Imagine the dumpsters in the photo above on fire, and you’ve got a good depiction of what the past year has been for a lot of us.

On this last day of 2017, I:

• went to Open Books and read a poem. While I was there, I bought a poetry book (Plainwater, by Anne Carson), and asked them about carrying one of my books.
• made a few more changes to The Lilac Years—specifically, I added a couple more recent poems. After today, I may cut out a few poems, but I will add no more.
• drank my last beer (Guinness Extra Stout) until 2019.
• got into a silly debate about the meaning of the word acronym. A lot of people use the word to refer to any set of initials, but, technically, it refers to a set of initials that can be pronounced as a word (e.g., NATO, AIDS, scuba, laser). Some folks agreed with me; others complained (one in rather flawed grammar) that pointing out the difference between acronyms and initials was ‘elitist’ and ‘prescriptivist’. I will spare you the details, but it both amuses and disappoints me that so many of us (regardless of political persuasion) view learning as elitist, particularly when it comes to something as basic and foundational as one’s native language.
• did laundry.
• ran the dishwasher.
• set up the Bedtime application on my phone to nudge me back to a more regular sleep schedule, since I have this nasty tendency to note that it is about my bedtime, then stay up until after 1 a.m.
• watched episodes of Nanny and the Professor, while drifting back to sleep from time to time.
• wrote and posted a new poem, and today’s love note to the day of the week.
• wrote and posted this blog entry.

I have not made any new year’s resolutions beyond the no-alcohol-in-2018 thing. I usually avoid that sort of thing. I will have an entire year in which to come up with things I want to do or change.

I will spend the rest of this evening watching TV, snuggling with the cat, and perhaps writing another poem or two. Somewhere in there, I will have dinner. Whether or not I stay up past midnight remains to be seen.

Either way, with this, I am closing out the year. Thanks for following along.

(31 December 2017)