new year's

The flipping of the year brings what is, by my standards at least, an intense bout of socializing, for there are a New Year's Eve party and a New Year's Day party, both.

Both went particularly well this year. There were intelligent and non-contentious discussions of the prospects for the US presidential election. There were anecdotes, personal updatings, convention news, and puns. Conversations went off in various directions. At one point, the topic of library cataloging turned into computer programming, and at another, classical music became nail polish. You never know what you'll get.

As the noisy countdown for the change of year approached, I said to my friend with whom I was then conversing, "Let's continue this next year." And then, as all the hooting and hollering died down, I said, "Picking this up from where we were last year ..."