NYE

My New Year's Eve was fun. I joined friends at a bar and then we went
to Palm Beach to Cafe Boloud, a fancy pants place where we felt like
riff raff despite being dressed up. We danced to the music and chatted
and watched the women in their diamonds and the men in their ascots,
and waited only a short while for the countdown.  After mid-night, we
ended our evening with one more dance - MJ's "Don't Stop Till You Get
Enough".

It's funny how New Year's makes me feel renewed every year.  It
reminds me of elementary school, high school even, and how every
September was exciting. Getting new books full of things to learn. The
first fresh new sheet of paper to make contact with my pencil. A new
desk, new schedule, new classes. New information. A new title - fifth
grader!

Then, it's like work. All the new books with interesting things in
them - now I have to REMEMBER the interesting things in them?!  It
gets old and so does the year.

With a new year (not an academic one) comes a similar feeling. Start
fresh!  Well, how is today any newer than the day that happened a few
days ago? And yet, it does make me feel new. Shiny!  I put up a new
calendar after sitting and putting in everyone's birthdays. I clean
the apartment and somehow it seems different than the time I cleaned
it last week.

If only we could retain for good the sparkly optimism of the first
Wednesday after Labor Day or January 1st.

For now, it IS January 1st and I am enjoying the happy, shiny, hope
for the New Year!