I was told that I really shouldn’t have described what I was doing when the New Year rang in (sitting in my room by myself, reading comic books). I actually missed the stroke of midnight because of it. I was expecting to hear a lot of fireworks going off, but it was pouring last night and I think that pretty much put everyone off of standing outside for any length of time.

I wasn’t as antisocial today as I usually am. Went to the gym and then to Trevor and Megan’s to watch the Rose Bowl. Then it was off to dinner at Red Onion with my mom, sister, brother-in-law, Megan (from San Francisco), Nadeem, and Craig. Quite an eventful day, really.

So I think I’m just going to write down a couple of resolutions. A date per month or at least 12 this year. I always blow this one. A trip to Canada. Why not? And studying kanji with some sort of measurable outcome. I’ll have to figure out what that really is.

So much for the first day of the year.

It’s the last day of the year and I usually wait until the last minute to make my charitable donations. This is my excuse for blowing people off during the year (especially the ones coming to the front door), that I’m waiting until the end of the year. I donated to my semi-lefty causes and had to call VISA three times because most of the donations were for the same amount and it set off the fraud detectors at the credit card company. I’m already getting grief from some of my friends for contributing to Planned Parenthood which is ridiculous. They should know that Planned Parenthood provide a full range of health services and should be on me for donating to Oregon NARAL instead.

Calling VISA repeatedly was kind of funny. I figure it’s part of the game. The last time they asked me a bunch of weird questions. “Do you live in a) Benton County, b) Clackamas County, c) Washington County, or d) none of the above? Another question was about several of my previous addresses. I lived in Japan for five years (only 2 different addresses) and back here in NW Portland for 36 out of my 45 years. But they pulled out some weird addresses from my summer jobs. The best part is that I had forgotten some of my old summer addresses (I still can’t remember where I lived in North Carolina) and they asked me about the one place in California where I live for a whole summer but forgot the address of. I’ve actually gone back to that neighborhood and driven around trying to figure out where it was I used to live, and now I know. Thanks to VISA, and their questions where they’d give you a street address where you used to live and ask you to identify the city.

Looks like I spent New Year’s Eve sitting at home watching DVDs, Showtime, and reading comic books. There you go. Another exciting start to a year.