Today I have been preparing

Today I have been preparing for the new year. Thinking, casually, sitting on my front porch at a metal table, smoking cigarette after cigarette, tapping the ashes into my Yuban Coffee can in the center of the table, thinking long and hard about the past, the present, and the future of this fork-godsaken life I've been given. How, God, can I take the creative life-force by the bullhorns, and not constantly slip into the granted-taking coma of a life too easy?

Yes, life is too easy. For me. My friends are all great, my job, while not fulfilling my reason to live, at least exists, my time is not consumed by remedial tasks, nor completely absent of quiet coffee-can tapping dance smoking.

This year has been, despite appearances outside of my own thoughts, stable. I live in the same house that I lived in a year ago. I sit at the same desk at the same job I had a year ago. I did not get married, nor divorced, nor begin or graduate from school, nor have a loved one die or give birth. It is my first full year married. I do not feel any more domestic than before, thank God, and yet I do not find the same exhilarating joy in getting drunk, nor in crawling on beer-soaked club floors. Yet, sometimes these things are pleasant.

As important as I think new year's resolutions are, I think old year conclusions are equally valuable. We had an earthquake, I launch Seattle Stories, Nervousness, Foster White, Ad Farm, and Gallery Gate, and still had time to redesign Mockerybird at least 3 times (depending on if you counted 1 design that only lasted a week). K and I started a business, emerged from the debt created by our wedding/honeymoon, K continued her 12 painting series, and I began my long-spoken about book. I only read a dozen or so books. I found that the trend of finding less enjoyment in pop music continued. And yet that capacity for enjoyment has not been replaced by any new musical tastes. My popularity on the internet has remained almost entirely the same. Since I don't speak very seriously about anything, people don't take me seriously. Fine wid me.

I bought a pea coat and an orange new years shirt today. Right now, I'm sitting in an internet cafe merely two blocks from my house, since I'm waiting for my 1.5 hour wait for a hair-cut to pass, and this place is nice.

Lovely.

Beautiful.

Let's dance.

Save tomorrow night, I'm done with 2001, and ready for 2002. I plan to constantly bite and claw against the passage of time, lean wind-ward towards the biting storm, blah blah. I plan on resisting the urge to slow down, settle in, or slide by. I plan on having a new job by the end of next year, as well as be further along in my book, launch a dozen more sites, and still be walking to work every day.

Thank you, all. Keep talking.

Comments

[beth]

since when do you smoke, erik? (this question reminds me of "the royal tenenbaums" which i saw yesterday afternoon, and because i haven't been keeping up with mockerybird, i'm not sure if you've seen it. have you? have other people? like/dislike?)

[kte]

tu es amazing