I don't feel any different.

     I don't resolve.  I gave it up years ago.  In fact, it may have been a resolution from a few years ago that actually stuck.  And even though I don't resolve, I still say 2012 will be my year!  I think I said 32 would be my year, so combining the 32 "it'll be my year" with the 2012 "it'll be my year" has really got to bring it home.
     Let's put all these new beginning behind us, and keep on keeping on.

   

The Penultimate Day

     It's the penultimate day!  It's the penultimate day!  The day before the last day sounds more exciting when I say it that way.  Otherwise, today has no great significance.  Especially in Samoa where they actually skipped today.  They were sick of their precarious position on the International Date Line and decided to just switch over.  I applaud their boldness.  The prime minister just said "hey, we're going to sound an alarm at midnight.  You should all adjust your calendars."  Cool.  

     A lot of people (news organizations, folks in charge of "year in review lists") have claimed 2011 has been a pretty shit year.  Perhaps it's because there were no Olympics this year.  I know for me, a year without Olympics is a year without joy.  2012 is bound to be better--we have the Olympics, and the world is supposed to end!  Either it will end so we won't have much to worry about anymore, or it won't end and we'll think we've been given a new lease on life!  That's hopeful any way you slice it.  

     Happy Penultimate Day of the Year.   Also, Happy New Year!  Here's to 2012--it'll be our year!

Things Robert Burns Gave Us

     Robert Burns gave us two of my favorite things--the song Auld Lang Syne and the Bobby Burns cocktail.  The first thing we was more directly responsible for, since he actually wrote it.  The cocktail was just named after him.  But still.
    You know Auld Lang Syne, right?  We sing it every year on New Year's Eve.  It's a song of remembrance; that's why we sing it on New Year's Eve.  It's also commonly sung at funerals.  Not any funeral I've ever been to, but apparently it's done.  So please, if you can remember, sing Auld Lang Syne at my funeral.
    Also, remember to pour one out for me.  If you have a choice, you should pour out a Bobby Burns.  It's a scotch based cocktail and it's my favorite.  I don't drink it all that often actually.  Many times when I go into a bar and ask for one they look at me crooked.  But it's real and real bars know how to make it.  And it's delicious.
     Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?  NO!  We should remember them all the time!  We'll take a cup-o-kindness yet, for auld lang syne.  And in that cup-o-kindness, we should have scotch based cocktails.  Huzzah!

     And just so you're prepared:

Bobby Burns 

2 ounces blended Scotch whisky
1 ounce Italian vermouth
2 dashes Benedictine
1 dash Angostura or Peychaud’s bitters
Stir all ingredients with ice, and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon peel. 

And, a great version of Auld Lang Syne by BNL:

A New Year

     It's a new year.  A time for new beginnings, for resolutions.  If ever there were a time to try new things, to make changes, to turn over new leaves, now would be it.  Somehow that magical ball dropping and that magical flip of the calendar allows us to completely transform.  This will be our year!  Last year might not have worked out like we planned, but look, a whole new year ahead of us.  A clean slate.  How wonderful. 
     It's been a full week into this new year, and all I have to show for it is used tissues all over my bed and a dying tree in my living room.  I'd like to blame my sickness for my lack of resolute, but I don't usually make resolutions.  Or if I do, they're funny things like "don't wake up in my own vomit."  Kudos to me for holding on to that for one whole year.  But I tend to not make resolutions, mostly because I think they're cliche, and also because I usually forget about them.
     I joined a gym last month- just before the new year to beat the rush.  I haven't gone for the last two weeks because of vacation and being sick.  And it would be really easy for me to forget to go all together.  To go requires a modification of my behavior.  It goes beyond sheer willpower for me.  I really just do plain forget that the modified behavior was something I wanted to do.  Tying it to a "New Year's Resolution" doesn't help me remember. 
     Moving past the taint of resolutions, however, a new year can be a fresh start.  It's also a new decade, and for those of us with five year plans, the prospect of a fresh decade to conquer can be both exhilarating and daunting.  (Wait, it's not a new decade, is it?  Someone told me it was, but I was drunk at the time.  Did 2010 end the aughts, or did it begin the teens?  If there was no year zero, then the decade starts with 2011.  Oh god.   Not this again.)  Anyway, a new year can give us fresh perspective.  A new year, a new beginning, new leaves, and all that.  Although, the new year looks a lot like the old year.  Except in the old year that tree in my living room was still alive.