NYE 2008 party in Lexington, Kentucky

I wasn’t really sure what to write for this post…

The last thing the world needs is another flashback, top xx moments, or any other emetic look back at 2008 which is keeping all the B celebrities employed on VH1.

I spent the last few hours of 2008 wielding my camera, for good and evil – capturing moments that people would most likely want to forget today as they flop around unproductively like hungover, dehydrated fish.

There are worse ways to pay your tabs than getting immaculately dressed women to cooperate for a picture, but then again supplying the world’s Facebook photos isn’t exactly art or living on the edge either.  I was assigned to cover 2 big parties at neighboring clubs here in Lexington and managed to get some good photos of party goers.

The temperature was in the teens and as I struggled to steady my shivering hands enough to snap a picture that doesn’t look like an acid trip, I have no idea how the women in miniskirts and sleeveless dresses survived.  They bravely stood in line, painted lips freezing to their teeth, and never even let out a negative sniffle.

2008.  What can I say.  Compared to the previous two years of vagabonding, adventure, and seeking my destiny (or the occasional Singah) on some Andaman island….2008 ranked pretty low.  All my travel this year was domestic (with Yellowstone and Portland being the highlights) meanwhile my poor, undernourished passport sat neglected in a dark lock box.

All lack of travel aside, this year of working as an artist that aspires to be starving one day, tending sick loved ones, and surviving a couple of Fate’s donkey punches will not be missed one bit.  In fact, one day when I write my Magnum Opus autobiography with age-spotted hands, 2008 may have to be omitted altogether.

To slow the ooze of negativity, I survived intact to see another year and so did my family.  That is still something to thank God for every day.

So as balloons rained, kisses flew, and horns squeaked at midnight….I withdrew for a moment and felt a huge relief spread across my shoulders, like I had just shed a diseased cloak.  A sinister smile pushed itself from my heart to my face, and suddenly I knew that everything this year was going to be OK.

It is what it is.  I can already sense the immensity of 2009 – my choices are either run or embrace it.  The Chinese astrologists have me pinned as a rabbit, making my auspicious year 2011 – but I think I’ll start a little early, they probably won’t mind.

Forget about myopic resolutions with a life expectancy of March….2009 deserves something bigger, something sexier.  It’s time to push deeper into the rabbit hole.

My only resolution this year is to live. To stoke the fire. To burn.

As Andrew Higgins said “Don’t wait on opportunity to knock, break down the door and drag the old harlot inside.”

Let’s get it on.