Happy new year! I now celebrate the end of the holidays. This was the first year I had the guts to basically turn my back on all traditions, family, events, etc. Not that I didn’t take time off, and I even received and gave a few gifts and socialized here and there, but it was minimal. I hope to regain some of the spirit next year but I don’t have to think about that for so many delicious months.

I’m not a total scroogehole. Here are some things that have been good.

New Yorker subscription from my sister Ann! I feel like I have crossed over some kind of significant threshold, but am unclear on how things will change from here on out. I was warned that this mag may attempt to derail my ongoing book reading attempts, since the NY is so relatively bite sized. We shall see.

My pals Evany and Jill blogged every day in December. Jill has posted sporadically since the blogging heydays, and Evany went radio silent when her son was born, 6 years ago. And now they’re back!! It’s like ghosts of your favorite people jumped back into their living selves, all ready to be your favorite people again. So satisfying, and it’s one of the reasons I’m writing today — E. has vowed to post at least every other week for the next year, and I wanted to show my solidarno?? by throwing something here. New years, new intentions, et freaking cetera.

I was cat sitting for some friends in the Bay Area, which was 100% satisfactory — both the situation and the cats. I took good care of Pete and Nina, and they in turn created a mutual body warmth heating system for the surprisingly cold (cold! as in in the 30s!) nights.

Then I got a surprise visit from the house-owning friend’s relative, and they brought with them a small, energetic pug and my heart was lost forever. This pug’s name was Lil Bean, and was a warm, wiggly loaf of big goofy love. The cats and Bean interactions were hilarious. Before I become some sort of animal anecdote cliche, I’ll stop here.

My laptop died. It’s not mine to die, anyway, it belongs to work. So, after some coaxing by friends who understand my tightwaddishness well, I bought myself a brand new Macbook. The unboxing and preparing was 100% porny. Or, as my friend J and I joked, Fwapple. Hahahaha!

Tonight, the first evening of the new year, was shockingly lovely at the beach that I love. My withered little heart started acknowledging that I might be part of something bigger, which is a big breakthrough in refinding me, serenity, and intention. It was THAT GOOD of a sunset!

I literally paused my guided meditation app so I could take these awful iPhone 5 shots. A more annoying modern sentence was never typed.