presents are unwrapped
head is exploding from noise
boy, that sure was fast

Now that Christmas is over I have that anxious new year feeling. The one where you want to set your house on fire and start over from the beginning.

I want to move furniture and paint walls and write books and read books and rip up carpet and put in floors and go to Ikea and spend a million dollars and make stacks of paper and dig through drawers.

I want to incinerate all of my clothes.

I want to buy red bookshelves with glass doors.

I want to display my 49 million typewriter tins.

I want to color my hair.

None of these count as resolutions, they're just things I want to do. I think the new year is worse than spring fever. I get obsessive determinations… Write a book! (that was a few years ago.) Sell the house! (that was a few years after writing the book.) This year I have too many. It's from being trapped in the house, I think. My choices are: Spiral into grouchy funk! or Buy new sofa and paint some bookshelves!

I probably will never paint any bookshelves. Can you imagine the poison control calls I'd have to make, at home alone with the wee one, the wee-er one, Ike-a-saurus, the evil dog, and cans of red paint?

So I am sitting here, feeling a little manic. I might have to start throwing things into the backyard as a preemptive bonfire attempt.

I want so badly to have good memories to replace the bad ones from last year. And setting things on fire seems kind of nice.