1/20/04 8:15 PM: Older still ...

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes,
Five hundred twenty-five thousand moments so dear,
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes,
how do you measure,
measure a year?

In daylights,
in sunsets,
in midnights and cups of coffee,
in inches,
in miles and laughter and strife.
In five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes,
how do you measure,
a year in the life?

How about love?
How about love?
How about love?
measure in love ...
seasons of love,
seasons of love.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes,
five hundred twenty-five thousand journeys to plan,
five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes,
how do you measure the life of a woman or a man?
In truths that she learned,
or tears that he cried,
in bridges he burned or the way that she died?

It's time now to sing out though the story never ends,
let's celebrate remember a year in the life of friends!
Remember the love,
remember the love,
remember the love,
measure in love ...
seasons of love,
seasons of love.

I wouldn't wish a year like the 2003 I had on Strom Thurmond. I wouldn't foist it off on Dubya, if given a choice I'd even spare Scipio this kind of madness. Money got crazier than a hot wing in a tree, I experienced the grandest failure of my life, I saw friends and loved ones fall from positions of grace in my mind.

But when I really sit down and run the numbers on everything, I came out ahead. If the measure of the year is love, I am solidly in the black. Like Michael Datcher sitting at Boardwalk 11, standing by my side when I didn't even know that's what I needed. Like Marsha Mitchell-Bray lunching me towards healing. Like Inpu Ka Mut torpedoing a burgeoning relationship because he'd rather be there for me than run the streets with a beautiful sister. Like late nights over chicken strips with Eliot Sirota, aggressive hugs from Nau-T Agu, the quiet commiseration of my mother, in quips and cacaphony from Daniel Ruiz and more I can't even remember right now. It all adds up, and if I am to measure my thirtieth year in units of love, truly my cup is overflowing.

Last year I was miserable on my birthday. Lonely, recently laid-off, creatively constipated and desperate for changing. I'd rediscovered the nascent edges of my misanthropy and nihilism, beginning to turn away from the picket fence delusions I'd adopted. Even there, I was unwilling to surrender: "In the face of lowered expectations of loved ones and immunity to disappointments from the world at large, my heart breaking a little bit more every single one of those ten thousand days, what will I do now? I don't know yet. Watch this space. Let's find out together. Moving ..."

This year ... I'm pretty content. I just ate a gloriously chilled slice of bean pie, complete with raspberry lemonade. It's probably no surprise to anyone that I can rely on the delicious affections of a beautiful Black woman. My financial outlook is bright, working four jobs for a combination of less than twenty hours a week, adding up to the same amount of money I'd made woring forty hours a week at the AOHell job that laid me off a year and three days ago. My creative outlook is strong, having completed the chapbook I'd long intended, having completed more comic book scripts than I'd ever seen and waiting an email confirmation to start my first professional job as a writer of fiction. I'm singing, spirit how I sing, now the regular host of my very own karaoke night, Thursdays at Mel's Drive-In up on Highland near Hollywood.

I am still haunted by my past life. It took me a long time to get used to it, so it's only logical that it will take me some time to get used to a new life. I still buy groceries or clothes foolishly, thinking, "there's no one to stop me now," in reaction to several negotiated "boundaries" I no longer have. In the whole world, perhaps two people can actually tell me not to do something and have me obey -- my aunts Linda and Elzater. My own mother can't do that. I've cast aside the controls and patterns of my old life, actively seeking new patterns, new dreams and new victories.

This is the year of the hungry man
whose place is in the past
hand in hand with ignorance
and legitimate excuses.

The rich declare themselves poor
and most of us are not sure
if we have too much, but we'll take our chances
'cause God's stopped keeping score.
I guess somewhere along the way
he must have let us all out to play
turned his back, and all God's children crept out the back door.

It's hard to love
there's so much to hate
hanging on to hope
when there is no hope to speak of
and the wounded skies above say it's much, much too late
maybe we should all be praying for time.

That's not to say that I believe in "sunshine and cartwheels." My hatred for and indifference to humanity is at a height that I could never have dreamed. I was at a poetry event at Josslyn Luckett's house yesterday, reflecting on how divested I feel from the optimistic granola-and-headwrap crowd, with their unending optimism and delusions about hope and faith. I used to consider The World Stage a second home, a place where I could go and be healed. Now -- with numerous people "choosing sides" after the divorce, and the Stage itself burning me out of several hundred dollars on a web design contract, it feels like a den of liars and strangers. While I have nothing but hugs for my nieces and nephews, but they all get the same $10 on their birthday, I spend little time going out of my way for even those I love the best. Rule 285: "No good deed goes unpunished."

Still, even though I don't have faith, I have joy. Even without the fantasy of hope, I have ambition. I lead a virtually stress-free life -- sleeping when I want, waking when I want, working when I want. Floating through my cloud of disinterest, I dodge deadlines and pink bills with no more worry than a newborn babe.

It's good to be the king.

As TLC said, "Just like you, I get lonely too." I've lain in bed, staring at the maroon tinted ceiling, crying about the seemingly open ended future lying before me, promising nothing, asking the same. I've turned on my Playstation 2, chasing digital people down pixellated streets, beating them to death with baseball bats made of electric images, letting my frustration drip down game controller cables. It is a life of balance and wild variances.

Still a work in progress.

I'm the H-T-double-E-Z to the Y.
You heard mutha*****? I'm just so damned fly.
The official raw brother in the city of lies,
I'm straight dooinit, dooinit, uh, I am dooinit.