Happy New Year!

We had a wonderful New Year's Eve and a lovely New Year's Day (more on that later). We're recovering from our week's visit with The Half-breed Swede and her man (whose blogname is in the works). I have one last day of freedom and then tomorrow I have jury duty and a ton of work to do while I'm there.

I love the new year. I love the intense feeling of opportunity and a clean, fresh start. I've been reflecting on 2011 lately and, well, I don't know what to think quite yet. I'm finishing up my list for 2011 recap and I'm taking a much needed break today. I'm also putting together my list for 2012. In the mean time and in honor of the upcoming worldwide apocalypse, I give you some of my favorite words of all time on the subject from one of my all time favorite poems:

"...on a day nearly canceled by sunlight

when the entire hill is approaching

the ideal of Virginia

brochured with goldenrod and loblolly

and I think 'at least I have not woken up

with a bloody knife in my hand'

by then having absently wandered

one hundred yards from the house

while still seated in this chair

with my eyes closed.

It is a certain hill

the one I imagine when I hear the word 'hill'

and if the apocalypse turns out

to be a world-wide nervous breakdown

if our five billion minds collapse at once

well I'd call that a surprise ending

and this hill would still be beautiful

a place I wouldn't mind dying

alone or with you..."

-excerpt from "Self-Portrait at 28" by David Berman

Happy New Year, my lovelies!