Oh Yeah, It's 2011

Huh. Yes, I skipped the opportunities to stay up late for NYE (I did end up succumbing - by 9:30, as a matter of fact), and - shockingly, for I am A Writer - to go on about the new year.

I don't believe in my life I've ever made a new year's resolution, and by and large I didn't really grow up around resolutions. Aware of the concept, yes, but unfamiliar with anyone actually troubling to enact it. So new year's has always been one of two things for me, either the opportunity to celebrate, or, since my late twenties, the opportunity to privately, silently, reflect.

Couple years ago, it was about simple, unadorned, bereft depression and shock. So last year I made it a party.

This year could have gone either way, but in the end it was WORK had the final word. Yes, because instead of early dismissal, I had the pleasure of someone showing up at the office at 2:00 p.m. and spending an hour and a half sitting in my cubicle with me working on a mass of expense reporting, dating back twelve months, the deadline for 2010 having passed by two weeks ago.

To those who have protested that I should have found a way to say no, I say: I got it over with. And the boss is in town this week. Just as well to endure the tedium, and have it off my plate, as to put it of still more. In any case, that would have led to bad feeling, and who needs that. So.

I came away from the day frustrated, tired, and without time to unwind and even nap, as might have been ideal for the pulling on of impractical cuteness and shoes - and set myself a few tasks.

The wireless router had arrived (and in record time, Amazon, it must be said! so thanks). Any remaining doubt about whether to go out was dispelled when I called Roma Ristorante and they were open.

So to spinach and feta pizza, the installation of the router, and the dismantling of the tree!

Or, in fact, not - as the case may turn out to be.

The router connection instructions were great, nicely elementary and clear and quick - it was after that that the disc seemed to lose its senses. And, of course - no paper manual. And the PDF accompaniment skips installation, in favor of "advanced internet setup" ... which would be useful, I'm sure, were the installation complete. One needs must call customer service, which I'm sure is good. But at nine-thirty, pizza snug in my tum and having been up since six, I opted for the middle-aged, single homeowner's prerogative, and said hang ALL of this (including housecleaning, router, *and* tree) and Went to Bed. Mmm, now, that was delicioso.

Up and at 'em on 1/1/11, I did move to the router, which had decided to go to new, less "stuck" looking screens for the morning ... yet even less 'splicable somehow, and so it was time to shut down and get to the rest.

My brother is right when he says it's hard to spend too much time staging for actual action. I love staging for housecleaning - and did so to my pleasure/leisure. And then talked to him for a while, about 1973. Then it was on to staging for the taking down of the tree.

And the hoisting of all the other pointless and unseen (did I mention I'm single - and mom and my stepfather came over only briefly - with my friends, V and W being the lion's share of holiday activity inside this house?) decorations up to the guest room

Which itself, now, is a staging area - everything "cleaned" up from Down Here is now piled up Up There - the double bed hosting a huge jumble of acres of silver tinsel, purple orbs, sixteen kinds of painted, ceramic, silver, brass, and even musical knickknacks, shiny decorations, multicolored candles, heavy piles of lights, and a partridge in a pear tree - none of which passed the penultimate state of Putting Away - which is to say, they're in their room, but not in their closet just yet ...



I took until 11:00 doing everything, including one load of laundry - and still stopped with Swiffing; vacuuming only the upstairs.

So this morning began with the final frontier, ten minutes of speed-sucking - and NOW the house is done.


Still no router; no.

But I've got a book I vastly prefer to spend time with. And I am online, even if only in my office. That has sufficed (well!) for a year now almost exactly. A little longer, wireless-less, I count less as symptomatic of my laziness than as the badge and banner of a better priority: for reading, fella babies, is better than computing.

It is early yet - and plans to get out in the nice weather have been shifted, by yesterday's sopping rains arriving about eighteen hours late, rendering plans to go out and collect breezes and photons in my hair are no longer interesting.

Bookshelves are a grand thing. And my Queen's Chair makes such a comf place for dozing and reading.

Mmm.


***


Oh, and happy new year, fella babies. I may not have much to say about its staggering importance, but the wish to all to have a fine 2011 is intact. All the best, kids.