Welcome To A New Decade

Happy New Year, gentle readers!

It may seem like that greeting is a couple of weeks late, but it is still the new year, is it not? Exactly. Not only have we entered a new year, but we've begun a new decade, and I think that calls for added optimism. At least it does here in Sassyland. The evil that was the first half of December, 2009, has become a mere dot in my rear view mirror, and forward I go. I begin the celebration of 2010 (which, for the record, I am choosing to call "two-thousand-ten," as opposed to "twenty-ten," at least for now) by sharing with you this photo of me and my friend Tom. It is my first photo of the new year, taken with my cell phone at the Orbit Room in San Francisco at about 12:05 a.m. on January 1st. Fun, no? As it so happens I left the Orbit Room about 10 minutes later and went home, but that just means I got the best of both worlds. I got to ring in the new year and decade, and I got a good night's sleep.


That weekend the party continued. The night of January 2nd, I made my way across the Bay to Luka's Taproom in Oakland for my friend Pat's birthday celebration. It was there that this fabulous photo of me and the lovely Chris Sams was snapped. Are we not pretty? I called it a relatively early night that evening, too, but I'm thinking this may be my new way of life: to socialize and still get some decent rest. So far it's been working for me.

I have some pretty specific goals for the new year, not the least of which involves my singing habit. I've taken up with a voice coach again (much to the dismay of my budget, but oh, well), and I intend to sing every week. I've not decided yet whether voice lessons count, but karaoke and Sober Nixon practice do. Plus, the Beatles sing along with live accompaniment at Cafe Royale that I went to last week definitely counts.

I have some other goals that involve self esteem and emotions, which hopefully will help prevent a repeat of the December '09 yuckiness. They're fun, too, but you can't belt high self esteem into a karaoke microphone or at an open mic. Or can you? Well, here's to answering that question in 2010 and beyond.