new years day.....

ok, so i am weary with exhaustion, having been awakaned at 4:30 am with the good news of children back home......after which i was unable to get back to sleep...at least for quite awhile........funny how i was fine going to sleep, and only worrisome after they were back safely........hmmmmm...........for the record, new year's day is the birthday of jd salinger, a notoriously reclusive author, whose book i reread recently only because it was in a stack to put away.....and having no better book close at hand to reread, i just started in.......the older i get, the crazier his main character appears to me....and yet the more reasonable........i especially like the comment he made about leaving a certain school because of all the phonies....we no longer call them that, but there are still plenty of them to be had......and if someday i took off on a 3-day adventure...people would see me as equally crazy, rather than simply 'pulling a caulfield'......but there are times when i could and probably should do just that......the quotation the garrison keiller included on today's writer's almanac was as follows...Salinger once said, "I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy." ...i really like this guy......

so back to new years day....the designated opportunity to reflect on the year that was....and draw conclusions and/or pledge reforms.......it WAS a very interesting year.....with trips to paris, and princeton......as well as to just about every other top tier college that the eastern united states has to offer.......and trips to several weddings.....and to visit several in-laws.......and to visit several friends.....i am only happy when i have someone place lined up to visit...that is something of which i am certain at this late date......i made a major transition midyear, from 24/7 hard labor to a 37.5 hour work week with no hint of overtime......obviously there was no transition at all, except in the having of free time.....and figuring out what to do with it.......being far from obsessive-compulsive i have not spent this extra time cleaning house......i figure that if i keep up my usual pace, something better will come to fill in the newly found free time......ironically, i have had little time for friends over the past years....and now that i have time, i find that people that i used to be friendlier with have made other plans.......regardless, i do plan to get out more this year.....that is my resolution, i suppose...to get out more.........out WHERE is a completely different question.......and i have 364 days to figure that out.......