fresh start

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I'm feeling some self-imposed pressure to write something profound, something important, something memorable on this, the 1st day of 2008. And I know I have it in me. Somewhere.

However, I've been fighting off a slow-building cold/sore throat/cough. (The real reason for those bloodshot eyes in today's pic, unfortunately.) Consequently, I'm not quite feeling the creative mojo right now. But I do want to get into the habit of writing on a regular basis again. A couple years ago when I got back from Canada I began 2006 with over 50 consecutive blog postings. Now I'm not exactly committing to that kind of output. I would, though, like to give it a shot.

Due mostly to my not feeling so hot, my New Year's Eve was a quiet one. Tamale and I stayed home—home being the cool 1-bedroom duplex in Los Feliz that was offered up to Tamale by one of her clients, who's on the East Coast until the end of January. We ate shrimp tacos and played Scrabble. To get some fresh air after midnight, we took a stroll around the neighborhood, cruising down Vermont and taking a quick pass through The Dresden, the hipster bar made semi-famous by Swingers and Marty and Elaine, the kitschy old lounge singers who've been rockin' the place for about a million years.

We stayed all of 5 minutes, then headed back "home" and stayed up past 4 AM doing laundry, watching TV and talking about subjects best left unshared with a blog audience. Seeing as how Tamale and I got together last year on New Year's Eve—we figure it was somewhere around 3:13 in the morning when our 1st kiss went down—last night after midnight was the official beginning of our 1-year anniversary.

Tamale later admitted to feeling slightly let down by the fact that we didn't head out to any parties. But in the end we were, and are, just happy to be together. Wish I was feeling better so I could really get into the spirit of things. I like the idea of starting fresh at the beginning of the year. Last year on New Year's Day I told my new lover/soon-to-be-girlfriend that '07 was going to be "The Year of Loving and Giving." And what do you know, I ended up falling in love not long after making that proclimation.

So now that a new year is upon us, we've decided to proclaim 2008 as "The Year of Abundance (my idea) and Fulfillment (Tamale's idea)."

I see no reason why we can't pull this off.

May your 2008 be flowing with abundance and fulfillment, too.