Well, the move is over. Sort of. I’m still unpacking boxes, but things are starting
to settle down. We did some cleaning at the old house last afternoon with some
serious chemicals. That is, chemicals for cleaning, not chemicals for making the
cleaning process seem less burdensome.

Fortunately, my abortive career as a condensed-matter physicist ended up making me a
little more sanguine about dealing with harsh household cleansers. For example, take HF acid,
which will almost immediately start leaching the calcium from your bones. Now that’s
a hazardous chemical. Or photoresist, which (depending on the variety you use) can be
a highly dangerous mutagen, carcinogen, and
teratogen.
(Yes, I had to look up that word when I first saw it on the label.)
Anyway, as for household chemicals — bleach, Raid, weedkiller — bah! Milk of Magnesia,
as far as I’m concerned.

The funny thing about moving is that every time you think you’ve packed up all the
stuff, you open another cabinet or closet and look — more stuff! (So that’s
where Dave Smith’s staple gun disappeared to…) Eventually you
end up fighting over who should take what. I even got talked into taking an
old couch and a coffee table. Maybe all this extra furniture will lead to having
extra visitors.

Oh yeah, New Years: I had a very nice time at the Smith-Holy residence. (Not
the Holy-Smith residence, as previously discussed.)
We had some good wine and danced to some techno. (Or, I lurched around to the music
in my own off-rhythm way, content that only my friends could see how silly I was
being.) After midnight, we went out to the balcony and sang songs, as obnoxiously
as possible. It turns out that Nancy and Don know most of the songs to
Gigi, and Nancy and I managed a
stunning rendition of “I Remember It Well”. At least, I thought we were
stunning at the time.

Anyway, happy New Year to all. Just keep this in mind: no matter how your New Year’s
celebration went, it was probably
not
as bad as Andrew Sullivan’s. (If necessary, scroll down to “The Curse of 2001”.)