I don't exactly know what to say, and I guess The Boy said it best of all when electing to hold off our New Year celebration until way past midnight, to make sure 2007 was really, really for real gone and done with:

This has just been a very fucked up year.

Can get an Amen! and a Hallelujah! in here? Who's ready to test-eeee-fie?

I've made no secret my disdain for two-thousand-and-seven, so I don't think it's of any benefit to make a huge list of all the things that took place across the previous 366 days just to rehash with a pointer and director's cut commentary what should've been sufficiently processed like mechanically separated chicken.

The end of the year has a great knack for making people, in this instance me, introspective and into inspecting details. It's like we have to scramble at the last minute to really figure out why all the grand aspirations and big, huge plans we had the last time we got drunk and watched Dick Clark on television didn't materialize and why we are heading into another year without realizing all of our wildest dreams.

Well, duh.

I didn't make a list of specific goals for 2007, as I recall. I just said I was going to do whatever I wanted to do and see how that worked out. It worked out, but it wasn't a huge change from the other twenty-four years I've been alive.

It was a bad year; some may've even heard me, on various occasions, scream that it was the worst year ever but of course that's not the exact truth of things.

It was bad, but I am aware that it could've been much, much worse and it seems insolent not to take an opportunity to recognize the good fortune, or precarious arrangement within the Universe that kept things from really going haywire.

I moved to a strange and unsettling city. I had my scraped-together naïveté and optimism vivisected out of me and served as a garnish to the bagel-and-cream-cheese party tray in a breakfast meeting.  Memaw died. I lost my debit card twice. I got a warehouse club, bargain buy sized dose of isolation and detachment even though I'm really only about ninety miles away from Point A. I missed out on a bunch of things I would've liked to have been around for. A small group of people I'd hoped to become friends with cruelly ostracized me after I revealed I'm just not that into Tori Amos. I wasted a lot of time, both intentionally and purely by accident. I felt baaaaad for many consecutive days. I cut the holy bejesus out of my thumb and there wasn't anyone around to kiss it better or dial 911. I was continuously made to feel like a handicapped gerbil jogging on a rusty wheel. I lost my sense of admiration and hero-worship for Paula Deen. I met a bunch of people I just don't like at all, not one little bit. I didn't get to progressively watch any of the prime time situational comedy or dramatic episode television programming, which put me at a great disadvantage in business conversations. I broke my watch. I became mortal enemies with a dog. I had far too many conversations of an irate nature with my health insurance company because they employ some sort of extraterrestrial filing system that defies human logic. I did not find any sort of container that, when opened, produced a genie that subsequently granted me three wishes. I got lost more times than I did not. Someone scratched my car with their car in the parking deck and did not have the good grace to drop dead on the spot. Crazy A and I pushed each other off a figurative wall and cannot be put back together again the way we were before. I didn't save as much money as I would've liked. No one showed up in the middle of the night with an attaché case and sparkling diadem to reveal to me I am the long-lost heir to a fabulously wealthy kingdom somewhere in the world where taxes are out of the question. My parents continued to refuse to admit I am adopted. I had to give up a pair of shoes I was not ready to part with. Never, not even once, did I wake up looking like Giada De Laurentiis.

But on the other hand…I didn't get rabies. Nobody named me in a paternity suit. I met some delightful people. I had a terrific birthday. I didn't get any kind of fungus from the nail place I started going to. I gave my mother what can be considered, hands down, the greatest Christmas gift since the Romanovs had to stop exchanging Fabergé eggs on holidays. I seemed to always have change to give the homeless people who didn't creep me out. No one held any type of intervention out of concern for my drinking problem. I did not cause, nor was I involved in, any major motor vehicle accidents. I got not one but two custom hair colors from Rachel. I didn't die in a plane crash. I didn't inherit responsibility for a failing goat farm in the mountains somewhere. My house didn't burn down. I didn't get drafted into so much as the Salvation Army. I didn't break any bones if you don't count toes as bones. No one had to cut a wall down and use a crane to lift me out of bed so I'd be able to go to Richard Simmons' weight loss camp and sweat to the Oldies. I had a legitimate reason for buying a pair of turquoise shoes. I didn't lose an eye. I started speaking to The Boy again and didn't burst into flames as a result. I didn't contract leprosy or anything of that nature from any of the gross people on MARTA. I didn't get Punk'd. I didn't get pregnant. I didn't get converted to Mormonism. I didn't get into a bidding war on Ebay to the point that I had to auction off a vital organ to set things right with Paypal. I did not accidentally run my cellphone through the washing machine. I didn't manage to microwave a spoon or aluminum foil. I didn't get any teeth knocked out. I got to put up a Christmas tree of my very own. I got a couple of new bracelets. To my knowledge I did not participate in the creation of any crop circles, anywhere. I didn't walk around with lipstick on my teeth. I didn't grow antlers. I didn't do very many things I am wholly and undeniably ashamed of. I did not get robbed of my ruby at Target. I didn't get into any kind of odd situations that required me to commit self-immolation to prove my point. No one even attempted to talk me into getting dreadlocks. I cooked a turkey by myself and no one died. I didn't flee home to Alabama in the middle of the night and refuse to come back here.

Based on personal observations, obligatory hotspots for New Year's resolutions are as follows: Home, Work, Family, Romance, God, Health, Self and…Rock n' Roll?

Home - I expect very surely in 2008, my second year in my apartment, to actually fully get unpacked. Additionally, I'd like to find a big piece of wall art to hang above my sofa. I want to find a medium-ish size topiary form shaped like the Eiffel Tower that doesn't cost more than a trip to France. I need to get my new towels monogrammed and find the right kind of bathmats for the front bathroom. I'm actually kind of excited about it, really.

Work - I could say something ridiculously stupid about finding a way to love my job in '08, but this isn't court-ordered anger management or a course in beating a polygraph, so I won't. I will instead resolve to tolerate my job as planned until something better comes along. I am going to go ahead and concede to the fact I work with some seriously uneducated and otherwise irritating people and there is not an f'ing thing I can really do about it.  Those 12-Steppers are so right when they say it does feel better just to accept the things you cannot change. That doesn't mean I won't still circle errors in grammar/fact/punctuation/spelling in business correspondence and moan about the whole sordid situation whenever the mood strikes.

Family - Family is family and mine is card-carrying crazy; this is nothing new and nothing that will ever, ever change. The only notable thing this year is my increased need to really emphasize the but also portion of my descriptive title in this instance. I am a member of my family but also…any number of things that will hopefully prove worthwhile and see fit to redeem me from the eternal damnation I probably picked up the moment my parents' collective surname got typed onto my birth certificate. I find in my old age that I have come to appreciate my family more than I did in prior years while also creating what I would hope to be more sincere and meaningful relationships. I no longer have to "deal with" or placate or avoid or dodge or disregard anyone for the sake of keeping the peace or not making things worse or because I need them for something or whatever else gets thrown into the mix. As an adult I am afforded the right to handpick the people I interact with, be they kinfolk or stranger, friend or foe. I really believe this is the direction I need to take; it feels healthier.

Romance - or lack thereof. The Boy and I have not, I repeat have not picked up where we left off. This is a whole new endeavor for the two of us, with considerable backstory that has been made about as dead and buried as it's ever going to be. We'll see how much water that holds the next time I get good and damn pissed off with him about something-or-other…that'll really be the only way to find out. I think the fact he and I are both present and accounted for says a lot about the way things are since neither of us have to be here. I think we're 'better' as people now versus where we dropped things before. By better I mean that things have been shuffled around a little bit, we're both happier with the world in general and have been able to cast off some excess…stuff...that really didn't fit in anywhere, so it got into everything…and thanks to several bar graphs, one very complex pie chart and a detailed manifesto-slash-timeline we both (it would seem) recognize the flaw(s) in the previous design. I don't think we've exactly "changed" per se, not individually, not as a combined bargaining unit…neither of us have become the new Jan Brady, but then that's also one of our most positive components. We're both very much ourselves and have a limited risk of falling into a sandtrap of conforming to the other's personality. I don't have census data or anything to back my statement up, but I believe that's a primary factor in most crash-and-burn relationships…also, it's a very pathetic thing to watch happen. 

He's still a redneck like whoa and also pathologically inconsiderate and disturbingly organized and I'm still insensitive to the sensitivities of others and apparently often too cerebral for mixed company and I understand my refusal to participate in the passing trend of balancing my checkbook is irritating. Who would we be if not for who we are…all inclusive as that may be? Sometimes, I think I am actually going to marry him and sometimes I think they're going to have to take Ricki Lake off Atkins long enough for her to play me in the Court TV minimovie about my trial for his murder and dismemberment.

I know I'm saying too much, but that is one privilege of new year-related mental overflow. I have to try hard not to love him, so that it doesn't get out of hand. If I just gave up and let him draw all my affection, we'd all be screwed. If I didn't care enough to know not to care so much, he could decide to start a cult and I'd be right there, stirring Kool Aid and untangling speaker wires for the entire compound to could hear his message. Hurry my children, hurry. Quickly. Don't be afraid to die…

Yeah…moving right along…

God - I haven't seen any manna from heaven but I also haven't been eaten alive by a swarm of locusts or anything, so I guess The Heavenly Father and I are about as cool now as we've ever been.

Health - I'm not going to die this year. That somehow doesn't mean as much coming from me as it might from a hospice patient or kid from St. Jude's, but it's a valid resolution nonetheless. I drive in Atlanta, which is almost as good as having a price on my head. So there.

Self - I have a lot of things I want to do in 2008, but none of them that I must do doublequick in order to keep the world from falling out of orbit. Most of the things I want to do are purely selfish and likely have no potential value for the outside world. I don't aspire to lose weight so I'm a more viable donor for some kind of give-a-stranger-a-kidney program. I don't want to go to the opera so I can come home and brainstorm ways to bring more culture to underprivileged youth. The un-spayed and un-neutered pets of America have absolutely nothing to do with my personal development plan for two-zero-zero-eight. Is that such a godawful tragedy?

I plan to enroll in and also complete an ikebana course. I want to learn to make croissants. I hope to take my Christmas tree down before Easter. I aspire to separate myself from people and things that aren't holding up their end of the bargain and fail to contribute positively to my life. I intend to remain objective about things in general, especially those things I'd much rather get carried away with and worry about reality later. I would really like to consistently, faithfully remember to water my plants and actually perform the act of watering said plants.

I know I was supposed to do this days ago, but I've been busy.

The year is new. It is the ultimate conundrum of humanity and nature, this the restart of time, the resetting of clocks and calendars and scores. I say conundrum because the arrival of a year is very similar to the arrival of a person, carrying with it all the muck and goo of months gone by. It holds within itself a replicated memory so deep, so perfectly programmed and articulated into all the subtle textures, architectural planes and deep, scooped out crevices, that it defies known conscientiousness.  Do we imitate the change of time in our most primitive patterns or does the time transition only fit in with our concept of renewal? We know, we just don't know how we know.

Like a baby, 2007 has come upon us with much fanfare, anticipation, anxiety and uncertainty...not to mention all the unanswered questions from 2006 have simply been tacked onto the year that followed. 2007 screams loudly, signaling changes of both varieties, the kind we want and need, and the sort we need and would rather not have. To be fair, I'm sure there are some changes worked into the mix that are neither good for the soul and spirit nor human race at large, but that disrupts my overall train of thought.

I digress. This newborn year lays across our chests like the figure it draws personification from. Like someone's brand new seven pounds, four ounces, fourteen inches of unadulterated joy, it smells kind of weird, fails to feature an operating manual and holds unprecedented opportunity for that substance we've heard about since our days gumming zwieback toast and identifying shapes--potential.

We've had it and wasted it, seized and abused it, used it and lost it, picked it up again and put it right the hell back down.

If I had a dollar for each time someone has cooed in my ear about my almighty potential it would be unlikely my left eyeball would be popping out of my head at the idea of the cost of living in Atlanta, Gee-ore-gee-uh.

I'm sure everyone else would likewise have a similar slush fund made up from tips dropped in a jar o' Potential.

The million dollar question, though, is...potential for WHAT? You can potentially be anything from a serial strangler to Postmaster General. Obviously, that's the idea, but come on; how much more "fortune cookie" can you get? I want real resolution in this age-old spin zone. Good luck to me on that. I could probably teach myself seven dialects of Tagalog far faster than I could discover, not even the whole point, just the general idea of life as we know it.

That's where all the dog-paddling for 364 days gets us, to an exhausted platform rife with *dun dun dun* poe-tent-yee-al. The industry standards are in full effect -- We're conditioned to halfway believe in the crossover from last year to this year, the morbidly obese can become supermodel gazelles, the lame will be healed, the ugly will get complimentary Mary Kay makeovers, the determined will finally get ahead, the talented will persevere, Britney Spears will actually do something worth celebrating, and so on and so on.

Of course, but can you pull a rabbit out of a hat?

And we have such wonderful intentions in the milky dawn of a near year, bless our hearts. We all start out on the day after we've drunkenly danced with lit sparklers and promised to go up, up and away. We'll be kinder and gentler, and more patient. We'll spend less and earn more. We'll mend fences, burn bridges, pick up the slack, and cut dead weight. We'll leap tall buildings with a single bound. We'll be generous. We'll strike up a relationship with Baby Jesus. We'll get serious and quit screwing around. We'll be more aware. We will be omgz so awesome!!1one!!!eleven!!!!111!!!1!1!!!!!! We will be more efficient and organized. We'll be entirely different people. We will rule, even if all we did 1982-2006 is loaf around and whine.

I think that's probably how we pathologically coax ourselves into renewing our lease on life for another year at the same rate. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but it seems noteworthy all the same. Some woman in New York, prior to dying in the World Trade Center attacks, kept a list of things she wanted to do in her lifetime. Her mother turned it into a book. I do not want to be that kind of a person; I think it would royally piss me off in the afterlife to know my list of failures (because, really, the things you set out to do, but never accomplish are tossed in the fail pile at the end of the day...) was picked up by Random House and bought my mom a timeshare in Pensacola. That would be the ultimate bitch slap, even if I am the only one who'd see it that way and wouldn't count because I'd be six feet under.

I've racked my brain searching for something really astute and clever to vow myself into doing over the next year, but I'm coming up blank. I could promise to be in church every time the doors are open, or feed the homeless or get my eyebrows lifted so I look really surprised all the time. I could make my intentions known that I hope to cure cancer and invent keys that never get lost. I could cross my heart and hope to die that I am going to call Jenny Craig, or Sarah Ferguson or...Larry King or...whichever celebrity is selling the supplement that will reverse my genetic coding. I could subscribe to Anna Nicole Smith's school of life, but becoming a crackwhore in this my twenty-fifth year might be a little too ambitious, even for me.

I'm not being a pessimist, I'm not forsaking the time-honored tradition of promising to do a bunch of lame things in the new year that would illustrate a new leaf, I'm just...not making a shopping list for it. I tried, but nothing I could put down would mean anything. I could say I want to ride the MARTA at midnight without getting stabbed or scale a mountain without freezing to death like all the white people who go out in the snow seem to be doing these days. I could say I am determined this year to become a squillionaire. I could say I want to learn to knit something that doesn't look like a tangled mass of yarn. I could say I'm going to do anything. I have that--here it goes again--potential--but I don't want to. I am that forty-year-old everyone's parents warn them about in high school; the one who doesn't have any idea what she wants to be when she grows up. I am not even convinced I am going to grow up. I don't see the reasoning behind doing such a stupid thing. All the tried-and-true adults I know hate their lives. That's like leaping up and down squealing "Oooh! Me! Pick me! Pick ME!" in a crowd of prisoners at Bergen-Belsen whilst Der Kommandant is looking for people to try out the new torture device. Thanks, but no thanks. Okay?

What was I saying before I got off on a tangent about Nazis and the unfinished business of dead people being exploited in the media? Oh right...

To be official:

In 2007, I Virginia the Queen will...do whatever the hell I want.

This way, if I fail miserably, no one else will ever know. Especially me.

Being the Queen, it's good business, yes?

Someone said they miss the poetic Virginia.

Very well then:

Brevity,
in this instance,
has nothing to do with wit.
I am simply
Done
Talking to you

This is my daily horoscope 10/24:

Well, you've done it again -- you've managed to have yet another moment that other people would classify as falling firmly in the 'once in a lifetime' category. Your net worth (and self-worth) are on the rise.

A secret retains its power only if it remains a secret. Even though you're dying to share your good news with the world, hold on just a little bit longer. The situation hasn't quite gelled yet -- it needs time to develop.

Develop on, honey...Develop until you can't develop no mo'.

Yes, I am lame enough to put faith into the "witchery" of astrology, especially when it's created by some faceless entity/machine/program/applet via an online newsletter I don't even like very much...but only if it says what I want it to.

Let this be true and I'll be cruising around in the Monarchmobile with a plastic Virgin Mary on the dashboard, sho 'nuff.

Do your damn homework says:

We should all die doing what we do best, like steve Irwin.

Beatrice Has Left the Building says:

I assume if he was "the best" at it, he wouldn't be dead.

Do your damn homework says:

Ok. Doing what we love to do

Beatrice Has Left the Building says:

Which is?

Do your damn homework says:
Me: lovin on me some womens. You? Buying shit online

Beatrice Has Left the Building says:

Oh really?

Do your damn homework says:
Fo sho'. You'll hit checkout and then you'll check out.

Beatrice Has Left the Building says:

Poetic

Do your damn homework says:

Some woman asked me yesterday if the scarecrows on people's porches offend me.

Beatrice Has Left the Building says:

Are you offended by the autumn décor?

Do your damn homework says:
Do you all know something I don't?

Beatrice Has Left the Building says:
No, they are a little bit scary, though; in the Hobby Lobby kind of way.

Do your damn homework says:

There's some local shiznit going on about it because of the whole racism issue

Beatrice Has Left the Building says:

Scarecrows are a race now? Fuck. Now they'll have THEIR own college fund.

Do your damn homework says:
Racial epithets. . .Jim Crow Laws, etc.

Beatrice Has Left the Building says:

That totally just went over my head. Why would that offend you?

Do your damn homework says:

I don't know. I told her I'm Indian, not black. She said it's not just black people 'crow' applies to, it's all 'people of color' then she said that African Americans and Indians are virtually the same. My dad will feel better knowing he's being robbed at gunpoint by his brothers.

Beatrice Has Left the Building says:
You're a person of color? Since when? What exactly is this fabled "person of color" thing anyway? Do I want to be one?

Do your damn homework says:
Since I moved to corn country. I was going to tell her my friend Virginia is more colored than I am, but I lost interest in the whole convo and just kind of walked off

Beatrice Has Left the Building says:

I am? How so?

Do your damn homework says:
Was it not your drunk ass singing gin n' juice at my birthday party? Do I not have a math degree? There you go. I am way whiter than you.

Beatrice Has Left the Building says:

You were singing too!

Do your damn homework says:

It was my birthday, I'm excused. You on the other hand are fully responsible for all claims of havin bitches in the livin room getting it on.

Beatrice Has Left the Building says:

I meant you and Michael

Do your damn homework says:

Tell it to Dre

Beatrice Has Left the Building says:

We should stop all this before some homies from the West Coast show up simultaneously at our houses and put caps in both of us.

Do your damn homework says:

I am amazed at how unthreatening it sounds coming from you and not some big guy with a gun.

Beatrice Has Left the Building says:

I really strike you as "colorful?" Seriously?

Do your damn homework says:
You're blacker than Kevin Federline.

Beatrice Has Left the Building says:

My memaw is blacker than Kevin Federline.

Do your damn homework says:

True dat.

Beatrice Has Left the Building says:

I'm being serious. I am like the whitest white girl ever. People look at me funny when I have Nelly Furtado playing in the car because they think I'm too pasty to be blasting things of even a suntanned appearance.

Do your damn homework says:

They're looking at you because you look stupid singing along as you drive

Beatrice Has Left the Building says:

That's possible as well. So, are you going to demand reparations for the affront of Fall decorations?

Do your damn homework says:

I would, but I'd probably get them. Then I'd feel really guilty about having that $25. I'd have to drink it all up and then I'd really go to Hell.

Beatrice Has Left the Building says:

Sikhs believe in Hell?

Do your damn homework says:
It's a figure of speech. I'm an Alabama Sikh. We believe in fire, brimstone and doing seva.

Beatrice Has Left the Building says:

And you went to Mass with me a couple of times, so throw a rosary in there, too.

Do your damn homework says:

Don't bog me down.

Beatrice Has Left the Building says:

Sorry. My bad. I have to go inspire greatness in others and give myself the fundamentals for achieving the external happiness that lives inside my heart.

Do your damn homework says:

wtf? why don't you just go to work?

Beatrice Has Left the Building says:

Some kind of power of positive thinking and being an effective communicator bullshit. I don't know what it means; I just know I am supposed to pretend to possess all the qualities that go with it.

Do your damn homework says:

Being a grown up is such fun

Beatrice Has Left the Building says:

Really? I'm kind of hoping it ends soon.

Do your damn homework says: