It feels as if it has been 2022 for a long time now. I was not awake for the inglorious ending of 2021--but I almost was. Like many of my pals, I had no interest in staying up, but for some reason, I just didn't get sleepy. I texted friends and set off to bed around eleven, I guess. Picked up my guitar and realized that I have retained no talent for it whatsoever. Sat on the bed, thinking. . . and then decided to go the route of Puff and hit the sack. I slept o.k. but my eyes popped open before six. I lay in the darkness of my bedroom half awake watching the shuttered windows for the first indication of morning light, but sometimes thinking is too much. I tried to remember memorable New Year's Eves. There were three that came to mind, though I know I've spent many of them in foreign countries. Just now, I remember one in Mexico City walking around a primitive carnival illuminated by strings of dim lights hung from wires around a square. We drank and played games of chance and games of bravado. I may have spent one with E. on the empty beaches of Cozumel in a Palapa mere meters from the water's edge before anyone had built anything else there. We nearly perished from hunger and boredom like voluntary Robinson Crusoes, not another footprint in the sand.
Of course, there was New Year's Eve at the changing of the centuries, but I've written about that enough.
My New Year's celebration was with my mother around four o'clock when we popped a bottle of champagne and invited the 96 year old neighbor to join us. She is pretty deaf, so conversation was mostly me asking simple questions so she could narrate responses as long as she cared to. She truly loves to come drink champagne with me. I am the party boy of my mother's aging neighborhood. My mother's neighbor thinks me quite something.
I left them there to finish the bottle (which I know they didn't) and came home to make some dinner. Having eaten only a few mixed nuts all day, the champagne was starting to give me a headache. I decided to roast the same vegetables as the night before, this time using the outdoor grill. I decided to put the vegetables and tofu over a mixed grain pasta as I was a bit hungrier than the night before. Oo-la-la. I'm really digging this meatless diet for now.
Clean up was, of course, almost non-existent. And then, in the evening darkness, I had the usual whiskey and cheroot with the sound of crickets and firecrackers colliding in the warm sub-tropical air. I sat thinking for quite awhile. What else was there to do?
The day had not gone well. Betty White had died just short of 100 years. I was informed of the fact by "my gay buddy" in Dubais. I hate saying "my gay buddy," but in this case it is to make a point. I realized for the first time that Betty White was a gay icon. How could I have missed the fact? There are a billion billion things that swirl around us to which we are oblivious. I thought that in the pre-dawn meditation as well.
My screw remover tool turned out to be a dud. It may work for stripped screws on a car taillight or on some other soft surface, but it doesn't do shit to old six inch galvanized screws in old wood. I am back to the drawing board on deck repair. Trying to be a twenty-something self-reliant man at my age is frustrating. I should just pay somebody to fix the deck and spend my time making pictures of nothing. It seems that is what I've been training for a long while now.
The morning fog has already lifted. 2022 is looking clear and bright. I'm always attracted to the shiny object. Maybe it reminds me of blond hair and radiant skin and summer beaches and snow cones. Not really, but I wanted to write that for some reason. No. . . I'm no crow. I'll leave a new penny lying on the ground.
For the past many years, I've made a trip to a small coastal town and a wildlife refuge just beyond. You've seen the pictures before. I'll not go today, though. I'm having black eyed peas and cornbread with my mother. Maybe I'll go tomorrow, though I know it will only break my heart. Perhaps some new thing would be better.
As always, whatever I decide, you'll be the first to know.
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