Dear 2007, See Ya, Wouldn't Wanna Be Ya

Happy new year, chrysalis comrades. So, I know it's customary to do the "year-end wrap-up" at, well...year's end. But the ride's just come to a full stop. I've only now pulled the tinsel from the soles of my shoes, reapplied my red lipstick and readied myself for daylight. Jesus. Year 2007: may it melt into memory without another murmur. I think the best way to reflect on just about anything is through a half-empty glass filled with something of at least 14.5% alcohol content. Champagne seems festive. Even now. Alright, here's how the 2007 mental smackdown's gonna go: in the gratitude tradition, I'm going to raise a glass of the golden and fizzy in its honor before I stub it out. I've long been paranoid enough to believe that proper gratitude keeps snarling years like 2007 from rearing their oozing, filthy heads again for at least six months. Barring that, champagne always works. What unemployment? What fiscal hardship? What self-doubt? What...the fuck was I saying?

With that, when I say "hey!", you say "salute!":

All hail Gogol Bordello's gypsy punk. I thank them for many sweaty hours, arms in air, fists clenched, inhaling the fleece coats of the self-conscious seventeen year olds in front me. Their raunchy, gawdy, life-affirming sound punished my ugly inner beasts and ran them out of town. "HEY!"

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Glory be the fiery red dust of the Grand Canyon's Hermit trail. I'll never completely understand why I go down carrying a forty pound load only to somehow leave enough of myself scattered about in the desert to walk out lighter. To me, it's the starkest version of paradise imaginable. "HEY!"

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I bow down to Gertrude Heiob Bland, my treasured grandmother. Even though she died just two days before 2007 dawned, her death became a wave I rode the crest of all year. Frankly, I probably learned more from watching her die than I did from watching her live. But she'd be okay with that. Life was pretty damn good to her. Dying was another story. "HEY!"

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Cheers to getting over myself and falling in love with Beirut and Devotchka. 2007 will be the last year I let too much buzz kill a band in my mind before I've listened because the hype-y, snipe-y music press loves 'em. I'm so into the feeling there are drunk, German ghosts in the room every time I listen. They're perfect. The bands and the ghosts. "HEY!"

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Cin, cin to a bit of feeling like an animal...in a good way. My annual backpacking trip into the great, looming lonliness of the Grand Canyon reminded me that I am in fact a beast. I can be faced with things that really fucking hurt, are at times totally demoralizing and seem without hope and still press on. When I came out of that hole in September I decided I wanted to feel that way more than just once a year. Suddenly, it occured to me to start running. I'm absolutely sure the metaphor wasn't lost on my subconscious. Four months later, the movement, the sense of going somewhere, the feeling that I'm built for more than apathy has created this clawing beast inside of me. That's the only caveat attached to finding out you're stronger than you knew: you have to do something about it. "HEY!"

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I suppose the real reason for an absolute Big Gulp of champagne is that this is the first year in my life I've risen on New Year's day with no resolutions. I resolved not to resolve. I just got up and walked into the day, as if, for once, it was actually unfolding moment to moment. I wasn't thinking about wanting to leave my job in March (which I do), I wasn't thinking about leaving for Honduras (which you'll know more about shortly), or fixing my ass, arms, or thighs (I just can't think about that shit anymore). I was thinking about what it's like to fold up a piece of aluminum foil and toss it into a fire: it's shiny and then it's crumpled and then it's consumed. When it's all over, the foil still exists but it's no longer shiny. It's covered in soot and blackened and sort of hiding under a pile of ash. That's you, 2007. You were shiny and then you weren't. And now you're at the bottom of a new, blazing fire that I can't wait to roast clean, white marshmallows over.

Here, here, 2008.