The first day of the New Year doesn't count. That's in the Bible, man.

New Year's Eve is always rough, it just never goes right, somehow, and so I thought I'd stay home. Then an opportunity arose that seemed seamless, foolproof, just golden. I suspect, however, that I time-travelled when getting ready and knocked over an eyeliner or something thereby disturbing the Force and putting me on a path that was just a smidge off, at first, and then was way off track by 2 am. By 4 am, everything was fine: I was back on Kimball Ave, in the Cabrio, with my sister.

Those intervening hours, however. Yesterday they took on mythic proportions, like Odyssey-level allegory and metaphor, Jodeci-type heights of melodrama and pathos. Yesterday was bleak and self-obsessed, until I heard:

"I'm cut in half real bad, Dewey."

It doesn't take much, really, just a little more sister time, an invitation to suicide by a dear friend, and a movie parody to set me back right. Fluffy-headed Social Worker said "You can just kill yourself right now, if you want, while I'm on the phone. You probably should." Precious. It's been a nice transition, from thinking I wasn't crazy while everyone else did, to having friends that think I'm perfectly fine even while I try and convince them of the singular hideousness of my life and person.

So, in summary: I fell off a horse on Christmas Eve Day, and was forced to "Git back on, git back on!" I choose to take my New Year lessons early. That is lesson #1 of 2008--git back on horses. Lessons #2 and #3 I should have learned already--never go to Wrigleyville, and never be a VIP. Finally, Lesson #4: Selective Optimistic Amnesia and Personal Forgiveness. All that happened on New Year's Eve is that I got to hear Spoon perform "Peace Like a River." Anything else, cowardice, narcissism, my bangs getting too curly--are forgiven and forgotten, right....now.