I started the year with a long walk, longer than expected, on the sidewalks of musty New York, first to a bar where I discovered an event had been canceled then across town to a building complex that demands I walk an extra ten blocks in the wrong direction before it will allow me into its time-honored walls. Every time. There, people I know, all warm smiles, warm hugs. And in-between the Lower East Side and the evasive building down some from the Whitney Museum I ran into a friend. And that was unexpected - insofar as, what! you? yay! - and delightful. An unexpected, impromptu, generous meet-up. Somehow helped me clear a bit of the baggage I was hauling from 2022.
After seeing some warm acquaintances, and friends, on top of two-and-a-half hours of walking on sidewalks, I caught a bus, but only part way. It gets complicated. Once home I popped into bed, fully clothed, fell asleep. Woke. Did some things people do when awake, such as removing a sports bra, reading a poem, watching a t.v. show I knew would lull me back to sleep.
So no booze, no big parties. I like booze and I like big parties. Another time. Soon!
One more event. When I woke for the small portion of time I saw that new work of mine had been published. A Flash autobiographical essay* of mine was online. "O Faded Elegant World" in MacQueen's Quinterly. That surely wins the prize for a journal name. It mixes the hip and the quaint. My mini-essay is personal history as recalled by the personal historian who was seven? six? when the events took place. So. Grain of sand. Definitely with a toss of salt over your left shoulder. And truth.
Here's to 2023! Peace and sanity, please.
*500 words or less, in this case
