New year, new start.

I've started calling the third bedroom, the one attached to our bedroom in which we have our desks, the "craft room." Casey calls it the "junk room." I've never been a fan of "office" in the house, unless it truly deserves the moniker, like Richard Gilmore's on Gilmore Girls. Her junk room nomenclature fits, I must admit, because the room often falls into disarray rather quickly. On my desk alone, I had four months' worth of statements, bills and receipts piled on top of my laptop, dormant for at least 10 weeks. Magazines and other crap spilled out into the middle of the room and the MARKOR? base cabinet, which I claimed would be the end of chaos, more hollow than packed. And I was so excited when we finally got it after five months of waiting.

So today, with Casey huddled up on the couch watching VH1's I Love The 80s and I Love The 80s Strikes Back marathon (it's still going; we're currently at I Love The 80s: 1987), I put on college football in the bedroom and turned the TV to where I could see it in the study of junk room and got to work. I went through all the bills and statements, I weeded out old magazines and newspapers, I organized my clippings from my sports reporting days. Such cleaning can get dangerous because I tend to become immersed in my archives. It used to take me forever to go through my old magazine piles, but over the years I've learned that I really don't care about Sports Illustrated's 1990 baseball preview anymore. So unless something jumps out at me as a reason for keeping an issue of SI or Baseball America, I don't hesitate to throw it out anymore. Well, not after four months at least. I looked back over some old articles with fond memories of reporting and writing them, of spring training in Florida and consecutive days at the ballpark. One of my last columns was particularly fun, and when I get a chance this weekend, I'm going to post it here to preserve it electronically.

There was just something about today, the start of 2004, that had me going. I was determined and focused and stopping at nothing short of clearing the floor in the study so that when you turn on the light now, there's a slight echo when you flip the switch on the wall. It's left me with a great feeling of accomplishment, a solid start to the new year. I feel I've earned my vegetative rights for the rest of the night. I can watch the 80s shows, I can read the Notre Dame alumni magazine's winter issue or I can spend some quality time with the Xbox later without feeling like I should be doing something more productive around the house. You know, for once.

Last night, Casey and I each had two "sour patch cosmos" made with white cranberry juice, vodka and Green Apple Pucker (I think), a gimlet and split a bottle of champagne. Things got hazy after 11:30, which is also when time seemed to fly and she was in bed by 12:30 and I was up at least another hour. But from what I can recall:

First song heard in 2004: the "Elephant Love Medley" from Moulin Rouge! because VH1 is promoting the hell out of their showing the movie later this month.
First meal of 2004: Cheerios for breakfast.
First TV of 2004:I Love The 80s, probably 1982.
First website visited in 2004:Either Hotmail or Outside magazine's site.

Yeah, it was a pretty boring day if you're looking at it from outside my head.

OK, I just posted everything else above, and then remembered that I wanted to throw out a few things on tap for the year.

? January 22 is the Lunar New Year, or Chinese New Year, marked by the first full moon of the new year. And, as many people know, there's a symbol associated with each year. This is the year of the monkey (or green monkey). Let's hope that's the only monkey whose year it is.

? As soon as I book the tickets, Casey and I will be off to Southern California for an end of February/beginning of March/Leap Day/Oscars celebratory vacation, with friends, of course.

? I plan on writing more, and writing more creatively. That will happen here, at work, and hopefully on a freelance basis as well. I have some ideas, I just need to put them into action and be "brown-nosingly ambitious," as I mentioned to Heather upon discovering a former college newspaper colleague who's just had an essay published in the aforementioned alumni magazine and has her own blog, which I won't link here because I don't want her to come back to this entry and see how mean I am.

? I'm going to have fun. Lots of it. Life should be.

? I'm going to hit 1,000 entries, probably earlier than I predicted (sometime in June, I think, but I can't find the entry right now), since I have only 91 to go now.