GONE BABY GONE!

Yikes! And It's 2013.

I want to write that I spent the last week of 2012 in a fabulously exotic beachy location, immersed to my chin in warm frothy bubbles and a Strawberry Daiquiri in my hand. In the strong, muscled arms of my...ahem never mind. You get my point. I want to write that. I do. I will write that at some point in my life just not today.

What I spent the last week of 2012 doing was something a bit more intrinsic. Getting over a really nasty case of the Common Cold. 

Plus, I was in a sort of drugged frenzy sending out my son's college applications. Or, not really. I was only supervising the frenzy from my bed. I hope my son was feeling some frenzy. (You can never tell with teenagers.) Well, by the time 31st December sprang up, the applications had gone (all but 1) and my DEFCON 5 level cold is now in the category of the SNIFFLES. 

Question is: Do I/we want to go out and bring in the New Year tonight? Or, since the house is gorgeous and empty of children for the first time in 17 years do we stay in and...bring 2013 in with the appropriate fireworks? 

Hm. Tough decision.

On another note...

My Top 3 New Year's Resolutions:

1. One good deed to do a day.

2. One page to write a day.

3. No more freaking colds this year.

Have you sorted out yours? 

HAPPY NEW YEAR, PEOPLE!

Music and Mackerel: Innovation at its weirdest.

The One Pound Fish Man.

Known as the next PSY, Mohammed Shahid Nazir is a fish monger in London turned YouTube sensation with his unique hit, One Pound Fish. (A million hits in 24 hours.)

He wrote the lyrics, or the advertising gambit, to attract customers to his fish shop and it hit the right notes! Now, apart from his thriving fish mongering, he is also fast becoming a celebrity. Customers line up in his shop not only to buy a pound of fish but also to take pictures with Nazir. He seems amused by his fame, but more he is amazed at his good fortune. And, he is the true entrepreneur of the digital age, capitalizing on the fact that music permeates all dimensions of life.

I, for one, am on my feet and applauding Nazir, who proves that One Pound Fish more than meets the eye.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

10 Things I Love About December so far:

1. The crisp, evergreen morning air that greets me the first time I step outside the house.

2. Reading in front of a fireplace that goes on and off with the press of a button.

3. Being home alone watching The Holiday for the 500th time.

4. The busy, busy, busy-ness of the last month of the year that has me rushing to cram as many seconds into it as possible because with the snap of a finger the year will be lost forever.

5. The sudden need to stop and smell the holly wreath because a new beginning approaches fast.

6. The joy, the giving spirit, the festive smiles that permeate a winter wonderland.

7. The jingling of bells outside a store by a graciously charming Salvation Army Santa.

8. A NYC cop on a magnificent black stallion stopping to allow a bunch of kids to pet the horse.

9. Piping hot swiss cheese fondue that burns your tongue and melts your frozen bones.

10. Carols, the Nativity and the History Channel showing the history of carols and the Nativity.

That's my favorite carol, what's yours?

APOCALYPSE NOW

December 21st is the end...

...Or not necessarily The End, as in...oh, you know what I mean. 

As an evolved species, we homo sapien sapiens (as in WE, OURSELVES and US) seem obsessed by our impending Armageddon followed immediately by Doomsday; be it at a personal level: Death, or a universal level: Total and complete annihilation of all life. 

In a way, our curiosity with nonexistence is only natural. We have a brain, a mostly functional one at that (there are exceptions to this rule, I know, but lets go with the average consensus for now) and thus musings and ponderings are the brain's natural inclinations. We exist. We know we exist and thus are curious as to why we exist. Such questions confound our averagely functional brain and because we cannot find any satisfactory answers to calm it, the next natural question we ask ourselves is: When will we stop existing? And here, our very average homo sapien sapien self sits up and gasps. STOP EXISTING? Why, what an awful awful prediction! What a hideously unwelcome thought! 

Stop existing? Who? Me with my completely average brilliance? Unthinkable!

I think its the thought of not existing on a personal level that alarms us more than any mass Apocalypse, Armageddon, Doomsday scenarios. Telling homo sapien sapiens that after said imagined AAD's that maybe a wee percentage of us might survive and that life might go on even if in a highly altered state (life did go on after the dinosaurs walked like the Egyptians) will not pacify the majority of us. We will then want to be, need to be included in that wee cluster of survivors and if we can't, well then, our brains  will and can be programmed to believe that there's always Heaven with its open Pearly double-gates and promise of immortality. 

What I want to know is this: Is it so bad, the thought of not existing in the future? Whether the end is near or far, complete or just different, is it so awful to have lived this one life to its fullest and no other?

Views, comments and music welcome, people. :) And in case, you need a bit of a lift after that fatalistic read...