I did not go out with a bang last night. Instead of eating creamy meatloaf wrapped in bacon and puff pastry, I indulged in vegan cinnamon squash stew. Instead of quaffing absinthe martinis and snorting dandelion dust off of a stranger's elbow, I had a glass of Kentucky Riesling.Some people pile loads of effort into new year's eve shenanigans. Some people dress in their best sequined pant suit and hire personal tuk tuk drivers to bring them to parties. I'm not one of those people. I'm the type of celebrator who usually finds myself under blankets at 11 pm anticipating morning.
And here it is. 2011.
It's a crisp sunshiny day here in Portland. A day to watch the cats pounce on each other, to flop back into a chair and read an article about pickles, to slurp tea from my favorite red mug, to write a musical about one of my average days, to cook something savory, to stretch my bones and cells, to scribble patterns onto a page, or to do nothing at all.
Last year was spectacular. I loved (an incomparable partner in cozy crime, friends and family who are the sparkliest pom poms on the cheerleading squad, and two cats that make even my toes smile), I lost (at ski-ball on the boardwalk in New Jersey), I ran (along 36 miles of Portland concrete), I won (several baby watermelons, beets, herbs, and greens galore from our garden), I sung (7 new songs and twelve rounds of Vietnamese karaoke), I stretched (around my own appendages), I gleaned (inspiration from a writer's conference and a trusty editor
who gave me the lady balls to submit my novel), I gained (a super job as a senior designer and art director), I gathered (bits of information from books, magazines and interweb excavations), I sniffed (two handfuls of people at my sniffing booth), I installed (an SRS interpretive center at the Portland Public Building), I listened
(while three back-up singers sand to me in traffic), I drove (a 1979 Volvo Bertone from Canada and to the coast), I road (my bicycle to and from work no matter how hot or rainy the weather was), I made (sentences, songs and pictures in my new and improved studio), I planted (cabbage, brussel sporuts, kale, arugula, tomatoes, and fava beans), I pushed (myself to wake at 5:40 am), I released (objects into
the SRS landfill), I met (a few strangers who are now friends), I played (whenever I could) I traveled (to St. Johns, Colorado, Vancouver, the Oregon Coast, Seattle, NYC, and New Jersey), I wandered (aimlessly), I wondered (about all the crazy things going on in the world), I helped my man design (two domicile units), I sewed (decorative things on my 1948 singer) I smiled (frequently), I sobbed (usually once a month because tears are the best cleanser), I welcomed (three best friends' babies into the world), I walked (with some of my favorite people), I lazed (on Saturday mornings while listening to old timey tunes), I cooked (thirty new recipes from random parts of the world), I devoured (mostly dark chocolate), I dreamt (in technicolor).
