Buttered popcorn

It's New year's in New York, out with the old and the Amsterdam. The streets are as lit as any other Saturday night, except they smell abnormally like ganja. I'm back in the city to work this holiday. I've never put much effort into this holiday. Maybe I'll join a party, or light some fireworks in the rain, watch them roll down my hill. This isn't my favorite cultural tradition. Dick Clark and Carson Daly are not my favorite Easter Bunnies, but I'll through the holiday gods a bone.

This year has been rough, but definitely not the roughest. I didn't write much, but that means I also didn't write much crap. I didn't emote on paper, I didn't serve in Occupied France. Hell, I didn't occupy. I decided I was part of the working strata that was being represented, rather than representing. Fine. I had to work. Reasonable excuse. I barely worked, though. I mostly sat and ran errands. What a year! Errands galore!

It's been a good year, but certainly not the best. Some death, some disease, some letting go. The last few months have been surreal, if anything. No mandated ways of dealing anything. I live in post-modernity where all advice is relative! So I'm told I'm doing fine. Fine is shutting down a little, playing video games, wishing to stay sleeping most mornings, general doubting of life, not going to Brooklyn, not going to Staten Island (but why would I?)...

It's been a fine year. I'm dating Hania, still. I haven't thrown that away. That's nice. It's a nice feeling not wasting something good. But really, I've put a lot of effort into keeping it floating, as has she, and it's going well. I keep cruelly joking about marriage to everyone. Maybe 2012 is the year I fully loosen my grip on social expectations and decide every big life decision. This year was sure a primer, if that's what I'm up against. I have set on some paths that require certain actions in the future. I will have to work, for instance. I can't ruin my parents' credit with vagrancy, much to my dismay.

Maybe I'll go to grad school. Options are still open. I'm not at a dead-end plywood desk, just yet. Plenty of time. Too much time, actually.

I've been getting debris off some blocked paths, too. I've been thinking about serving in the military (Is that what it's called? Am I pronouncing it right, military? It's so foreign to me). I'm really throwing my arms in the air, Who Knows rising from me like a chant.

Chantix. I quit smoking, by the way.

For 2012, I want to cut nicotine out of my diet, altogether. That's a goal.

I really want to stop judging people, too. That's a goal. That's an every day goal, you know? Writing it now only solidifies it. I need to let people be people and not the categorized and compartmentalized boxes I can push them into. I've been watching a lot of The Wire and I'm pretty okay with drug dealers, now. That's positive change, ya feel me?

I really need to see some more of the world. I started off a good streak with moving to Poland this year (where I'm writing from now), but I'd like to at least double my ambitions. At least.

I really do need to get out more, even if a friend dies, I can't let that stop me. Just keep pushing, falling, rambling. Get a hard time, let it wash over me. I'll be a low island for 2012. I will be pushed skyward by volcanoes. Palm trees will grow from my sides. This metaphor doesn't make any sense.

I really want to learn Arabic, and leave the United States with a salary. That's a goal. That's the goal.

I really need to be okay with the silence.