belated new year stuff

a day late, but who's counting these years? happy 2010 -- a year in which once again i resolve to blog more and not keep thoughts and feelings inside like dill pickles.

in the gym two days ago, they were playing (of course) prince's party like it's 1999, which really does bring one back. on new year's eve 1999 i was wearing green and watching people pressed together like preserved fish as they pretended to themselves that the next year decade century was going to be better, should auld acquaintance be forgot etc.. and then someone killed himself by jumping of the top of lucky plaza, which was, i suppose, a poor beginning. celebrating the passage of time is highly overrated.

to further remind me how much time has passed, von swept into town yesterday with a bag full of chapatis, and we both immediately realized how old we were and spent the next 48 hours eating and drinking almost constantly. there were a lot of potatoes of the mashed and very-buttery variety, and i may have converted von to single malt.

and new year's eve saw us shivering by the river for the most bizarre fireworks display ever. it was drizzling, and there was a light mist over the river, and after the first salvo of pyrotechnics smoke hung in the air in a thick cloak as if over a civil war battlefield, and the rest of the show was a lot of sound and fury with only the occasional shower of sparks from a roman candle nearer to the water. by the end of the show, it had drifted over the audience, nearly triggering several asthma attacks, and sending people scurrying back into the bars for more beer, and remembering, and forgetting.