hours

the days are short in january, if you calculate by hours of light, but the darkness is what makes the days longer, really... summer has long hours of sun, but they pass like christmas when you're five; too short and never enough time for everything. january's hours are longer, endless sometimes, cold rain and grey skies conspiring with the clock to make your blood run slow and your eyelids heavy by four o'clock.

so we fill the hours with things that make them not heavy but simply full, weightless... chocolate cake soaked in bourbon (will i ever eat anywhere besides mother and son bistro? probably not); hula hoop marathons in the living room; long telephone conversations with friends, more laughter than words, and before long the hours are mere minutes and then it's spring.

i am trying hard to fill my hours with things like that, and not with thoughts of things that can't go wrong but that scratch at my brain anyway... my habit is to let everything go until it's slapping me in the face all at once, and i am dialing phones and typing madly and regretting not connecting where i should have, sooner. so today, this january, i am stopping mid-sentence to play a quick game of tic-tac-toe with the baby or paint a moustache on a little cowboy. i'm forcing myself out from under the covers, talking to people and smiling and feeling better for it. rather than hitting the pause button and riding the last months of winter out in a cave, watching the world creep by, i am on fast-forward, making it pass quickly, giving it no choice but to fly.

it can't last forever, right?

year zero

i have a confession.

i am a serial blogger. i create blogs, post a few times, then get distracted, lose the log-in info and eventually they starve to death in some dark corner of the internet, huddled in a quivering heap. one of these days someone will stumble onto this pile of skeletal words i left behind, and then i'm going to be in some serious shit.

i have another one, ok?

i don't get the whole time thing. i have no idea why today is the first day of the new year. i mean, everything is dead (don't think i have this fascination with death; it's just a coincidence today, i swear) and nothing is starting new. but thanks to some guy a gazillion years ago who decided to make a new calendar, here we are, all hung over and reeking of gunpowder, full of resolve and hope and all that good stuff. it's ok, though... i have this bizarre neurosis about odd numbers and i'm just glad that damn 9 is finally gone.

so, in keeping with the spirit of the day, the new year, resolutions and all that, let's see if i can start this thing up and keep it alive. i have no idea what i'm going to say from here on out, but-those who know me are chuckling right now-i do have quite a bit to say, sometimes. and hey, if you read it here, you don't have to put up with my annoying little voice.

sound good?

k then, let's call this thing started.

xoxo-
ape