New Year New Life
I dunno, 2012 wasn't that good for me you guys. And although January is an arbitrary time for a fresh start outside of western society, I'm taking it because I fucking need it and because, as my astrological chart has indicated, this is a turning-point month for Libras.
Here's my cat Captain, cozyin up on a cold-ass night with the fire roaring. Christmassy, no?
If You're Lucky
"Draw the art you want to see, start the business you want to run, play the music you want to hear, write the books you want to read, build the products you want to use — do the work you want to see done."—Austin Kleon
At some point I said goodbye to traditional employment and have been making things and making things happen on my very own for a very long time. Can't really imagine it any other way.
Yule Time
Went back to my place of birth in Colorado for the holidays, and I needed it more than ever. To walk out on the bluff beside my parents house, sage brush dolloped with fresh snow everywhere and the peaks across the valley shrouded in white, disappearing and then reappearing, a sign of very cold air, and impending snow. To talk seriously with nephew Patrick about Gaboon Vipers and animals that start with the letter U. To curl up in my bed at the top of the house and lay there in the dark watching the moonlight on the snow and the tiny lights of faraway snowcats, 10 miles up the valley at the ski resort, going up and down restoring order to the slopes, until I fall asleep and then the dawn breaks all cold and blue.
"Christmas morning" started at 6:30 a.m.—as it often does with a kid in the house, but it wasn't terrible getting up in the dark to tear up colored paper over steaming coffee.
And for Christmas—powder. A powder day with my dad, actually. How many of these I've had in my life, I can't be sure, but they're very valuable. It really was a kinda magical morning, I won't lie—the light sparkling off every single thing, including ice crystals hovering in the air shining like diamonds in the shafts of sunlight.
I grew up driving in the snow ... but fuck THIS!
Be Better Than Champagne
So we’re on the cusp of the New Year, and I already drank/ate my weight in such things as holiday ale, Brie, and peppermint bark recently. No matter—the time to abstain is not yet upon us. We’re still essentially required to sip something special to celebrate the passing of the old and the coming of the new, right?
New Year’s cheer has been tied to an elixir called Champagne since time began, but I don’t do Champagne. Nah. Not even one glass. It just don't agree with me.
BUT, instead of Champagne, I’d like to offer up something different (maybe better?): Prosecco.
An Italian sparkling white wine, Prosecco is crisp, light, and laced with whiffs of peach, pear, and apricot or whatever. It’s much fresher and simpler than Champagne, and way less rich. It’s also fermented in a large stainless-steel vat before bottling—not with an in-bottle injection of yeast like Champagne. For this reason I find it WAY easier on the body (less inclined to dole out a life-giving hangover in the morning).
Another Prosecco plus: it’s half the price of Champagne. This lovely bottle of Adami Prosecco is only 17 bucks! So reasonable. It would be cool to sip this from the most delicate of flutes, right around midnight.
Dissember
It's the winter solstice! I used to love December. Still do, maybe, but not THIS December. I didn't write anything good or read anything great. Stuff weight heavily and I didn't sleep well. I didn't do anything that made sense of the chaos or got me jazzed about life. But whatevs. It's time for a new thing—don't know what, but will soon, and I'll let ya know.
Early one morning.
Pink sky in a puddle.