So, it's New Year's Eve -- a holiday that stopped being fun when I became a Baha'i and stopped drinking. Now, it mostly means that it's impossible to get the kids to bed, partly because it's Christmas vacation and they've been sleeping in late, and partly because they think it's exciting to be able to stay up and watch the New Year come in. Some idiot is out there shooting off fireworks, which I suppose will go on for the next few hours.

I offered some apposite comments to Jim about aging and mortality, but what can you say to a guy that began complaining about getting old when he was 28? He's now 51, grey, and seriously working on becoming a curmudgeon. Just this last year, I've noticed my eyesight going seriously downhill; I can't read the fine print on medicine bottles, etc. It has been a real disadvantage with this lice stuff going on with the kids -- I can't see a nit to save my life. Anyhow, I called the eye doctor, to find out if the required two years has passed so the insurance will pay for new glasses. It won't until this summer, and I complained over the phone about being past forty, and I can't see worth a damn etc. She tells me "Well, if you need to read a medicine bottle, just take your glasses off -- you're nearsighted." And I'll be damned if I can't read such things, clear as a bell, with my glasses off! It never occurred to me that the answer would be so simple. I must need bifocals or something.

So, that's my New Year's present; I can now read medicine bottles again, after months of helplessly squinting at them through distorting lenses.

It certainly has been a very weird year in cyberspace, with nasty squabbles, crackpot claimants dominating the conversation, and less input from the really good posters. There are people who used to talk to me, that don't anymore. I'm hoping for better things with the New Year.