This new year, you could say, has not started out well.

     I woke up on the morning of 12.31.00 with an unbelievable pain in my neck on the right side. It seems that I had strained it the evening prior while engaged in "extracurricular activites" with Jessica. Although I am boyishly happy as to what I was doing when I hurt my neck on some primordial Guy-level (I could have been, for instance, shovelling snow), my neck still hurts. A lot.

     As if that were the worst thing. Also, I seem to have missplaced my spectacles a few days ago. Without them I can see, but very limitedly. Driving at night is a very cumbersome event. Aside from driving, it makes my everyday activities a little harder as well (noding, for instance). This definitely takes some of the fun out of the whole day.

     Jessica was working today until eight p.m.. With nothing better to do, this meant sleeping until five for Our Hero. You may say that I was a slob for sleeping so late, but I didn't have anything better to do. I wanted to get all of the sleep possible, as I was invited to four parties for New Year's Eve!

     Jessica came home at a little after eight. I laid on the couch, and we watched The Simpsons together. It was great. We have a really small couch, which is more of a loveseat, really. I can't help but to grope Jessica at every possible chance (commercials, after show, slow moving parts, etc.). She doesn't seem to mind, and we watch The Simpsons and for the hell of it, Malcom In The Middle. I ask her where she wants to go this evening, as there is no likely way that we would make it to all four different places. I at least want to make a "cameo" at two of the places and tell her so. All seems set for the night, and I begin to think about taking a shower and getting dressed.

     What was that quote? I can never think of who said the damned thing in the first place, but Stienbeck titled a book by it: "The best laid plans, o' mice and men, are oft led astray." We're laying on the small couch. The television is no longer interesting. For her part, Jessica doesn't seem too excited about going anywhere, and I can't really say as I blame her all that much. She's been working a lot lately, two jobs, and I know that she likes to catch up on her sleep. I understand that. If I were working seventy hours a week, I would want to get as much sleep as possible, too. She says she wants to go somewhere tonight, but we're just laying there - groping each other.

     Well... groping would have been well and good, but we all know that sometimes groping takes on a life of it's own. Without infringing on the PG-13 rating of this node, sufficed to say we ended up in the bedroom. It was glamourous. It was fun. It was love. It always is. So much so that afterwards, we found ourselves quite tired, and ended up falling asleep. That was the end of our great "plans" for the evening.

     At about twelve o'clock, I just happened to wake up and look over at the clock on the nightstand. "Happy New Year" I said to her as I kissed her on the forehead. She smiled and wiggled closer to me. We both fell back to sleep. I awoke again at around three a.m., this time I couldn't go back to sleep. I decided to explore the apartment, and maybe node a while. To my delight, the letterboxed version of 2001 - A Space Odyssey was on cable. Nice. Very nice, indeed. Sure, my neck still hurts, and I still can't find my glasses. I didn't get to go to all those parties and hob-nob with my pals. But I was able to ring in the New Year with some of my favorite things:

    ...My girl, my cats, and good science fiction.

     So you see - I may have said that this New Year didn't start out very well. It certainly didn't start as I had planned it, that's for sure. But it started out just the way it was supposed to. It started out badly, maybe, but then it blossomed into something nice, peaceful, and quiet.

     2001 may turn out to be okay after all.