2011

I celebrated the incoming year by being unconscious. I do not have a hangover this morning. I had a glass of wine, perhaps two, and fell asleep watching Zahi Hawas unveil secrets of the Egyptians. They have a lot of them and Zahi parcels them out one by one. I love his accent.

This morning I am celebrating the incoming year as the only conscious citizen of the house. Walker and one of his friends are determinedly sleeping in the family room. The dogs are doing their level best to disturb them. Never underestimate the ability of a teenage boy to sleep on, sleep on brother! My ritual, of course, involves coffee.

This afternoon we celebrate the last installment of the Divorced Family Christmas, on New Year's Day. Forgive me if it seems like the first item on the New Year's Day agenda is "old business." I'm not really doing anything else. Someone will give me a present. It's no skin off me. It just seems that every year we beat Santa almost to death, crossing the line between celebration and obligation long before the season is thankfully over.

We are compelled to mark passages, and there are a number to mark. We're going to have to fight harder for things we believe in this year. Bob Van Der Plaats will be trying to whip up hatred and bile in order to impeach the Supreme Court Judges who unanimously upheld the equal rights of gay and lesbian couples in Iowa. This man with muppet wig has been running for governor every four years (is that the interval here?) since he had real muppet hair. He thinks he can ride the anti-gay "ew-factor" defense of marriage horse to some sort of prominence. I believe that Iowans will not stand for this, but we may have to sit up and bark about it. Nationally, the rubes who have been stalling everything finally have to fish or cut bait, having come back to some semblance of power via the blatant pursuit of it, above all else. I think it's good that they've elected a bunch of wackos because no one will take them seriously. Of course, I thought Reagan was a wacko and never dreamed anyone would elect him president. I also thought cassette tapes were a fad, and hung on to my eight-track tapes longer than was technologically necessary. What do I know?

It looks like any other morning to me, folks. After we get home from Christmas number three, I'm going to try to scare up some red beans and some rice. I was telling Robyn that this is the good luck meal for the coming year and she pointed out that we haven't been having it recently on New Year's day. Her luck hasn't been so hot lately and she's lining up for beans.

Me, I'm lucky. Job: good. Family: good. I can walk and talk and take care of myself. In fact, I can cross country ski on fine old woodies, play a little guitar, a bit of bad basketball, and raise a ruckus when necessary or desirable. I've got some very fine friends and on most days a sense of purpose, or what passes for one.

A couple days ago, I was invited to contribute to a relatively new blog called Dirt & Seeds. I'm excited to do this. Nathan Bell, a very old musical friend from "the days" in Iowa City hooked me up. It's a little more public, a LOT more public, than I'm used to, and exciting.

http://www.dirtandseeds.com

I'll continue to post here as well. More room to be self-referential and self-indulgent, two of my better things.

I'm not sure why we get so involved in keeping score of how things are going this time of year. It might be a thing to do more frequently, really. I used to work for a woman who talked about "being intentional" about how we do things. Perhaps we should review how things are going on a semi-monthly basis. We could choose to get drunk, or not.