Boxing day

I just had a lovely visit at a boxing day party, where I caught up with old friends from grade school and their parents and generally made merry. There is an inimitable comfort in seeing friends from childhood -- people who knew you before you'd made any decisions or mistakes or realized what you were good at or what you wanted to do with your life. It is tempting to stay here in Belmont this week to be with them, in lieu of my journey to Philadelphia for a reunion with college friends. I have to admit feeling exhausted by the idea of a six-hour train ride, alone, or alone with a book, I guess. My father got me a fantastic book for Christmas: Musicophilia
by Oliver Sacks, which I began reading yesterday and look forward to continuing.

In other news, I have one New Year's resolution that I think is achievable and interesting and worth a bit of effort: I would like to make of practice of turning down plastic bags when I make purchases at grocery stores, drug stores, or other venues. I think accepting an occasional plastic bag will be acceptable within this exercise -- I will allow for unexpected purchases and contradiction of self, and also acknowledge that I cannot save the world through personal virtue. This seems like a relatively easy contribution to the world order and generally a good idea. And conveniently, I just got two free canvas bags from Cardullos, courtesy of speakers at our recent conference who didn't want to carry their gift bags onto return flights as carry-ons.