happy new year!

i love this poem by thom gunn so very much.  this poem was published in gunn's last collection Boss Cupid [fsg;2000].  it is an occasional poem seemed to be written to order.  but we all get the blues.  sometimes around the holidays.  & tho it seems like 1997 is a lifetime ago, & it is, the humor & humility displayed by gunn makes my heart sing.

this was one helluva week.  i spent four hours in the vet ER on christmas eve.  leo the pretty fierce got into a fight with a feral cat who we call spike.  spike tore a patch of fur & skin off leo's head.  we didn't find the wound until we gave leo a bath on christmas eve.  then the panic set in.  we needed to get him treated.  the wound was filled with puss.  i called several VCAs.  all were booked solid.  the last one suggested i call UC Davis, a teaching hospital with a vet ER.  i called & about 45 minutes later leo was being treated.

last night was a wild one too.  a huge storm, an atmospheric river, called the pineapple express, parked itself over Northern California.  some areas got 10 inches of rain in one night.  yes, there was flooding.  a massive tree a couple of houses down smooshed a car & is still blocking the street.  the city is full of such happenings.  we were out of power for most of the night too.  

2023 doesn't sound much different than 2020, 2021 or 2022.  i sure as fuck don't know what to expect for this year.  but it most likely will continue to be a wild ride.  we've gone to climate extremes so quickly.  last summer we roasted at a record breaking 116 F.  last night it felt like the wrath of god.  our political situation is still shaky.  economics?  i dunno.  science & technology are making huge leaps forward.  

still, like gunn says, it's a new year, & 'i'm not superstitious.'  i don't make new year's resolutions.  well, maybe this will be the year i take up pipe smoking.  saw a young man smoking a pipe while walking his dog in midtown a couple months ago.  he made me do a double take.  a pipe?!  why???  i chatted with him for about 30 seconds while i passed by.  i didn't get an explanation why he was smoking a briar.  but you know, it was so retro it was almost cool.

so happy new year to all of us!  how we name & number the years are the artifice of civilization.  & yet this artifice is so necessary.  we could call this year 1, or 200, or nothing, or whatever.  yet we plow on toward the future even tho it seems like we live in an ever-present.  what dreams my come.  but i know we are all in this shit together!