Phillip and I don't go out on New Year's Eve. We prefer a private, indoor celebration. Last night, we toasted the new year with our favorite Oregon Saké: Momokawa Diamond, while watching Spiderman 2.

I spent the first day of 2005 being lazy, and playing Ceasar III on the computer.

I started getting a headache early in the afternoon, and had just laid down for a nap, when Kelly called. We decided to meet at University Village shopping center. Phillip decided to stay home - to give Kelly and me the opportunity to catch up, he said. Kelly and I got lattés at Barnes & Noble, did some shopping at Pottery Barn, and had dinner at Azteca.

I would have liked Phillip to join us, but I was glad for the opportunity to catch up on things with Kelly. Kelly is the kind of friend that I feel comfortable taking about anything that's on my mind - or not even talking at all, if I don't feel like it. I am so very happy to see her again. 2005 is off to a great start.

For several years, the ever-changing tenants of our apartment building have maintained an informal system of recycling. Do you have something you no longer use? Leave it in the lobby, or by the back door, for someone else to take. We've gained books, puzzles, clothes, dishes, and other things through this system. In return, we've contributed games, books, and magazines to the system.

Today, as we returned from the library, we scored an extra-special prize. Someone had left a VHS of Ghost In The Shell (English version) in the lobby. This is among of my favorite anime films. It's considered a classic by many critics, and considered dull by many critics, one of the first to blend hand-drawn animation with computer animation, and one of the more obvious influences for The Matrix.

Then, after that amazing find, Kelly called me after a long (and understandable) silence. After so long being across the country, she is now right across the lake. She and Phillip and I are going to try to meet up for lunch tomorrow.

Gladden T Hart is approximately 9 years old. He is the oldest sugar glider The Bird and Exotic Clinic of Seattle has ever seen.

This morning, Gladden weighed 169 grams. That's 13 grams less than he weighed last year. That's a good thing.

Gladden is a healthy sugar glider. He has a good heartbeat, good lungs, good coordination, and a strong grip in all of his toes. He's experiencing a little bit of stiffness in his joints, but the vet didn't seen too worried about that. We have some medicine for him.

Gladden T Hart does not like going to the vet's office. He is glad to be back in bed right now.

Gladden had a spot of dirt stuck to his back last night. The sugar gliders used to groom each other. Now that it's back to just Gladden, Phillip decided that it was up to us. We'd never groomed a sugar glider before.

Phillip had the idea to use the stiff brush that came with my electric razor. (The razor has been used only rarely. I think the brush might have been used once.) The brush worked perfectly, but I could tell that poor Gladden wasn't quite sure how to act. The brush on his back felt good - I could tell - but he hated being held down. It took several brushing sessions to get the dirt removed.

In less than two hours, Gladden will be in the vet's office for a check-up.

Quite a while ago, I was in Broadway Video and the staff was playing the music video for Björk's Jóga on the in-store monitors. I'd never seen the video before then. I stopped and watched the luscious Icelandic landscapes sweep by, with surprising moments of digital alteration, under the sound of strings and "...you push me up to this state of emergency / How beautiful to be..." It was gorgeous.

I was thinking about Björk this afternoon, when my mind was wandering, and I decided I should rent that Björk music DVD on my way home. Then Phillip called to tell me that he'd reserved a copy of Spiderman 2, and asked me to pick it up on my way home from work. It was the excuse that I didn't need.

The DVD is called Volumen, and it has some enjoyable videos on it - some I'd seen before, and some I hadn't. I especially like Jóga, of course, and Bachelorette, with its story about a girl who finds a book about a girl who finds a book and takes it to the city, gets it published, and the book gets turned into a play about a girl who finds a book about a girl who finds a book and takes it to the city...so she takes the book to the city, gets it published...

What's not on the DVD, and what I'd like to see again, is that "Robots in love" video for All Is Full Of Love.

I miss the early days of MTV.

My boss asked me about my yoga classes yesterday - if I liked them, where and when they met, etc. Then she asked me if I'd be "offended" if she went to one of my classes sometime. (I thought that was an odd way of saying it - why would I be offended?) I emailed her the link to Seattle Yoga Arts and told her that she'd like Lisa, and that she'd enjoy the classes. (My boss is a former ballet dancer.)

On the walk home yesterday, I remembered that I still have the postcard that got me started - the "Free Class With This Card" card. I'll give it to my boss today.

I like my boss. I consider her to be almost a friend. There are people in my yoga class that I've become familiar and friendly with, but it would be fun to have a friend go to class with me. Still, I have the uncomfortable feeling of being a missionary - a recruiter.

I am absolutely serious when I say that basic map reading should be a required subject in schools.

Today, in the office, we're listening to an iPod that's playing every Beatles song ever recorded. I'm a big fan of The Beatles. The Beatles song that's really speaking to me, so far, is Across The Universe. It's an intriguing song. It seems like such an open, drifting song ("Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box") and yet the chorus comes in, sounding so inflexible ("Nothing's gonna change my world"). I may be missing the point, though.

Gladden has never been fond of ladders. The girls loved them, but not Gladden. Even when he was younger and more agile, he'd wait to get carried out of the cage at playtime, rather than use the ladder down to the futon. Last night, he was especially cute as he tried to figure out a way up the bookshelf that didn't involve the obvious ladder leading from the floor to his favorite shelf. Eventually, I picked him up and placed him on the shelf. Still, I was glad to seem him so active. He's been in quite a funk lately.

Last Friday, Phillip rented two DVDs for the weekend: Harry Potter And The Prisoner of Azkaban (which we'd seen before) and Cold Creek Manor. He'd called Broadway Video to reserve that second movie, which surprised me a lot, since Phillip doesn't usually watch westerns, much less request them. We watched Cold Creek Manor this afternoon, after taking Craig out for pizza. It wasn't until the DVD was in the player, and the menu came on, that I realized I had my movie titles mixed up - I'd been thinking of Cold Mountain. Cold Creek Manor is a thriller (and, it turned out, not a very good one) starring Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone, not a frontier action movie starring Nicole Kidman and Renée Zellweger. It's funny that I didn't look at the DVD case.