First Day, New Year

We had a visit from Allison, aka Luna from our BM camp last night, along with Michelle who came over a little later at 9. It ended up being a simple way to ring in the new year, playing board games with friends, having a few drinks, hanging out with the cats and listening to music. I’ve had new years where I was mostly alone, or just with family at home, as a teenager, wishing I could go out. I’ve partied overseas, watched fireworks in Kyoto with my ex and my expat friends, and gone to shrines the next day. I’ve stood on the edge of Federal Hill with old friends in Baltimore and watched the fireworks over the city, and nearly got laid by a friend from swing dancing on the way home… though I wasn’t ready. That last one, to me, is funny, because I hadn’t thought about it in years, and then I dug up my old google chat / hangouts account, and found an angsty message from my friend Matt S. accusing me of “making out with his ex right in front of him.” The thing is, I wasn’t aware of his dating history, and honestly it was just some innocent new years snogging that never led to anything. Matt S. was always kind of funny that way, and we butted head a few times over women in the past. Maybe we attract similar tpyes?

So none of that this year. Just a relaxing evening, then a little Six Feet Under on TV after everyone left, and finally sleep, where I was a bit hungover, and dreamt of work.

In the morning we had eggs with veggies and mushrooms for breakfast, then hung out and played video games (I’m playing Caves of Qud) and finally went on a two hour hike among the redwoods up the hill from here. It was chilly, but really nice and felt good to be outside, despite my hangover. I’m thinking of quitting drinking altogether this year. It’s not at a level where it’s interfering with my life, generally, and at most we have drinks a 3-4 times a week, but I feel the downsides outweigh the benefits now, and it just doesn’t feel good anymore. At the very least, Gina and I are planning to do dry January and give our bodies a month of healing and lower calories.

Tomorrow, I have some work to catch up on, and some planning to do for the week ahead. I’m heading to get some coding stuff done for my lunar work, planning for a paper and our AI work, and some thoughts down on my “self performance review” for the year behind me. Lots to think about for this busy robot.

Happy new year all!