20141231.0843

Today is the day of the backward look, of course, and I do not find myself immune to it. Fortunately, I have some record of what I was doing around this time in years past; I can content myself with looking over some of what I wrote then.

Four years ago, I commented but briefly on the undesire for nostalgia. After having finally gone through my piles of filing, some of which went that far back, I am reminded of why. There are many ways in which things have changed for the worse in my life since then, although I am minded of the ways in which things are better. I want to think the balance is in my current favor, but if it is, it is not in the parts of my life that can be measured and assessed.

Two years ago saw me amidst a series of deaths. It was not a good time, and other bad news was yet to come. I have no desire to revisit it further.

Last year, saw me make a complicated scatological comment, the truth of which I maintain. It was far more in line with the kind of writing I prefer to embed in this webspace than its antecedents. Whether it is worth reading, of course, is another matter entirely, but it was not so bad to write it.

I am sure that I could pore over the volumes of my journals to look for more records and different of what I have tended to do on New Year's Eves of the past. I have not tended to spend them in revelry; I am not typically a person given to merriment and celebration, as those who know me know. Those who know me best know of no small number of times that I was expected to be festive and was very much the opposite, including this very day several years back. I am pre-Bilbo Bagginsian, after all, perhaps more so now than before, but always in that mold. (Although more so, because the bare-footed small-folk of movie and myth enjoy a good party, and I typically do not.)

I expect that they will reveal that I have spent New Year's Eve much as I am going to spend New Year's Eve this year: quietly at home, working. There is writing to do--and for which to be paid, happily. Ms. 8 is as she is, and so needs care and attention. (She is fine, but she is also less than a year old.) The Mrs. is working a fairly full shift today, so I will need to do something nice for her when she gets home. None of these things argue in favor of my going out and getting drunk with people I do not know (as most of those I do know are away or with their own children and families) or staying home and getting drunk in front of my daughter.

It is not for nothing that I avoid International Hangover Day year after year.