That's So Last Year...

I've always wanted to say that--without sounding like a dimwit Valley girl or an obnoxious fashionista.  I'm also very, very glad to be out of 2011.  I had much to get through last year, lots of hard stuff to deal with, life-changing events--it's just a great relief to be done with such a fraught time.

I was walking the dogs this morning--a very pleasant hour, with the sunshine and crispy air--and feeling, I don't know, freer maybe, more in tune with myself on this first day of a new year.  I know there's lots of changes ahead in this year too, but I'm hoping they will be positive and joyful changes that will make my life happier, better, more grounded--assuming of course that I survive the yoga sessions.

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Here's something pertinent to absolutely nothing, other than I got a little packet in the mail yesterday:

There's an author I love, Robert McCammon, who writes these amazingly good books (Boy's Life, Gone South, Swan Song to name a few).  Jan and I have shared them for years, then suddenly he disappeared, and for ten long years there was nothing.  Turns out, he'd had enough with the publishing world making his writing decisions for him, and threw in the typewriter rather than knuckle under and not write what he wanted.  I totally admire that, though I didn't like that his words and stories were gone.

And then he started a new series a few years ago, and yahoo, he's back in the game.  The Matthew Corbett books are a total departure from his earlier stuff, but wonderful in a different way.   

Last May he went back to his old style of storytelling and published a book called The Five; a book about five members of a rock band and what happens to them as they tour the American Southwest.  This is a scary, nerve-wracking, beautiful story.  A rock and roll road trip about friends, families, crazy people and music.  I loved it.  I rarely write a review on a book--so subjective--but I was compelled to say something about this one.  I posted it on Amazon, and my parting shot was something along the lines of (paraphrasing here) "went on a road trip, want the tee shirt."  A guy who works for McCammon emailed me that indeed there actually were tee shirts..!! 

Got this in the mail yesterday.  And how cool is this..??  Course, it looks really dorky draped over the stair rail, but it's the graphic I'm talking about; so many interpretations, especially if you've read the book.

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I had a good New Year's Eve, just me and the boys, though there were way too many fireworks which set Ozzy off into his usual nervous breakdown mode.  Strangely, Max, who is often afraid of the silliest things (the clink of a fork on a plate, the camera) didn't even raise an eyebrow during the Beirut bombardment at its worst.  I had a two-finger Dalwhinnie which I sipped daintily until midnight, then as the fireworks on the Space Needle in Seattle went off on the telly, I downed the rest of the glass and toasted in the New Year with Ozzy shaking and shivering on one side, and Max snoring away peacefully on the other.  What more could a girl ask for..??