over now

But is it really?

Walking out of 2008 is for me like walking out of my room--the immaculately messy but comfortably dark room, its light painted walls made alive by some weird smears on the wall that looked like some dried-up spunk, the sight of it always makes our favorite masahista comment something like "you have been doing something inside here sir..."

It's like waking up and forcing oneself to function despite the overly heavy head--yes head, and whatever you think honey--after drowning in alcohol the night before.

And still drunk, it feels like seeing myself wearing the same shirt that I wore last night and it reeks of smoke mixed with cologne. Or hear myself whistling, while sitting on the toilet bowl, the last song I heard or sang. Or struggle at the inability to remember the names or numbers and faces of those who were introduced to me over bottles of beer and friendly glances or libido that remained contained because of some missing elements of determination or because of the inadequate charm, which is the case most of the time, by the way.

And fresh from the room, I see myself laughing over how I, along with friends, swiped at the most holy for others; decoding in perfect travesty the same teachings that became the most wicked of the instruments of oppression employed by Spain.

Then comes the desire to change clothes. And the need to bathe. And while into it, the brain revolts over being stranded in memory. But so fresh are everything that the self could not not linger with the sentimentality of the past.

And it's like stopping myself for a moment for a brief rerun of the show: I was party to everything that happened last night--good and bad, traumatic and redeeming, stupid and fabulous, intelligent and the tragic, painful and rewarding, friendly or sexual and everything in between.

And I see my family. And the friends--old and new, those who stayed and left, the real and the not-so-real. All of them played their parts in varying levels of perfection.







And follows the endless kisses as the time has come to move on.