Also thought, Gus? Ass you in the ear. This is community. You were accepted by ours and abused it. You will never, no matter what you do or have, achieve the love we have here. You're not just an unimportant man; you are a bad man.

Right there with ya Cindy. Heck, when I was in the ER and happened to be in SF, Hec came to see me!

I managed to make the cookies, but am not super impressed with them (my sister recommended the recipe, they’re chocolate espresso cookies but I want them to be chocolatier and espresso-ier both). Suppose I could start getting ready to walk to my friend’s house. Maybe put on clothes that match. Makeup? Suppose if I take some pictures I’d prefer that.

Topic Cindy, I keep thinking about Gus too recently. And jus how idiotic I was. But I am also a very reticent and shy person, so I have dodged poor Laura near me at Otter Lake. Maybe next year. But anyway, I don’t know how to tell the difference, but I feel like I know he was different

TCG and I spent the evening cooking for a small family gathering tomorrow. The first time we will have seen anyone in a couple weeks thanks to the flu. And now we’re watching Stranger Thing and having cocktails and cookies. It’s quiet but good.

I am making no attempt to stay up.

We’re playing the East Coast version of NYE. Definitely not making it to midnight in California. I woke up at 1:30 and couldn’t get back to sleep and the driving today included a lot of fog, blinding fog. Which is amazing in the desert if you aren’t driving but we were.

The rough spots are how we become real.

((Hugs everyone))

I can’t think of NYE without thinking of Gus and the NYE he faked his stupid fucking death. It’s over now but it hurt our group as well as brought us together. And that’s sad.

Hi, Cass!

Gus isn't even worth the energy it would take for me to disparage him.

Today we had belated Christmas lunch with my Dad and then belated Christmas dinner with my mom and stepdad, since Christmas Eve was stupid cold with wind chills of Oh Hell No. We watched the start of the OSU-Georgia game at my mom's, and now since we don't have cable, I keep checking the score online. Waiting for the end of the game might be the only thing that keeps me up until midnight.

We had a lovely time with our friends here; the roast was delicious, and I used my mom's china and crystal, too (we'll, mine now), so it felt eerily like one of our family holiday dinners. Ruby would've been pleased.

And we made it to midnight, but, damn, faded freaking fast. About to hit the sack. Here's to a 2023 with lots of good in it for all.

I will probably be asleep before midnight, but then awake AT midnight because there's some people a block or two away who always break out the illegal fireworks. I have to be up sorta early tomorrow anyway, since I'm preaching the sermon at my church, which is a thing I now do once a quarter or so. I did not have "Episcopalian lay preacher" on my personal bingo card until very, very recently, but here I am nonetheless.

I made it to midnight! Amusingly the fireworks were supposed to also have a drone show this year. Which started about two minutes late, so suddenly at 12:02 was counting down 10 9 8…and then all the pictures it made didn’t go with the music and it kept going for a couple minutes after the fireworks and music ended. Ooops.