"It's New Year's Eve,
And hopes are high
Dance one year in
Kiss one good-bye..."

-Sunset Boulevard

It's about 8:30, and I've been feeling like Cinderella all night, avidly watching people at Job A setting up for a champane dinner and dance, compleat with twelve-piece jazz band and four intelligent lights that are calmly bathing the black-tied early birds in cool blues and sparkly whites. Also, about four hundred balloons, anchored securely to the ceiling, awaiting the midnight drop.

2007 has been a long year. It hasn't been the greatest year and it hasn't been the worst, although I'll be relieved to see the back of it. I never really celebrated or even much noted the passing of the years before. But I'm determined to do better this year: something's gotta happen now or something's going to give. Or, as dad reminded me when he brought me back a week ago: something's coming, something good. Change is in the air, I can feel it.

Part of not celebrating New Year's was never having any resolutions, but with the determination to make a clean break from 2007, I've decided to make a few. Firstly, to be more cheerful, friendly and optimistic and less down on my situation. I can feel myself being more cranky, bitchy, cold and condescending, and that has got to stop. Secondly, to stop being late for everything. Crappy public transport is no excuse for showing up late to every meeting. And thirdly, to start going to church again. There's a coldness that subzero temperatures can't quite explain, and I think the answer is in a house of worship.

I'm looking forward to 2008. It's going to be a good year.