Happy Monday! (And that's not dripping with sarcasm.)

Oh. My. God. I never thought I would ever say that I was happy to see a Monday (that wasn't my birthday, Christmas, New Year or any other national holiday), but I am so glad today is here. Because it's like now the New Year can officially begin. Now, we can really start on a new page and embrace the clean slate that we perceive January 1 provides.

It's kind of exciting to get to do it all over again, only better and perhaps with more wisdom. The days will all be the same, only the number of the year has changed. The events will differ, unique challenges will come into play, but there will also be wonderful surprises. And that's what I love about New Year.

I feel like I can finally exhale. Ahhhhh. There are so many irons in the fire that were put *on hold* until the first of the year (which actually means the second week of January, because no one wants to deal with anything right away; they are all afraid of what they will walk into when they get to their desks). Either way, now we can start making some progress and catch up from the lost time. This pleases me to no end (and please remind me of this when I am pissed off next week that no one has picked up the balls -- thanks).

This is going to be a great year. I can feel it already. And, no, it's not the sugar high from the Christmas candy. This has to be *the* year. Like I said, I'm demanding that it will be groovy. I know you are just like me (I don't mean that as an insult), and you've been working hard on your goals and you want to start seeing some progress. Nothing is as frustrating as having your fate in others' hands. I effing hate that. But, it's a fact of life. Patience isn't a virtue of mine -- but, it's forced upon me quite frequently. This year, however, I'm taking fate and life by the bollocks and shall squeeze, ever so gently, until they hand over the goods. Because it is bloody well time that happens. For all of us. And, why not? What have we got to lose? (Easily said for a single, childless chick who rents, I know.) It's just time. And today starts it off.

Happy Monday. So glad you are here. Please get us off to a fantabulous start (because I'll be so embarrassed if you blow).

Just in case, here's some Happy Mondays that don't blow. xo

2009 Will Be Mine! (And yours and ours.)

I don't make New Year's resolutions. Phooey on those. What's the point? Aren't they always the same: Eat better, exercise more, pay off bills, get a better job/home/partner? Throw in travel, weight loss or quitting smoking and I think you run the gamut of the resolutionary game. And, while you might start off with a bang, by the time those twelve months pass, one would be lucky to check off a single item on the to-be-resolved list.

Instead, I would make "goals" for the year. That's a bit different than resolutions. More direct, I would say. Write X amount per day. Finish specific projects. Actually take a vacation. Get a new sofa. Do something with backyard. I tend to check off about three or four of my top six. Last year, however, things were only half done. Not that I got half the list accomplished. No. More like everything on the list made it to mid-point then...

For 2009, I'm changing my ways altogether. I still won't make resolutions or even a set of goals. I am making DEMANDS! Really. Why be nice about this? Where have all these namby-pamby resolutions and goals gotten us anyway?

So I am demanding a very fine 2009. Free of BS of any sort. Opportunities galore. Dreams realized. Fortunes made. Losses cut. Love reigning supreme. A wonderful twelve months full of joy and granted wishes. We've had enough hard times, setbacks and disappointments, don't you think? Just enough gray to tarnish the gold. Now, it's time to shine again.

Happy New Year. May it be all you want it to and more. Dammit.

Before You Go

Before you go, 2008, I want to give you a sincere goodbye. Really. I'm glad you are going. The sooner 2009 gets here, the happier we will all be.

You weren't completely awful, 2008. You did redeem yourself with the Obama win (though, you still need to explain to me Prop 8). However, all the promise you had at the beginning fell flat. There's no need to go over all the wrongs, the insults, the humiliations. No. I think CNN has something on that. I suppose the only one who needs to learn the lessons is me. And I will.

Yes, 2008, it's over. I bid you farewell. I know that 2009 will be everything you refused to be and more. I will see to that.

It's All About Getting Your Stockings Stuffed

And so it is Christmas. Eve, anyway. I wish you all well. I hope that you have a wonderful holiday, free of drama, food poisoning, *misunderstandings*, hangovers and all the other *joys* this time of year can bring.

To me, the holidays are about the little things. A smile. A heartfelt holiday wish. A card from someone far away. See's Candies. Silk soy nog. Kisses under the mistletoe. My friends. And stocking-stuffers. I always got a kick out of what I might find there. There was always some sort of curious little surprise that I would end up adoring (a roll of toilet seat covers for one's travels), or things that I might need (double pack of Lady Gillettes or a plastic rain parka), or things I really needed (cash), or sweet treats (I have a thing for Mon Cherie chocolates). It seemed I could tear through the gifts under the tree in a flash, but the stocking-stuffers were endless, both in number and entertainment.

So here's to your stockings being properly stuffed, brimming with happiness and anything else you may need and/or want. And for a little treat I can't get enough of, here's The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl. "Fairytale of New York" is the most perfectly beautiful dysfunctional Christmas song ever created. Enjoy. Cheers! xo

Blah Humbug

There's nothing worse than having to go near a CostCo right before Christmas. But, if you are like me and need need need your venti-soy-latte, you tough it out.

I'm not off the sauce yet. I figured it was futile to try right now. That's what the New Year is for, no? So, I've got a few more days of daily pit stops at Starbucks. However, the last two days have been nightmarish. Crazed last-minute holiday shoppers plague the road, reading lists, yelling on cell phones, ignoring lights and signs and double-yellow lines. Merry fricken Christmas indeed. But, every once in a while, someone slips a smile and wishes you a happy holiday, and you recall what it is supposed to/used to be like.

Yesterday, in my battle to the 'Bucks, I got lucky. In spite of (or perhaps because of) the rain, I found a space on my first lap of the little parking area that falls in the hollow of my Starbucks, a Subway, a GNC and a Verizon store, which I think all CostCo shoppers should be banned from. Really. You have the rest of the acre. Let me and my people have this meager parcel. At least it's a quick turnover there, and thus should be left to those who are desperate for caffeine, lunch, vitamins, or like to overpay for spotty cellular service and not people buying an 87-pack of toilet paper and a two-ton ham.

Today's traffic was horrific. Probably because of the lack of rain. Tempers were flaring. You could see it through the windshields of the people parked in the thruways to the exits. The whole mega-mall itself is beyond a fustercluck. The way they set up the stop signs and traffic lights took special effort to make it all the art of bottlenecking that it is. Bravo, ass-hat developers and city planners who pay no attention and sign off on anything, bravo! Yet, the best Starbucks on my side of town sits there. And so, I deal.

I did one lap, and no luck. No one even walking out of a shop, which meant CostCo shoppers had infiltrated the lot entirely. Drat. I pulled into the little side lot because I saw brake lights. No luck. It was just someone who wanted to sit in the car and toy with people jonesing for coffee like me. I turned around and started to make another lap when a man and his son coming from CostCo smiled and waved and pointed over their mega-pack of paper towels to their SUV a few spots away. I smiled back and said thank you, pulled out and signaled toward their spot.

At the same time, a man in a Passat wagon was coming around the corner from the opposite direction. By the rules of parking lots, that space should be his. And, had he not been in the middle of the two lanes, I would have waved off the CostCo dad and kept going. But I had nowhere to go with the Passat-er at an angle hogging all the room. (It's a really small lot.)

CostCo dad smiled at me with thumbs up and rushed to pack up the back of his Suburban, really please he could give me his spot. I shook my head and pointed to the Passat-er. I mouthed, "It's his." The Passat-er and I made eye contact, which I thought communicated the situation. It shall be yours, dude. I've just got no place to go until you park. Seriously. If I moved forward, then the Suburban belonging to CostCo dad wouldn't be able to back out, the Passat-er wouldn't be able to get the spot, and we'd all just sit there in another fustercluck. So, I didn't move.

Now, I must admit that CostCo dad was totally ignoring the Passat-er. In his own way, he was bequeathing the spot to me. It was sweetly gallant, but it belonged to the Passat. It's Christmas. You don't want to be quibbling over a parking spot at Christmas. Do you?

CostCo dad closed his hatch and, to my surprise, the Passat-er sped toward me, made an abrupt halt and rolled down his window. With his cell phone still to his ear (illegally, I might add -- hello, hands-free), he said rather snottily, "You know, that spot should be mine, but I'm going to give it to you, since you are obviously so determined to have it. I'll just give it to you. I just wanted you to know that it should be mine." I noted the crusty stream of bird shit running down the side of his car door. It seemed a fair part of this performance was for whoever was on the phone.

"You know," I said, "I was actually not going to take the space, but, since you are such a generous guy, I'll take it! Thanks!" In the spirit of Christmas, I stopped short of calling him an ass-hat, flipping him the bird or pointing out the massive trail of avian dung his elbow was hovering over. Not worth it.

The funny thing was, the Passat-er had been blocking another car who was trying to get out, so, when he passed, and CostCo dad pulled out, there were two spots open. Room for everyone. And, were he not blinded by the holiday spirit, he might have seen that as well. I hope he caught a glimpse in his rear view mirror. Hindsight being twenty-twenty and all.

The Starbucks was empty. My latte was perfect, and I made a quick escape out of the mega-mall only to get home and realize I have a few more things to pick up from the store. Blah humbug indeed.

So Lonely

Today, Salon has a article on loneliness. Because, I guess, it's that time of year.

While I don't quibble with people who suffer from depression, or those who have to deal with SAD each winter, I think most of the ho-hum that comes at the holidays is the clash of our natural instincts to hibernate by the fire with a cup of spiked nog watching "A Christmas Story" and the obligations to dress up, be cheery and bear the cold to make a meal of bad hors d'oeuvres while enduring mind-numbing chit-chat during this highly social season. Or maybe that's just me.

I politely cleared my schedule this weekend. I was tired, not feeling especially social, and desperately wanted to avoid the panicked-shopper traffic this weekend seems to bring. Most of my social obligations had been met by Friday anyway. The remainder can be made up after Boxing Day. So, I snuggled up, wrapped in my Four Seasons Hotel robe, and watched movies I've seen three hundred times before.

Don't ask me why I willing watch "Terms of Endearment" when I know I'm going to cry when Huckleberry Fox does after Debra Winger tells her sons she's not getting better. Ugh. But, sometimes, I long for weekends like this. Quiet time alone. Perhaps it's part of a certain type of writer's personality. I think we are solitary creatures by nature only because there are a bunch of characters living in our heads all the time. It's sort of exhausting, at least mentally. So, if I can get those characters to be quiet, I kind of blow off the rest of the characters in my life. Which sort of makes me a cruddy friend, I suppose. But, my friends are used to it to a degree. Writers are also like exotic pets to some. Our idiosyncrasies are considered part of the charm (as long as we don't claw the furniture or crap on the rug).

Inevitably, I get a bit bored at the end of my hibernation. Typically, as I'm getting my second wind, friends have lost theirs. They are donning their robes and either nursing lingering hangovers, or trying to psyche themselves up for Monday...or neither of us is willing to drive to the other's part of town, so we end up gabbing on the phone instead of in person. Which is just as well, because I was still in my robe and didn't bother blow-drying my hair after my shower.

Then, I stumbled on the Salon article. I've always been a loner but, for a moment, I became slightly panicked that I was actually chronically lonely, and without even realizing I was! I took the lonely test and ended up in the gray zone between the "normal" and "severe" range. Then I realized that I had forgotten about the "rarely" option. Never give me four choices. It's one more than I can handle.

There's a thin line between being lonely and alone. I'm quite comfortable being alone -- which is both a good and bad thing. I like the self-sufficiency, but it can also be a bit of a bad habit. Fortunately, I have friends that will call me on my idiosyncrasies and force me to be social. They know the magic words: "Drinks", "Hal's" or "A Votre Sante". And I love them for it.

Unfortunately, they disabled the embed (where's the love, Universal Music Group?), so click here for a little slice of Charlie Sexton. Just in case your beat's so lonely, too.