The new house is bigger than our two previous houses combined, three whole bedrooms! A dining room! One of the first things we did after arriving in the new place was buy a futon, both to sleep on while we waited for our stuff to arrive (it took a week or two) and to put into our guest bedroom for use by potential guests. We made an early decision to not put the TV in the living room, but to instead put it upstairs in the guest room. It would just look better that way, we figured--we both hated that the TV became the central attention-sucking point of our previous small one-bedroom houses. The stereo would go downstairs, and a couple of the bookcases.

That turned out to be a very wise decision, to have the TV in an out-of-the-way place to where one had to specifically go, eliminating that lazy out-of-convenience TV watching that had sucked us in before. Added to that, the fact that our backyard trees prevented us from being able to get satellite TV reception (and super high cable rates) means that we hardly watch the idiot box anymore. It's really nice to be free of it. There are a couple channels I miss--ESPN, and the Independent Film Channel, but we have great indie video stores here and the internet provides plenty of sports news and scores. In 2004 I largely stopped watching TV. These days we turn it on to play Nintendo, and to watch the Simpsons if we remember.

The other thing we did in 2004 that we had never done before was spend a lot of money on furniture. We have always in the past shortchanged ourselves dramatically on furniture--we bought from the auction in the tiny town we lived in, and even then, if something we wanted went past $40 or so we'd stop bidding. We had thousands of dollars in the bank but we didn't even have a bed for months--we squeezed together on the couch every night. We did eventually spring for a new mattress set and bedframe after realizing our auction-gotten bed was just inadequate, and a couple of decent bookshelves once I swore I'd never buy anything made of pressboard every again. But beyond that we just didn't try, and consequently our house was always something that depressed me a bit.

So in our new house we did it right, from the start. We bought a really nice dining room table and four chairs, and a wine rack; we shopped and shopped for just the right couch and coffeetable and after six months or more we bought. We got the refrigerator we wanted, rather than one that was just functional. We moved in to this and turned it into this (and then this) with a couple of paintbrushes and a couple grand or so. We learned that old adages are often really true, and' you get what you pay for' is one of them.

I sorta feel like in 2004 I learned how to really live, and I don't just mean by spending tons of money on myself. I mean that part of treating yourself well is making yourself comfortable in your surroundings, and for me that meant a sincere effort to make our house a place I'm happy to live in, and happy to invite others into.

With moving across the country comes a new job, unless you're one of those people who seem to make a living doing internet things that I haven't really figured out. I started a new job in January 2004, and I really feel good about it, here at my one-year anniversary. The people are great, even though the university suffers from severe administration-bloat, which makes things way more difficult than they need be--why do I fill out a time sheet if I'm salaried? It's juvenile. I think we're doing some cool work and we seem to be generating results, even though science moves always at just a slightly slower pace than you (and your professors) would like.

I've made some great new friends too, in my new town, and I'm really glad that my shy self has managed to meet so many people on my own. However I think that my self-confidence is wavering a bit--every time I tried to make music this year I ended up with a major inferiority complex. Even things that struck me as good sounded like embarrassing failures the next time I'd listen to them. I'd have moments when I wanted to never try to make music again, since that would be easier than the cycle of trying and then hating it. It doesn't help that I've become less patient and totally unable to focus lately. But, my desire to try again always comes back. I'm still working on this, but I despair of truly becoming self-actualized when it comes to me and musical creation.

Hopes for 2005? To focus, to concentrate harder on what I'm doing. (I need some of nature's ritalin, whatever that may be.) To make more art, to waste less time. To try harder. I really think I could do good work if I tried harder, and I sure as hell don't want that to be my one regret when it's all over.