Well, I sure am glad that's over. While today is technically a holiday (days off, I like) it really is a day when some folks recover from last night. The party I blew off was probably fabulous, but I'm not big on fabulous anymore. I mean, look at me! It's hard to be fabulous when one must shave his ears. (This is the reason I prefer Pedro, my regular barber. The barber/hairdresser in Madison seemed a bit shy about shaving my ears.)

OK, on to my New Year's Resolutions. That was a bluff - I figure anything worth doing doesn't have to wait for a specific date. And anything created for a date specifically is probably hokum. "I resolve to practice the piano a whole hour every day!" Yeah, that lasted. Right.

Julia and I had a very good conversation back in Madison. It was on the nature of blogs and journals. I began by stating that they could be one and the same, if the journal is done on-line. She said that merely knowing that it is being read by people would affect what one wrote, making it less than a useful journal. OK, what with Julia's accent and my thick head it took about an hour to get that far. One major side issue was that Julia decided that a journal written privately, but with the intent that one day it be read, is not the same as a blog written publicly. I thought that was sort of subtle, but valid.

The thing is, you see, that I'm aware that there are a few readers here. And that does affect what I say and how I say it. I am not intentionally dishonest, but I do censor myself. For example, this is probably the first time I've mentioned the hair on my ears. I know that smashes to pieces the image some of you female readers have of me as this dashingly glorious sex god, but...well, I'm getting older you know. There are other things I don't mention. And I do write to entertain. And to convince. And sometimes to preach. These are things that one wouldn't do in a journal.

The photo is of me, made by a model (let me know if you did it, as I've forgotten - memory goes with ear hair growth). It was made a year or two back, but I still wear that shirt (with the steer skull and barbed wire motif).