Welcome to 2007. A fresh year that doesn't feel too different. In previous years, I've always felt like things would be a little different, maybe a lot different. I found the new year exciting. This year, I don't, and I don't know why. Maybe it comes with officially entering middle age (I'm 40 now). Maybe it's because last year was a good year and I don't see a need to make any major changes, but then again, the previous years were good, too, and I didn't make changes. It doesn't really matter. A new year is here, and I greet it warmly, if not excitedly.
Despite yesterday's quote, I've made no New Year resolutions. I generally don't because I'm making resolutions for myself all the time. Some stick, some don't, some stick then fade and then come back again and then fade again (hence the confessional).
I have devised a new plan to find more writing time, but it's not a resolution. It's more like an experiment.
I'm glad the holidays are almost over. Talk about feeling middle aged. I couldn't imagine such a sentiment as a child, but now, the holidays feel more like an endurance test than a celebration.
I lost the test two days ago, incidentally. I was attending a gathering with all my wife's brothers and their families. I say without exaggeration: they're possibly the nicest batch of people I've ever encountered, and they're not nerds. They're fun, intelligent, and usually considerate. But there's 32 of them (plus a 100-pound dog that has an indecent and relentless fondness for my crotch). Most of the gathering took place in one big room with a baby-grand piano in the middle of it. And there were three twelve-year-old girls who had just learned to play "Heart and Soul" (I'd hum it for you, but it won't come through the screen well; think back to the toy store scene in the Tom Hanks' movie Big). With the din of a lot of people talking, the song clanged through at least a dozen times. I thought I was going to lose my mind. I prepared to tell them to stop (one of the girls was my own daughter), but I looked around and realized: no one else minded. It's really a horrible feeling. As far as I was concerned, the piano playing was absolutely obnoxious, but no one else seemed to mind. I felt like a real jerk. For assurance that I'm not a jerk, I took my wife aside, "Am I the only person going nuts because of the piano?" She said, "Yes. No one else minds." I felt like I'd just found my wife with another man and no one could understand why I was upset. I left and went for a walk, then came back and retreated to the basement to watch football (where I saw my hopes in the family bowl pool dashed because the Naval Academy blew a late lead).
At next year's gathering, I'm going to make a preemptive strike. I'm going to take some poetry and start belting it out for everyone to listen to. Like piano-playing, poetry reading is art, and it's meant for group consumption. I'll probably start with Ginsberg's Howl:
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix.
That'll mesmerize 'em. I might also dip into some Blake, then, for light variety, do twenty or so clerihews.
Well, I'm off to Mass. It's not obligatory this year, but I need the angry fix.
