Robert Manners

Gratuitous New Year's Eve Post

So it's the last day of 2002 (unless there's some mathematical crapola about how it's not really the last day of the year because the Romans started the year in March and the Hebrews in September and so on and so forth... after the whole 'False Millenium' arguments, I just don't trust the calendar anymore)... and many of my daily reads have indulged in end-of-year wrap-ups. Well, I've already done that, when this here blog ended its first year and when I ended my own 35th year (or fifth Seventh Year, whichever way you want to look at it). I have been summing up the year all month long.



But I have noticed one thing which wasn't written in any of the previous reminiscences (largely because I hadn't noticed it until yesterday): this was The Year of Red. Unbeknownst to me, red has become my favorite color. I bought seven red sweaters this year, a red scarf, three red evening gowns, a red CD player, red sneakers, so on and so forth and et cetera, and wrote about it in a red-backgrounded blog. Unless something drastic happens soon, I think that Red will be my first official favorite color (I'd never been able to make up my mind before, always torn between certain shades of blue, some shades of green, all shades of purple).



So since I am not reminiscing on New Year's Eve, I should perhaps be looking forward. I don't ordinarily make New Year's Resolutions, since they involve expectations — and I shun, eschew, and otherwise abominate Expectations as much and as often as I can. Expectations are the death of beauty... you can etch that one on my tombstone (if I have a tombstone, which I do not expect I shall).



However, there is a fine line between Expectations and Dreams... and it is perhaps time for me to discover that line. I realized at one point in this last year that, along with my Expectations, I have jettisoned my Dreams. I am dreamless! There is nothing that I am working towards, nothing that I close my eyes and fantasize about when sitting in my car or staring at the ceiling. I have no crushes, no aspirations, no windmills to tilt at or castles in the air. I mean, I would like to find a really nice pair of dress-shoes that go with all of my suits and are comfortable as well; I desire to learn how to write short, impactive, and deliciously economic prose; I sometimes consider learning to tap-dance; I want to become Miss Gay Marin. But none of these really qualifies as A Dream, because I don't really, deeply, gut-wrenchingly care about these things (well, maybe the Miss Gay Marin part, though that's more an obsession than an aspiration).



So that's my New Year's Resolution: I shall dream.



While I'm at it, I will see to the following list of Twelve Goals which I would like (but do not expect) to reach this year:

1) Do something about my sexual hang-ups... therapy, dating, bath-house, whatever. I don't have to get laid this year, I just need to be proactive about becoming a sexual being with other sexual beings.



2) Finish my formal 12 Steps. I am currently waiting for my life to quiet down a little so I can do the rather contemplative 8th Step, but I know I will resist the foot-work 9th Step. But I want to finish this year. I really, really do (that reminds me, being on vacation I forgot what day of the week is currently up, and that I forgot to call my sponsor yesterday).



3) Learn to write short, economic sentences. I always say that you can't break the rules until you've learned them, and while I have no intention of actually abandoning my beloved purple prose, I would like to have a better feeling for other styles informing my style of choice.



4) Learn something physical... maybe tap-dancing, maybe aerobics, maybe horseback riding. But teach my body to do something unaccustomed.



5) Win the Miss Gay Marin Pageant, no matter who I have to kill. I WILL HAVE THAT TIARA!



6) Fall in love with someone.



7) Buy more earrings (I have so many bracelets, but almost no good earrings).



8) Find a new job.



9) Start (and maybe even finish) my novel about Danny Vandervere and how he becomes friends with Baron Valerien de Seguemont and falls in love with Marque Willard-Wilkes while simultaneously extricating himself from a circumstantially-evidenced accusation of murder. I can't be a novelist until I finish at least a first draft of one novel.



10) Get rid of this damned gut, by hook or by crook. I am not entirely averse to liposuction, though I don't think I'll be able to afford it... and I don't want a six-pack or anything like that, I just want to regain an uninterrupted view of my own cock.



11) Clean my room at least once.



12) Be nicer to Grandmother.

So having committed this list to the infinities of cyberspace, I will now completely ignore it until this time next year, when I will check on my progress.



Now I have to go and shower and shave and dress and try to make some order and sense of my day. I need to figure out how to do certain things in San Francisco and certain things in Oakland without driving across the bridge and looking for parking too many times. I need to decide if I'm really queen enough to wear that sequined necklace-shirt I bought on my birthday. I must remember to call Grandmother at midnight. And Jhames is on his way over right now! Must resist the urge to clean first! And must remember to finally ask him where he got the H.



See you in 2003!