Happy New Year

This year I celebrated New Year's Eve (aka, Amateur's Night) by falling asleep at 11PM in my hotel room in Belize. You know what they say (and by "you" I mean "old people") -- 11PM is the new 1AM. I was vaguely aware of some hooting and hollering and fireworks going off at midnight but that may have been my prostate barking a little louder than normal. When I was drinking heavily and had to go to the bathroom during the night I didn't always feel the need to actually get up. You can do the math there.

The next morning I awakened early and creeped out to my balcony overlooking the Caribbean. One of the great gifts I give to SuperK when we are on vacation is not setting my alarm for some ridiculously early time. I'm always in a big hurry to get up and get going. Lots to accomplish, except I'm on vacation and the whole idea is to not have lots to accomplish. I did yoga for an hour and poured myself a cup of coffee.

I watched a young man heading past the hotel from the direction of town. He would slowly start to lean forward as he moved until he was at such a ridiculous angle that I thought surely he would pitch forward into the sand. He would stop and almost right himself before lurching into motion again. Now some invisible force would begin pulling him from behind until he looked like he was getting ready to go under a limbo bar set six inches above the ground. Implausibly, incredibly, he refused go over. Some balancing mechanism deep inside his hippo-campus was fighting back against whatever drugs and alcohol were percolating through his system. There was some confusion when he would encounter an obstacle like a dock. He would lurch up and over in a quick, disjointed manner. I used to think that if I did something dangerous and stupid very quickly that it was better that way. Apparently detouring a few feet around the end of the dock was more than his hippo-campus could handle.


SuperK and I took a brisk walk into town later in the morning for breakfast and Cuban coffee. As we made our way down the beach a dude coming our way started yelling: "Happy New Year!" He stopped us and insisted on shaking our hands. "I'm Joe from Texas. You can tell me your name. I'll remember." He was clearly not going to remember. He may not have had his own name right. He had slept in the sand somewhere. SuperK said: "I definitely need to wash my hands."


The night before we sat outside for a while and listened to a musician named Louie playing at the bar next door. He was a pretty good guitarist. He had a voice like a wolverine being fed through a wood chipper. He would harmonize with himself, ignoring the fact that harmonizing requires more than one person. He was laughably bad but people in the bar were clapping and cheering, oblivious to the noise he was making. He probably came cheap. Maybe he played for drinks. I know that when I was drinking I didn't need to have anything good going on.

It was a lot better this way.