Be Forgot

While I had my hopes of early escape, it ultimately came as no surprise that on the last work day of 2005 I was stuck at the office until 6:30pm, when nearly everyone else had abandoned the place by 2. So, I missed out on my traditional New Year ticker-tape parade, walking through the Financial District in a flurry of desk-calendar pages that people throw out the windows to say farewell to the old. Which, technically consists of neither ticker tape nor a parade, so it's more like a lonely litter-filled walk. But still, it's a nice, if not particularly environmentally friendly, tradition. Which I missed. Because instead I trudged home in the damp dark. And what remained of 2005 had already turned to paper pulp on the rain-slick sidewalks.