Rheumatism of the Will

Of course this is the year during which you’re going to get it done, change yourself, pursue your dreams, and bed down with the love of your of life whose coruscating presence reaffirms and revivifies the ample array of gifts with which you’ve been blessed. It is but a certainty.

Of course this is the year during which the lion and lamb will lie down and you’ll see an ultrasound depicting their two-headed, but otherwise healthy, offspring.

Of course this is the year during which you will simply state what you think, with the requisite generosity of spirit and freedom from cant (sentimental or ironic), and your onlookers will cheer and back-pat you for doing so.

Of course this is the year during which you will continue to be afraid of the shadow your interior self casts. That shit never ends.

Of course this is the year that will leave you spiritually destitute and economically secure, or spiritually resplendent and economically gutter-bound, I forget which.

Of course this is the year during which you will recuse yourself from unspoken duties and responsibilities in order to move to Portland, OR and blow glass (bongs, pipes, ethereal hippie sculptures, etc.) with your new "guest worker" friend Hector, whose fondness for anatomically inappropriate renderings of glass you find endlessly amusing.

Of course this is the year during which engagement with and commentary on books, movies, and songs will feed the starving children of this world. Also, the year during which the products of your defecatory moments will not stink.

Of course this is the year during which you will take six months off in an effort to find yourself and return to your life to find that all the coordinates have changed, leaving you lost and a bit stupefied at the naivete with which you mistook your own subjective shitstorm for a generalized state of disorientation.

Of course this is the year during which cancer will metastasize, bellies of friends’ wives will grow big, too much wedding keg beer will be consumed, and eyebrows will arch in reaction to your planned peregrinations.

Of course this is the year when you will wake up with a terrific headache, ruminate on the 3/4 full bottle of PBR on your bedside table, walk out to the kitchen to find me on your couch, and wonder if today is the day to bring up the fact that it's been a week and we're friends and all, but what the fuck, man?