NP: Marillion, Clutching At Straws (CD)

I'm decreeing, and I think this has always been the case, that New Year's resolutions don't actually have to be put into effect until the first full week of the year starts. Or until you run out of various supplies that you're allegedly giving up or cutting down on. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

This also goes a long way to recognize the black hole that is the time between New Year's Day and everybody actually getting back to normal, or semi-normal routine. Most people were either off work on Friday or not doing much, so there was an odd, insular bubble around any social activities that might be planned. Despite resolutions that might indicate otherwise, I didn't feel entirely comfortable barging in on those bubbles, so it's been fairly solitary, with a few exceptions. Gee, that sounds an awful lot like 2003, but I didn't actually resolve to stop flying solo.

So far, 2004 has provided both sides of the spectrum. I wound up having a great time New Year's Eve, despite going out by myself. It was the right choice, by a wide margin. Two or three other options presented themselves, and while I certainly value the friends involved, neither felt like what I really wanted to do. I was grumpy at first, but maybe that bludgeoned my expectations, which tend to run high around this holiday, down to the point where I could actually enjoy myself without worrying. Which was sorta my conclusion about The Matrix: Revolutions, now that I think of it. A scant two hours of open bar helped, as it front-loaded the PermaGrin that comes with making sure you get your money's worth during that stretch. But Drive playing QOTSA's "Feel Good Hit Of The Summer" while wearing powder blue tuxedos certainly helped as well. As did other things.

Except one of those other things, where I may or may not have behaved way the hell out of character given past interactions, may or may not have subsequently unleashed a retaliatory karmic strike, manifesting itself last night in spades. With the sudden decision made that I would go out to see a movie for the evening's entertainment, forces started to align against me for about the space of a couple of hours. First, going back to that insular bubble of post-New Year's society, part of it seems to involved going to the movies en masse, which meant that my first, second, third, and maybe fourth choices, or all the movies I wanted to see in Evanston, were sold out. This, after a mind-numbing experience of trying to park in the theater's garage in massively overrun near-suburbia.

So I've already got an evening not in my own control, parking hell, and no movie. Next, I decided to act on my two- or three-day craving for a quality cheeseburger, mad cow be damned. Or, at least a passable, non-fastfood variety of reasonable value. So I drop in at Celtic Crown, the utterly fake Irish bar a half-mile from my apartment. Nowhere to sit. Seven-fucking-thirty and there's nowhere to sit. Now what? I look at my watch, a nice Fossil I got for Christmas. At the time, it looked like there was a big scratch on the face. This is getting ridiculous. For about twenty minutes, I contemplated a bottle of Jagermeister, several cans of Red Bull, and a McDonald's Double Quarter Pounder with cheese at the rehearsal space. Or a 40 oz. bottle of malt liquor. So you see where my head was at.

I drop in the Walgreen's on Western. No liquor. Of course not. Dominick's next door? Liquor, no Jager. There's a Jewel-Osco in the same shopping center, but after stalking the booze aisles, I realize how utterly pathetic all this is. The previously near-murderous rage starts to dissipate. I end up at the Wendy's drive-thru, then go play drums for an hour or so. Just play, no exercises, no attempts at improvement. All catharsis, the kind that got me through high school.

Then, a last-ditch effort of salvage the movie plan, only there's slim pickings at City North. Eh, I can settle for Tom Cruise as a samuari. It kills the time well enough. Back to the homestead, with a slight detour for a few beers on the corner, where's it's apparently been slow. Of course, it has, everybody's down the street at Celtic Crown. I make a more concerted effort to clean the mark off my watch, and it complies. Some drunken regulars provide free entertainment, as drunken regulars tend to do. I go home, contemplate scouring USENET for interesting MP3s, and go to sleep.

If this is what the year has in store for me, I'm in big trouble. Unless the whole thing was a subconscious effort to get me over to my drums, which I've played an astonishing 2 out of every 3 days in 2004 so far. Of course, by that logic, it could be a similarly subconscious effort to see Tom Cruise every third day, which is perhaps a bit more disturbing.