'Bred Crumbs
01.01.05
'05 for Frightening
12:35 PMI don't do resolutions. To make resolutions is to build a stack of shame dynamite that you light when the year changes.
I have had success with setting a New Year's goal, though. For 2004, I made my goal finding a new, better job. Done and done.
So as long as I keep my line of sight low to the ground I can, and do, see 2004 as an OK year. That's not the consensus. At the gatherings I went to, everyone seemed eager to get last year gone. No one said why. The tsunami in Asia muted New Year's around the world and weighs on us here, but I don't think that's the sticking point. I suspect it's Iraq and the election and such.
But here's the problem: the results of those debacles are still with us. For me, they're not things that ruined '04. They're bombs waiting to go off in '05.
If I think about it too much, or at all, I can't logically build any kind of case that 2005 will be a better year than the last. It would be very, very easy to have a bad feeling about this one.
But that's no way to start a new year; for that matter, it's no way to get out of bed each morning. The notion of New Year's – the reason why, along with Thanksgiving and maybe the Fourth of July, that it's the only holiday that has truly held its meaning and kept the taint of commerce at bay – is to leap on a fresh start, revel in a blank slate. So, drink in hand* and friends at my side, I toast 2005 and welcome it with hope. Partly hope cobbled out of fear, yes, but also the basic hope of existence – the hope that puts one foot in front of the other to keep you moving forward.
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Besides the job change and the success of CrossWalk, a definite highlight of 2004 was going to Burning Man, and it looks like that will fuel '05, too. My first trip last year was a triumph of adventure. This year, I want community to be the heart of it.
So my gang is trying harder to come up with a small theme camp that will bring other Burners in. Last year, we struggled for a worthy idea and ultimately gave up, but last night, over tapas for dinner, the ideas flowed like sangria. Apparently this year's BM theme, "Psyche," is more inspirational than last year's "Vault of Heaven." The down side, after being spoiled by last year's planetary lineup for the ring streets of Black Rock City, is that "Psyche" doesn't lend itself to such a handy sequential naming scheme. Which will make finding camp much trickier.
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After dinner, we wound up at a party in a home owned or occupied by no one I know, which is usually my definition of party discomfort. But thanks to the people I went with, and the arrival of a couple of friends I haven't seen in a long while, we had a good enough time.
Here's when you know your party is over: when a few frightfully young boys, already unappealingly drunk, show up, demand to share the strangest drink in the house, and instantly need to throw up so badly they can't make it downstairs in time.
We took the cue and left, along with most everyone else. Our friends invited Robbie and I to join them in San Jose for a sleepover with a hot tub. We were sorely tempted, but passed. The pull of our own bed was stronger than the tub's.
That's the other good thing '04 gave me: the bliss of domesticity. Once upon a time I would have scoffed, and you are welcome to do so now. But I'm kinda likin' it.
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* No, not now; last night. Sheesh.
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