Fond of rumpots, crackpots, and how are you, Mr. Wilson?

Allow me to be the hundred-thousandth to quote it, and hardly the last:

"I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

—Neil Gaiman

Happy New Year, dear ones. It's just you and me against the world. Time to attack.

Jeezum crow, am I finding the prospect of a year-in-review post daunting. I apparently don't do small years any more (engagement! music career! all the things!), which I know is something of a blessing and something of the sort of curse they build summer blockbusters around. So today, while I have a bit of patented Oklahoma WiFi to exploit, I'll make a sworn promise to do an actual Year in Review within a week of my return to the Northeast, and instead do the whole "post the first line of the first post of every month of 2011" thing that all the other kids in their pumped-up kicks are doing:

January: If y'all can read this: Birthday!

February: My diabolical plan to get a good night's sleep ran into a snag a little before six, when I was awakened by the sound of my digestive tract.

March: After a great deal of careful consideration, I’ve decided what I want for my 40th birthday. *

April: Things that bring me joy on a Monday:

* the people I surround myself with
* thunderstorms (especially on the East Coast, where they are considerably rarer than in my native Midwest)
* LiveJournal being functional
* blankets
* Oreos and milk (even if it means venturing out to CVS at 11:30 on a Sunday night to get them) **

May: Before my inevitable collapse for the evening: last week I was finally persuaded to do a quick-and-sleazy recording of "One by One" (a.k.a. "that squirrel song").

June: Let me tell you a story. ***

July: I am very pleased to announce that I have exacted revenge on figmentj for getting me hooked on Mad Men, by in turn getting her hooked on Top Chef.

August: My father, my stepmother and my stepbrother are all flying into Boston tomorrow for a week's visit.

September: I'm typing this from the corner booth of an Au Bon Pain in South-ish Boston, nursing the $2.50 bottle of Nantucket Nectars half iced tea-half lemonade that's perched at my elbow.

October: Just a quick update, since I haven't posted here since figmentj's mom went into the hospital and we were about to get on a plane to Tulsa: her mother responded pretty well to antibiotics, but her gall bladder had to come out.

November: For no good reason other than inertia and the occasion blue mood, I haven't posted here in almost two weeks. ****

December: First of all, thank you thank you THANK YOU to everyone who has listened to/bought/pimped out The Elmsley Count so far!

As for the trip in progress, we leave shortly for the Texas panhandle for New Year's celebrations with figmentj's relations, which promises to be an experience of the cacophonously fascinating flavor. Cheers!



* = Criminey, did I talk a lot about my birthday this year....
** = Yes, I'm counting this as one sentence. Sue me.
*** = That was the engagement. Thought I'd make that clear.
**** = Theme of the year, really. This has been my least LJ-posty year since I started back in 2002. Fixing that is on my resolution list.