So this is the new year...

Blogging is a lot like sex. Sometimes, even in the absence of true inspiration, you have to do it just to prove to yourself that you still can. Here goes nothin'...

Tomorrow night marks my return to acting class and I could not be more excited. It was an unexpected and unexpectedly long hiatus since my last class ended and I could not be more excited to get back. I think what I look forward to most is the feeling of being completely open and unguarded, which I think I can say with some confidence, is essential. It's a feeling of freedom, a sense that while successes bring elation and joy, even the failures are equally potent reminders that I'm alive and giving myself to something. I compare it, as I do so many things, to standing in the ocean and braving the pounding of oncoming waves. Whether you time your jump and ride the rising water like a zero gravity trampoline or whether your legs are swept from beneath you and you're sent tumbling ass-over-head into the sand, you're having fun regardless. I can't wait to just be out there. So there's that.

As much as I love Christmas, there is something refreshing and relaxing about January, a month that really isn't under any obligation to mean anything. I guess there is the pressure of the fresh start, the new year's resolutions, but in January, nobody is really holding you accountable for those anyway. Do people even really still make new year's resolutions? Anyway, as much as I love the sentimentality and nostalgia of Christmas, January makes for a crisp, glowing morning after. Call me a cockeyed optimist (really, please do), but I feel good things lay ahead in 2012.

I'm not the least bit stressed, I've just had an incredible vacation, but damn it I could use a long drive. I need to trace the coast, watch a sunset, and eat dinner at some place I've never seen before, just because it looks good. "Smell the sea and feel the sky, let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic" as Van Morrison wrote. It's the same old feeling, I realize. Even an exhausting, thoroughly satisfying vacation begets the adverse cruelty that so much beauty exists in this world, but is unavailable but for those precious, carefully budgeted periods. I just typed that and already I disagree with myself. Vacation and travel is a state of mind, of course, but I know what I meant. It's disappointing to realize you'd like to do so much, but can only do so much. Then again, what an inspiring realization that you'll never be able to do it all.

I know what I am going to do. I'm going to take a step outside this building and take a deep breath*. I'm going to cue up some vacation music for the ride home. I'm going to drink wine. I'm going to grill something. I'm going to celebrate.

*It's become sort of a tradition of mine with the new job. I don't really get to go out for lunch so most days I am inside for ten hours straight, albeit with a great view. Still, that first scent of the real, night air is energizing.

P.S. Another thing about my new office, I'm on a new floor where the paint is barely even dry. The place looks great, but you can tell construction was rushed as little errors pop up. For example, the back hall is carpeted and there are these bubbles where the glue didn't take and the carpet is coming up. I go out of my way to walk down that hallway and I can't stop myself from stepping on the carpet bubbles. It feels good under the foot and makes a nifty little noise. I can't decide if this is OCD or living life to the fullest.

(BLOGGER IS APPARENTLY PUNISHING ME FOR MY DORMANCY BY DENYING ME MY RIGHT TO USE PARAGRAPHS. BLAME THEM, NOT ME.)