Happy New Year

Was it the Mayans who first decided to break down the formless eternity of existance into easily dicernable chunks? Sliced the endless passage of time into seconds and minutes and hours, broke the passage of days into months and seasons and then finally years? If so, the real question is why. Were they simply tired of no one knowing exactly when to show up for the afternoon beheading? Or was it some strange human desire to feel something pass, to for some reason anticipate the turning of the calendar page, to pretend each day is somehow unlike the last.

New Years Eve I accidently found myself at a Jersey Shore theme party, legions of middle-aged professionals in muscle-ts and halter tops, screaming and pounding Yaeger-Bombs as a household of Italian Stereotypes did likewise in a much less ironic fashion. I quickly escaped, spilling out into the cold night air and taking the trains downtown with Grocer and Click's Sister. We looked at the lackluster ice sculptures and blew as hard as we could on our noisemakers, which were for some reason so fucked up that if you blew hard enough it sounded like a woman was screaming as a car drove over her. People kept looking around for the apparent accident, which only made us laugh and blow harder.

Down at the wharf the fireworks are exploding in rather grand fashion as we hoot like idiots. And when the girl kisses me on the cheek I try to tell myself it's a tradition. That like most things it means nothing, and even if it had meant something, in the grand scheme of things it really didn't. Still, I find myself recklessly believing this is some sort of grand sign - a great culmination of my years of regret and lonliness. Not knowing the words to Auld Lang Sine me and Grocer make it halfway through the Star Spangled Banner before realizing we don't know the words to that either. Instead we start screaming the chorus of Born in the USA as loud as we can. And as we scream our reckless and lofty new years resolutions at the exploding light show and guzzle down plastic bottles of orange juice spiked heavily with Vodka I wonder if maybe everything'll be ok.

For the longest time I've been recieving email messages intended for someone else with the same name. I open my inbox today to find an email from Uncle Rick, forwarded by Grandpa Dr, wishing me a Happy Birthday.

Here's to that I guess.