But I digress

Making resolutions is a nice game to play on New Year's Eve, preferably with friends who know you well enough that you can level with them but who won't hold you to it. We have played this game with Gorm and Sylvia before, sometimes with the variations "I resolve to___", "I do not resolve to___", and "I resolve not to___". Kierkegaard aside, there will be no quibbling over whether there is a real difference between 'not resolving to' and 'resolving not to'.

Many moons ago, Gven Golly and I began a new year's ritual of consulting an oracle, another interesting thing to do if you're with someone who understands the oracular method in question, a Book of Changes (I Ching) and a Tarot deck in this case, allowing one to communicate one's personal misinterpretation of the statements and symbols from the oracle. Probably not a first-date thing to do, but cool if there's a common language grounded in some personal history.

Most telling of all is the chronicling of what you actually do on New Year's Day, as in the old wives tale alluded to by Brother Burb. I think the theory is that New Year's Day establishes a kind of template or precedent for each succeeding day, following the principle of WYDIWYD (what you've done is what you'll do), in the coinage of my favorite novelist John Barth. Many of the characters in his narratives are also writers whose characters are looking for their own narratives, and what better guide than WYDIWYD?

I began Sunday, January 1, 2006, by sleeping late and skipping church, guzzling coffee and scarfing pancakes. Then I walked around the corner to our neighborhood Ugly Monstrosity Drug Store to buy a newspaper, but they didn't have the New York Times, so I got a Dispatch, which we read while sitting in front of the fire. It was cool enough to justify a fire in the stove but warm enough to spend time outside in just a shirt and hat, so I did that. Swept out the garage, organized some tools, nuts and bolts, recycled cardboard boxes, things like that, while Gven went through the house like a whirlwind, cooking and cleaning. Oh yeah, I also bought a new calendar, out with the old, in with the new.

Dinner with Gorm and Sylvia was delightful, not surprising because I always enjoy their company, although it still surprises me just a little what good company they are. Gven cooked a hearty meal: pork roast with sauerkraut and apples, mashed potatoes, green beans, and sourdough bread. There was dark beer, rum and tonic, and then green tea with dessert: dangerously sweet dark-chocolate rumballs and Sylvia's delicious mince pie. Naturally we had to look up the various meanings of mince, all of which have to do with cutting things up into deceptively small pieces, whether it's fruit or meat or steps or words. So we didn't.

Unfailingly polite, Gorm and Sylvia went on and on about how good the house looked, and in fact it did look good. Gven's hard work and planning have paid off in major improvements to the kitchen and den, and to hear it from her best friend and decorating guru was especially satisfying. The conversation, like a mysterious fifth presence in the room, flowed easily from each of us yet occupied a space independent of any of us, moving from their son Theo and his girlfriend, to our daughter Helga and her trip to London, to a restaurant in western Maryland, to Gorm's old girlfriend in Athens, my old girlfriend in Ann Arbor, Sylvia's old boyfriend in Waynesburg, my sojourn in the Upper Peninsula and subsequent exodus to Georgia, and a host of related topics. I guess I did more talking than usual, but the conversation seemed to take the lead.

We didn't actually play the resolution game, but Gven resolved to have people over more. I later resolved to start getting up earlier and to ride a bike or do something aerobic. The I Ching talked about using the natural mind without ulterior motives - don't count the harvest while planting - and gave one of my favorite lines, "If a man is not as he should be, he has misfortune," a kind of karmic two-way street, where being internally out of balance causes bad things to happen and where people get internally out of balance because bad things have happened. Like Johnny Cash's dad in "Walk the Line." I hereby resolve not to do that. Oops, too late.

The cards were full of images of money and inspiration, of overcoming problems and learning new skills, of strength united with tenderness, and how it doesn't work to drive for results without being mindful of the process. I'm expecting a year of positive changes in how someone earns a living. If they speak to you at all, the cards are a good way to read in a lot of relevant things you already know, and the visuals are pretty crazy.

The next day, as rain drizzled from the gray Ohio sky, it looked like a good time to prune fruit trees. A crab apple and a regular apple tree in the back yard were screaming to be cleaned up, so I got out the pruning shears and step ladder and had at it. While I was cutting the suckers on a pear tree by the garage, I noticed how filled with junk the gutters were, so I climbed up on the metal roof of the garage - while it's raining - to scoop out the leaves and pinestraw and gunk, which became excellent mulch for the flower beds below. Then while on the roof, I noticed what a mess the lumber covering the woodpile has become, so I spent an hour rearranging 2x8s and 1x6s and sheets of plywood so they could be walked on while keeping the firewood dry. Kids, do not try this at home.