año nuevo

All of a sudden it's tomorrow or the day after, a new year or something better. In my absence from you )and myself( I've gotten older and wiser, cleansed and absolved, sameoldsameold but brand new.

The New Year came once I got back from Michigan. First, a finger-food smorgasbord in Pilsen: wine, champagne, and a mix of n'importe qui: people I still have never met, along with friends old, new and even newer. Then midnight: we ran around in the snow with sparklers, falling up and down. Second, a quick drive to River North for a late-night dance party at a spartan 46th-floor condo. (I did not drive as I was in no condition to. When we walked in (at 2:05) a half-dozen people sat in near silence and darkness. Suddenly, there was music and a steady trickle of dancers looking to swing. By 4, it was time (for my friends) to go, so I hitched another ride and slept (à la Bohème) on a floor back in Pilsen.

For those of you who don't know, Pilsen is a neighborhood in Chicago that is now a mix of hipsters and Mexicans, fixed-gear bicycles and elotes, high art and street art (after once having been the locus of Bohemian immigration). The hosts of the party had a Pitchfork-approved playlist on iTunes with turntables at the ready. River North is a soulless spread of touristy restaurants (Hard Rock, Rainforest) with condos for the nouveau riche. Is that East Egg or West Egg? I can never remember. What a great way for me to start the new year: a contrast of art and money, hip and chic. And for me, I'm not even on the continuum, but definitely somewhere in between either above or below.

Somehow, when I got back to Pilsen at 4am, I got into the apartment as everyone slept. [The door was open.] After 4 hours of sleep, I was wide awake and the world was spinning with possibility. And just spinning. Brunch was chorizo and egg with some of the best coffee I'd had all year. Then, just like the night before, I got dragged to a second brunch (at noon) in Wilmette. Suddenly, the spread was more cream cheese and lox, crème brulée french toast, mimosas, bloody marys, and more coffffffeeeeeeeeeeee. The children hogged the video games, so we had to wait till the end to play Rock Band. The best lines of the afternoon were exchanges with an 8-year-old.

kid: “Aw come on, let me play guitar. Thanks, now get out of my chair.” And:

kid: “Let me play drums, let me play drums, let me play drums.”
Me: “Listen, do you live here?”
kid: “No.”
Me: “Well do you live somewhere?”
kid: “Yes.”
Me: “Well, I don't.”

Then, after that, there was a pot luck. I think this is a sign that I will not go hungry this year. Maybe I'll put on some weight. I should adopt the opposite of most people's resolutions: gain weight, start smoking, learn magic.

My real resolution is to be more mindful of how I spend time. I usually think I do a good job of living in the moment, in the flow. But really, I sometimes wonder if I'm not just living in the very near future. And I want to think more consciously about the future and the past, tying them together with the present into a continuity. I have this image of the present being a valley and the future and the past being hills looming in front and behind. I want to see things as more flattened, connecting each action of the moment with its roots and repercussions.

Many more thoughts will have to wait. May this year be full of fulfillment.