Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Well, I finally managed to figure out what to do tonight, in an order that'd leave me some flexibility but also let me do the most important things. Then my mom called as I was on my way out the door, and the entire plan went straight out the window. Now I have no idea what I'm doing when (it doesn't help that I'm in my "upset because plans crumbled" mode that I need to learn not to let myself get into).

The easy answers are: a) spend money I shouldn't spend but was previously tempted to spend anyhow, and hope I can catch up to Mom and my aunt, uncle, and cousins at First Night Annapolis, then go to one of the two parties friends are throwing after midnight; b) go to the closer of the parties, leave at midnight, and try to catch my relatives at Mom's house when they get back there, before they crash (because they're leaving at five in the morning); c) leave the gifts I finally finished at Mom's with a note, then run off to one of the parties and whine about not seeing the others one more time; or d) give in to my bad mood, declare all the confusion a bad omen, and crawl into bed.

Okay, I do have enough sense to make (d) unlikely.

The only advantage to (c) is a little bit of New Year superstition/symbolism -- I like the idea of starting the new year with as many things as possible the way I'd like them to be more often in the coming year. Y'know: midnight in the company of friends, wearing something nice, crawling between freshly laundered sheets when I finally go to bed, waking up the morning of the first to a pleasant breakfast, stuff like that. So ushering in the new year in boyclothes isn't high on my list. But I'll probably decide that the Big Symbolism isn't that big a deal anyhow, considering that I was willing to wear pants when I suggested (on Sunday) that we all go to First Night. I did kind of want to start the new year in silk though.

There's someone it'd be really comforting to be with at the Gaithersburg party; and there are other people I'd like to spend time with, plus some stuff we can get done at the same time, at the Baltimore party. But it's still tempting to spend a chunk of next week's grocery budget on a First Night pass and go down to Annapolis, see if I can find the rest of the group ... (It would've been nicer to go down there with them in the first place.)

WTF, I've got another fifteen minutes or so to make up my mind before various options start sounding even more stupid.

I'll try to start the year with a more upbeat LJ post. Wish me luck. (In my defense, I had a long, stressful, and expensive day today. And then my next door neighbours woke me early from a much needed nap with the thumping of their stereo. So I'm coping even less well than I would otherwise with the crumbling of plans (hmm ... maybe that's why I do so much stuff last minute -- to protect myself from this feeling when better-planned stuff goes awry). Mind you, these are Civil War era brick row-house walls (okay, a couple years later -- 1867), not modern hear-everything apartment walls.)