TWO THOUSAND AND FOUR
This year I will go to Paris, Chicago, New York and Toronto. This year I will move to Montreal. This year I will call my old friends so frequently they will find me annoying. This year I will make fabulously glamorous new friends. This year I will eat a great deal of mustard. This year; Chopin and Glen Miller. This year I will continue my studies of Opera, Gamelan, early Jamaican Ska and the Velvet Underground. French soap this year. This year I will finally and fruitfully rekindle my love affair with photography. This year I will join clubs and organizations. This year I will sit on boards. This year I will take drugs, like I promise to do every year and then never do. This year I mean it. This year I will drive my dressing further out to both ends of the continuum; I will wear dressier clothes to work and trashier clothes on the weekends and evenings. This year I will buy a new suit! Blue, I think, with a subtle pattern. And darker shirts yet more colorful socks. This year I will help the needy. A lot. This year I will infuse oils with herbs. This year I will shave like a proper man, with a brush and shaving soap. This year my longtime companion the Killer and I will perfect the baking of the madeleine. This year I will continue to admire many Asian people and things. This year I will write another song about the Moon. This year I will look at more art. This year I will get more formal education. Perhaps I’ll learn to make websites on the internet properly. This year I will learn to speak French and play the piano. This year I will talk, like I did last year, about taking up fencing. I bet a lot of interesting people are in that sport. This year I will re-read Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut. Or no, maybe some other Kurt Vonnegut book. Not that one. This year I will commission an artist to draw me 100 very small pictures. This year I will pay more attention to color and texture. This year I will watch I, Claudius again, this time on DVD from the local library. This year I will read more British magazines. This year I will continue my odd new trend of paying my landlord his rent slightly late, even though he gave us those tickets.
