Late (updated)

It's nearly midnight, and I am still sitting at the computers (the plural is intentional, three of them are running). The Christmas holiday knocked me out of several routines that had been good, useful and enjoyable: blogging, meditating, getting up early and its corollary, going to bed early. I haven't been to bed before 2am since the 25th, and I am beginning to suspect that my state of general run-down-ness and unease is perhaps related to lack of sleep. Hey, there's a clever thought. Here's a first New Year's Resolution: I shall turn off the damned computers and go to bed no later than 10:30.

I feel like I've eaten nothing but cakes and fast food for weeks. Here's a second New Year's Resolution: I shall buy neither chocolates, cakes, cookies nor pastries for myself at home in 2007 (though I will eat same if offered to me, a good guest takes what is given), instead of this I shall eat healthy or at least less-unhealthy stuff: real food, yoghurt, fruit.

(The soundtrack to this post is a CD that I picked up purely because of its unusual packaging, Takk by Sigur Rós. It's very odd, hauntingly beautiful; although it clearly belongs in the general category of "intelligent pop songs," the best point of comparison that I can find is to Gorecki's Third Symphony which I blogged about in July. If you want a sample, click on the link above (the website gives a good indication of the graphic style of the CD) then click on "sirkus" to view the video of the second song "Glósóli." You should definitely not buy this on my recommendation, do listen to it first. If you click on the "eighteen seconds before sunrise" link at the bottom of their website, it takes you to an English-language band site with samples and several full-length MP3 tracks to download, or you can find them in the iTunes music shop.)

The year is nearly over, the neighbourhood kids are practicing setting off fireworks (by throwing them out of their X-th floor windows onto the sidewalk, which is every bit as dangerous and anti-social as it sounds). It's been a piss-poor year financially, but a great one in terms of satisfactions and happinesses experienced. The opera in Toronto is the only thing that comes to mind, oddly enough, but my general impression is that I was happy this year. Here's a third New Year's Resolution: to earn 50% more than in 2006, and to spend every penny of the increase on useful and worthwhile things like visiting friends old and new.

[Updated Another thing that made me very happy this year was giving people presents out of the blue, simply because I wanted to. Here's a fourth New Year's Resolution: to give more OutOfTheBlue presents.]

2007 is going to be busy in any case. I have three significant events confirmed or in planning: the opera in New York in July and my parents' 50th wedding anniversary in Saskatchewan in October, and the Venice Biennale between them (Art this time). The July trip will begin in mid-June with my nephew's high school graduation, then visiting friends in New England (any readers who wish to be visited are welcome to send me an e-mail giving details) in early July before the opera. I'll then return here, work for three months (minus a week in Venice) and then fly back for a week. Is it just me, or does anyone else think that that sounds somehow absurd and excessive? I just don't know what else to do about those three months, I can't just stay in Canada - or could I? What if I used that time to write an English-language version of the database and find the first few customers, that would be a useful and worthwhile way to spend my time.

Interesting, very interesting. It would mean missing the Biennale, of course.

And I do want to attend one of Savtadotty's famous Friday soup dinners and meet some blogging buddies (you know who you are). I had been seriously preparing to visit Israel this summer, before the war got in the way. I guess that will have to happen sometime in Spring, before the first trip to Canada.

In other news my mother recovers apace. They had walked for an hour the day that I called to talk about my uncle's funeral (which none of us will attend), and are planning a month in Arizona in late winter/early Spring.