happy new year. 2002 huh. hey, a palindrome! that's nice. i can't really imagine a year topping last year for me. for the country, yeah, quite possible; for the world, certainly. but i had a great year last year. i'm kinda sorry (and i know i'm probably the only one) to see it go.
watched the ball drop with very little ceremony at lana's house. liz jay ben and i arrived together at 7 and found the house laid out nicely in preparation for smore-making, sushimaking, snacking, trivia-sign-making (a laone of our barn parties: we had everyone write a little known fact about themselves and post it up on the wall) and general revelry. the first three/four hours were excellent: a few more people came, good moods all around, laughing, talking. ben nursed a fire. we lit a thousand or so candles around the place. much fun. then people i didn't really know came and some people left and there were a few low spots. we watched eddie izzard's glorious which is funny but not as good as his HBO special. then it was 5 a.m.
we'd planned a game: a throwback to post-highskool bonding in which everyone takes turns typing up their answers to some questions (like, What do you want to be when you grow up? and Who would play you in the movie of your life?), then prints out their answers and puts them in a bowl. then the bowl is passed around a circle and each person fishes out an answer, reads it aloud, and the group tries to match the answer with the person who supplied it. it went allright except that people kept coming and going during it so some of the people to whom answers were attributed weren't there to confirm or deny.

the past couple days have been fun in general though. mostly we've just chilled. ben's been immersing himself in Harry Potter III. ... it was a good year. i can't believe i'm spending the first half of the next one in copenhagen.