The Weekend After

I find the first weekend after New Year's Day good for cleaning the stains off last weekend's clothes. Or just throwing them out. Or cutting them up into rags and then throwing the rags out. They're filthy, those rags! I also find it a good weekend to brush my teeth and scrub my tongue. They're filthy, those teeth! It's filthy, that tongue!

It is a good weekend to turn up the heat and to stare into space and to let the terrible subconscious filter into the conscious. To let the terrible hands filter into the pants, thinking thoughts like, "Meat!" and "I should call Mother," and "Mother, more meat please."

The weather warmed up here, and I think that might be Father Time burning the dried husk of last year on a funeral pyre, whose ashes will scatter in the wind and form a new year. Some of those ashes will retain flame, and that's why they will hurt when they hit you.

I've never been much to make resolutions other than to behave more like an animal and to dance more Samba. You be the judge if those two are related. But this year I've resolved to do everything better for one week in January and then return to my previous ways, and hope that the difference I made in January improved the year's aggregate total of good.

A joyous New Year to you, reader! But not too much joy because that will kill you, just like too much of anything.