...and in with the new. I went to a party at my friend's house. It was pretty fun (and certainly better than staying home).

And tonight I have to go to a wedding -- on a yacht, I think. My great-aunt (my mother's aunt) is marrying this guy I've never met. I don't even know what his last name is. She hooked up with him not long after her first husband died (I can't remember if it was 2003 or 2004). He had Alzheimer's or dementia or something and sometimes didn't even recognize her. I understand that the chicks don't dig that.

They probably picked New Year's Day to get married so the guy would never forget their anniversary. At least my great-aunt didn't divorce old Uncle Frank (at least, I don't think she did). I'll give her credit for that. Even though death (rather than court documents) did them part, I can't help but wonder that if love isn't forever, is anything?

Now for the first Ask Jordon of the new year!

Sean: would you rather talk to a telemarketer OR drug over a cactus with your mouth tied to the tailpipe of a greyhound bus?

Telemarketers are people too, as I've learned. They're just ordinary people trying to make a living. I'm sure that most of them don't like having to do all that telemarketing, but it could often be the only job they can get. Maybe talking to a telemarketer would brighten their day.

I wouldn't buy the stuff they hawk, though. That would be like buying from spam.

Tom: Do you do any impressions?

Not really. I used to be really bad about imitating everyone around me, but I'm not like that anymore. I can do a pretty good impression of a gym teacher I had last year; she had a deepish, very slightly scratchy voice (which I turn into bronchitis -- but that's the fun of impressions) and a New York accent. And at my band's gigs I used to do a bad British accent on stage. As for actual people, I sometimes catch myself doing a John Wayne impression, but I don't do it consciously, Pilgrim.

And now for a New Year's Day tradition: Lake Superior State University's 2005 List of Banished Words.