Saturday, January 1, 2005 — New Year’s Day

Today was quite amazing. Last night, I got a call from a long-time friend who was in town for a few days, so I quickly organized an impromptu party for today (Saturday). I knew a few people might show up, but didn’t even know when.

So I trekked to the grocery store early this morning and picked up a few basic supplies—hot dogs, hamburgers, and potatoes. I then returned home and wrote up a little mind map of what I wanted to accomplish.

I accomplished almost everything on the list: cleaning the house, doing laundry, making a batch of homemade potato chips, and proofing another fifty pages (only a hundred more to go). I’m sure I wouldn’t have accomplished anywhere near that much if I hadn’t mapped it out.

Then folks began to show up, and we watched My Neighbor Totoro and a bit of MST3K before the party kicked into high gear and I made dinner and we ended up playing games and chatting until midnight.

I’m amazed that I can say that I just had an eight-hour party at my house. I am not a social butterfly. My friends are important to me, but I don’t entertain that often. And I can do a party that lasts that long?

Wow.