On New Year’s Eve, I traditionally do a retrospective entry and this year isn’t any different. If you want to see the last three years, they’re here and here and here.
I ripped the carpeting out of my living room. I picked out flooring for my kitchen. I painted my pantry. And I bought myself a pair of diamond earrings because my house shouldn’t get to have all the fun.
I went for a morning walk on Bourbon Street. I spent an afternoon wandering the Mission in San Francisco. I went for a midnight tumble in Austin. And I plan to watch the sunrise over the Atlantic from seat 25F in March.
I worked too many hours of unpaid overtime. I worked through my vacations. I cried from the stress and decided that it wasn’t worth it. I stopped working overtime.
I embraced my inner product whore and became a beauty snob. I got my first massage. I got my second and third and fourth massages. I found that being fat and naked on a table was well worth it. I got pedicures and manicures and had my upper lip fuzz permanently lasered off. My coif became performance art, cycling through chocolate brown with ruby streaks, coke can red with blonde streaks, accidentally blonde, all deep auburn, back to normal with toffee streaks and then finally, espresso with blonde and eggplant lowlights. I succumbed to the siren of the $37 Soap. My skin has never looked better.
I got sick. I threw up in front of a doctor. I wished for codeine. It came true. I visited the emergency rooms of three different cities. Esteban got sick. Then he got better.
Going against my nature, I bought some Boots with heels. The Boots demanded an entire super hero wardobe to go with them. I bought a potato ricer, a bunch of books, and way too many bottles of OPI nail polish. I personally kept the stock price of Amazon.com going strong. I bought a new car and said goodbye to my Monte. I bought a dishwasher and quite possibly saved my marriage.
I shivered at a Tori Amos concert. I danced under the pot smoke and stars in the eleventh row at a Dave Matthews concert. I made grisly morning discoveries.
I said goodbye to friends (Tom and Chromey and Bryan) and family (Genevieve and just yesterday, my step-grandfather Warren). Along with the rest of my generation, I said goodbye to a saint. I had fun girl time with Penny and Carissa and had boobilicious drunk time with Eric. I laughed until I got the hiccups during pillow time with Esteban. And I realized that flying across the country is nothing if it means that you get to sing karaoke and be silly with friends you wouldn’t trade for the world.
I laughed a bunch and cried a bunch too, but most importantly, I just enjoyed every minute of the trip. I played hooky and went swimming and got sunburned and watched my lips go Louis Armstrong. I shook my fine ass in a window of a bar on Broadway and displayed my cleavage on a webcam. I gave hugs and kisses and mix CDs and jam and I received a bunch of gifts from people I didn’t know before 2003, like chocolates from England and Canada, beauty goodies, beautiful handmade paper journals, an art collage, custom bulletin board to match my kitchen, a hematite necklace, God’s own DVD copy of Amadeus, and a personalized autograph from David Sedaris. And all of it because of this here diary, which even won some Diarist awards. And I was asked to became a Beermate.
I talked with an agent. I took a writing workshop and got an A. I was overwhelmed by words in a bookstore. I got turned down for four graduate writing programs. I refused to back down and applied for ten this year. I reconnected with my old journals, but most importantly, somewhere, somehow, I started calling myself a writer. Not “a writer sometimes”, not “sort of a writer”, not “a writer when I grow up”, just a writer period. And most importantly, I realized that no matter what happens in 2004, nothing can stop me from doing just that. Nothing.
