Today, we are told, is the coldest day around here for seven years. And I believe it. It's brass monkeys out there. So cold, and windy, that I broke out the big leather trenchcoat this morning, though putting it on often makes me feel as though I should be singing "Tomorrow Belongs to Me." So it goes.

In two days I turn twenty-nine, which is a little weird, what with never really having felt like a grownup at all. Mostly I feel like it's just a number, except that small part of me that's sad to start the last chapter of my twenties. But I'm probably feeling more melancholy than usual about these things. The first few weeks of the year have been very... well, weird, and stressful for a number of reasons, none of which really matter much in the long run. But I haven't felt myself for a while now. Stacy asked my a week or so back when I'll be working on finishing A Thousand Thrones, and my answer was "When I'm not fucking depressed all the time," and I don't think I was quite aware of it prior to saying the words. But, hopefully, that will get better soon.

Unfortunately, having started what seems to be my annual beginning-of-the-year-dropping-off-the-face-of-the-planet, I've ended up unfairly neglecting a lot of people. I owe letters to my brother, and to both Rebekahs (I disappeared so successfully, and for so long, that Spyder sent a note asking if I was okay - and for causing such worry, mia sorella, I am most heartily sorry) and Heaven knows to Pat and Bernice and probably a host of others I've failed to recall. So if I end up spending part of the birthday weekend catching up on my correspondence, it only serves me right.

Though I did manage to shake off my lingering despair long enough to polish off Part Four of The Last Dark Art and send it in just under the wire, and it's now up.

Tomorrow I'm off, making today a kind of Friday, and I'm taking myself to lunch and Borders and then meeting Martha A. for coffee and grrl-talk. And hopefully on my birthday proper I'll be off to a third viewing of T2T (the fact that it's only my third makes me feel like a most unworthy geek indeed) and something spicy and Chinese. So the weekend looks to be an improvement in any case. And that, dear readers, is all we can really hope for.

A Happy New Year to all and sundry. Me, I'm tired and melancholy to be looking back on the last day of my vacation (one which was pretty good, all told, with some minor pitfalls). Had a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch New Year's dinner of saurkraut and pork tonight, or I had pork at least, and Stacy had sausage-esque Boca links, which we trust the Powers will look as kindly on in weighing our fortunes for the coming year. (You must eat pork on New Year's Day, according to my PA Dutch ancestors, and not poultry, because, y'see, pigs root forward, but chickens scratch backward. And if you think that's wacky, you should hear some of their home remedies.)

Not much more I have the heart to report yet, my spirits being where they are, but all the same my good wishes go out to all my loved ones near and far. I sure liked 2002 heaps more than its predecessor; here's hoping this one's even better. Slainte.