For New Year’s I went to San Francisco with Carl, Tom, Francisco, Isabelle, and Feng. Indian food at a place on Folsom with Indian beer and chai tea. Then to a little church on 23rd near South Van Ness for a concert. Some new piece, a scherzo, and then the Dvorak cello concerto and Beethoven’s Ninth. The orchestra wasn’t that good and there were points where I winced with pain, mostly at the woodwinds. Nonetheless when it was over I felt oddly elated. Freude, schoener Gotterfunken / Tochter aus Elysium. Party in the basement with belly dancers and champagne.

I smoked a cigarette for the first time in a few weeks. So much for quitting.

Feng, Francisco, and I returned to Berkeley to go to a party in S. Berkeley. Wrong scene, especially after Beethoven’s Ninth. We left without really going in, went back to my house and drank Laphroiag.