having trouble on the internet; sometimes this little window doesn't come up as easily as it should. but then, i'm having some trouble in life too; nobody ever said it would be easy. had a fall, skating, the other day, a kind of freak accident in which my legs fell out from under me, and all my weight fell on a very straight arm and hurt my shoulder. i discussed with my wife whether to go in for x-rays; she won & i went. i usually follow her advice in this regard although i was right that, in the end, i would mostly just have to rest anyway; the x-rays were unlikely to show anything serious. so i amble around, with some limited movement; driving and getting dressed are harder; i'm forced to slow down a little.

the world awaits its huge drink-fest tomorrow night at which time i, hopefully, will be home & in bed though we may stay up a little; we will almost certainly not make it to midnight. what do people do, watch that ball go down in new york? i have students who went to see the big event but it's all about the snow over there now; flights are delayed by three, four, five days. we don't even watch that on television anymore; as a kid i'd watch maybe lawrence welk or something, and go, huh? i think we need some good traditions to develop, maybe around facebook, something people would actually want to see. though my sister admitted that, if you do go to new york, the times square experience is something pretty good, and that was my experience, the one year i went there. the whole city turns into a party, and everyone says hello, and that is interesting, because there are so many accents. and the weather adds a touch to it, because, if it's anything like here, there's a lot of sliding in the snow, a lot of cars jammed up into snowbanks.

i can feel my shoulder healing, movement coming back; i try to get on google docs and work on a project, but it seems infinitely complex sometimes, and i just back off for a while & stop worrying about it. the little boys are home, out of school, and maybe i ought to just think about how to make myself five & nine for a bit, and have a little fun. maybe it'll snow here, but even if it doesn't, there ought to be someplace we can go, outside, quick while we have some time. to those of you, out there: drive safe, but park diagonal! take care of yourself! come back around, next year!