The new year started out like the old one, which is to say with the angry disposition of a five year old who just wants to stay in bed and sleep. Which it did. Only this time, it’s a six year old. Whatever. Meanwhile, I woke up to a wet carpet and banging vertical blinds slamming against the wall and each other in fits of wind-bruised consciousness. They practically screamed at me to close the door. I did, and I hope the carpet doesn’t stink. And by stink I mean develop mould that will eventually smell like a dismantled mushroom cleaning factory.
If such things exist.
As Lileks points out, odd numbered years have a kind of shadiness to them that you don’t like to dwell upon for too long. It’s all the weird angles, like Dr. Caligari’s Calendar. The Aught Five has a particularly grating quality to it, because it attempts to meld the organic with the mathematically precise. And it’s no shrinking violet when it comes to asserting its Five-ness either. It’s like a slap in the face whenever you say it: 2005.
Good riddance, I say.
’06 has the feeling of a fresh load of clean laundry, with an extra ounce of Bounce for that soft, cottony smoothness you adore but so rarely feel because you’re too cheap to buy the fabric softener. Sometimes, you even take the little napkin softener sheets from other people’s finished loads and give it double duty. Cheap, I say! But fresh and smooth too, with no distasteful breakups or letdowns so far. ’06 laughs like a little schoolgirl, and runs around like a young buck with no conception of hunting season.
I suppose I’m marking my time in Los Angeles from this moment forth. My first full year of Los Angeles began yesterday officially. Oddly enough, I wasn’t in Los Angeles at the time. I spent Christmas and New Year in that bed of roses state known as Wisconsin. The weather was nice, but I’m not sure it’s grey enough there.
Of course, that’s sarcasm. The weather was horrible. Not only did I not get my promised White Christmas [Why are you always playing the race card? --Ed. White is the new black, isn't it?], but I was instead treated to the cobalt cold of a drab, lifeless place with few hills and fewer congenial coffee shops. Not that I want to complain. Except for the surroundings, my time in Wisconsin was as warm as a sunny day in LA.
Stayed with my sister and her husband and two boys. Mom flew in on the 29^th and between the four of us adults, managed to barely contain the outrageous youthfulness and irrepressible fun of a three point five year old and a fifteen month old baby. Good times? Oh yes, and I say that without the least bit of irony. Not a lot of noodle salad, but then some things you just don’t miss when you’re watching an excited little boy unwrapping gifts like each one’s the last. It’s an amazing sight, and the fact that I’m not a parent made it even more palpable. There’s no doubt in my mind I would go nuts if I had kids right now. Even so, I’d love every minute of it.
I hate travelling. I love getting there. The Zen master who said it isn’t the destination that counts, but the journey, obviously never traveled by express jet to three connection cities. I was glad to arrive in Los Angeles, seeing the rain pouring over Santa Monica Freeway and then landing with a bump on the wet tarmac. For some reason, I felt glad. Not just to be home, but for the new year.
I think I like ’06′s curves.