" whispered itself to me as fingers touched blossom, whispered to me in that insistent voice that said, no matter how long it took, the chronicle of this moment was one that would not stay wholly in my mind.

It was my seventh wedding anniversary, but the story starts several days earlier, in an airport standing next to a man who, unbeknownst to me, had a plan.

* * * * *

I hugged Jake at the airport, marveling at his ability to take a cross-country flight and come out looking just as neat and calm as he must've looked upon boarding the plane. Through a screwup, I hadn't met him on his way to baggage claim as I'd originally intended; he was already at baggage claim by the time I found him.

Between dim sum tomorrow afternoon and my flight home on Thursday, I have no plans. No real plans, anyway, the kind with dates and times and directions. I have a list - a list of places I think I might enjoy seeing, and a guidebook that seems to have solid recommendations so far.

I know I'd like to have a drink with Matthew's brother Daniel, since we haven't seen each other since we were teenagers, and I'm curious to see how much we think we've changed.

I know that I'd like to see Crutcher and Theresa, but I don't know if our schedules will coincide.

It was supposed to be a quick, easy trip last week. Out on Sunday, back on Wednesday. I took Jeff to the airport as part of a small gaggle of guys who needed to get back to the airport (which, I might add, is a story in its own right). Back on Wednesday, we figured.Except that, as business trips are wont to do, things changed. Wednesday became Thursday, which became a cross-country flight home on Friday so that he could put his affairs in order to pick up a flight back on Monday, with the understanding that this trip might be as long as 14 days.

It is Wednesday evening. He is still there. As of today we now know that Jeff will need to stay for a third week.