New Year's related, max 120 words. Extra challenge: emphasis on color description, no dialogue, and include: "hectic," "impassioned," and "clarity."

Fred hadn't drunk that much, but things seemed muted; the walls the same off-yellow as the champagne he poured himself. He'd never thought he needed to learn magical cures for hangovers, but suspected he might come to regret that. The previous December he'd have been in a different time zone, have had to stay up even later—no, that didn't make a real difference. Did it?

His mind, like the glass, seeming far from its deserved clarity, he tuned out the others' conversations. Which was easy to do. Let them fill the schedules of the hectic new year, make impassioned declarations about turning over new leaves; he did not want to go back to what he had left in the future.