18 december 00

I have a lot I want to get down but whenever I attempt to write I fall asleep or the phone rings. I was certain the current book would be filled by the end of the year, but it seems more likely that I'll be done with it around march, a year from when I started it. They always seem to span clean periods of time like that, through no conscious effort of my own. It's easy to think about time grouped in year-long periods these days, what with the end of the year approaching. These days always beg for self-reflection, no matter how much I really don't want to self-reflect, my birthday and new year's just days away from each other. I view my birthdate as arbitrary and I know that January 1 doesn't really mean anything either, but I can't help feeling a wee bit wary, since for the past few years things have tended to go to hell following the start of the new year, in one way or another. It's like the clock strikes midnight and my emotional stability immediately gets thrown all out of whack. How about a metaphor: it's as if my heart is a superball and it gets bounced around a whole heck of a lot before getting lost down an open manhole someplace. You know, a superball with sparkles in it. Ok, ok, so maybe this really has nothing to do with new year's and I'm just remembering it that way. I think too much about what it means to turn another year older when it doesn't have to mean a thing. I'm dreading the Fog and closed spaces. It's probably Seasonal Affective Disorder and if I continue to drink less alcohol, go back to the gym, and start frequenting the tanning salons with their mock-sunlight, I'll be okay. Actually, I'll be okay regardless, since everything is different this year. This year I got an early homemade "EATME" cake with 26 candles (one for good luck of course), and 26 candles shed a heck of a lot of light.