Keeping the eye on the ball (Part 3 of ∞)

I just came to the stunning realization that Roger Federer means more to me than the sport of tennis!!!

Cos there were some moments in the match (you know, in the first set and a little of the second when he hadn’t found his ground yet) that I had a million butterflies in my stomach, so I had my eyes closed and my fists clenched for some of the really amazing shots (looks like I’ll have to catch the replay this noon as well)!

In any case, from the ones I did manage to keep my eyes open for, this could easily be the most ‘beautiful’ tennis match I have ever watched.

Cos it was like watching Roger from both sides of the court!!!!!!

And what can be more beautiful than watching the one player in history to make tennis seem like art rather than sport on either side of the net? Baghdatis is not quite as elegant as Roger, of course, cos you do get a few huffs out of him and he does often resort to that thing called energy, which Federer seems to render superfluous as he glides across the court without a whiff of noise.

If it wasn’t apparent before, it was today, that Federer does possess that rarely seen fifth gear, which was most evident in the match-turning third set (now, nothing can be more match-turning in tennis than a 6-0 that follows a dead-even 5-7, 7-5, can it?). And it was not one of those ok-you’re-losing-your-nerve-so-I-am-going-to-jump-in turnarounds, that often happens in these matches involving top players and unseeded unknowns (or to be more specific, Federer and almost anyone).

Baghdatis was actually playing exceptionally well even in the second and third sets – his hallmark passing shots that almost rival Roger’s, unbelievable backhands, sometimes more lethal than the Swiss’s own, and impeccable forehand winners were all in place, quite literally; where he faltered was his first serve percentage, I think and Roger took advantage of all his second serves, though I must say that Marcos’ second serves are pretty much as good as most players’ firsts.

Talking of which, why was Roger getting almost none of his first serves in? His first serve percentage didn’t seem to improve even towards the end of the match, where he was playing flawlessly. When you see him in that top gear, he’s usually serving extremely well (flashback: the US Open final) but that didn’t seem to be happening today. I guess the young Marcos did de-settle him a little more than the unrelenting veteran did :)

I have to take some time to marvel at the Cypriot’s return of serve!!!
And that unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable backhand return (I am relying on triplicates now, having run out of superlatives) was SIMPLY phenomenal! And that could have won him this match, quite easily it seemed, in the first set followed by that fateful early break in the second (that was when I switched to HBO for a few frantic minutes – while we’re talking numbers, I might as well tell you, that was a first for me ;))

And in some more much-needed glorification of the Greek sensation, though the score read 7-5, 5-7 at the end of the second set, the youngster did actually manage to keep the world #1 on his toes, while Roger had to fight for every point. I think there were more deuces on Roger’s serves in the first two sets, not to mention Marcos’ huge number of break chances. It was probably his comfort with delivering first serves and that powerful forehand that let him dominate so easily. And a lot of factors, including the fact that a grand slam final was unfamiliar territory to the Cypriot played into the turnaround in the critical third set.

Some other noteworthy features about the match were Roger’s ability to churn up aces at the right places and right times, despite a bad first serve % otherwise. I think he did it at least 5 times on deuce, including one back-to-back, and we all know Roger is not really the master of aces. Another thing he’s not yet mastered is the elusive dropshot and he doesn’t seem to be getting around that anytime soon. Apparently he said he didn’t like drops cos they’re akin to “fooling around”!!! A tad too deceptive for the out-thinking, out-smarting, always-one-step-ahead, you’ll-never-guess-where-that-shot-is-going-to-land Roger, I see ;)

My grievances (as a die-hard, objective fan, I am entitled to some): Why did Roger start off playing so conservatively? He does know that you can't win a match playing defensively? I realize he was doing a lot of the same in the US Open. It continues to baffle me that it’s on grass that Roger’s most aggressive, cos he is not really a bonafide serve-volleyer, by any stretch of the imagination. Another very obvious problem is that Federer is a tad weak on mental toughness (to which the great Sampras holds exclusive rights :)), as a result of which, he gets more than just a little befuddled when he finds himself in a hole. Hence, he relies on his opponent to give him some cheap points to turn it around, and Baghdatis, charitably delivered.

But all that doesn’t take away from the phenomenal way in which he rebounded right back from a set and a break down, almost as if some intangible switch somewhere had been turned on.

Like McEnroe or Enberg (I’ve given up trying to differentiate between the two monotones) said -- Looks as if he was just testing Baghdatis [in the first set], seeing if the kid would just give it to him. When the Cypriot didn’t seem so generous, he decided to move to that top gear, in my opinion, reserved exclusively for the true contenders (I think he’s had to use it only against Agassi and Safin in the past). So, that certainly says a lot about Baghdatis.

Now, Roger seems to have laid the same claim to grand slam finals that Pete laid to Center Court. “It’s mine!”, the sign says smugly, “Don’t trespass."

I think there is nothing left for me to say, but his records speak volumes – his 7th grand slam title, halfway to Pete’s all-time, his 7-0 win record in slam finals, apparently an accomplishment no one has ever had in history, not to mention matching Sampras’ 3 consecutive grand slam wins in the same year.

His “uh” on accepting the trophy was quite fitting.
“I’ve had some hard speeches, but this one is a little rough right now,” he finally said. Yep, it’s the speeches that are rough. The game, not so much :) Let’s hope the delightful Marcos is around to make them a little rougher...

Is Marcos the ‘One’?

He might well be. Since I have always tried to embrace what life throws at me (as long as it’s happening 100,000 miles away to people I’ve only seen on the other side of a celluloid screen ;)), I am slowly coming to grips with the fact that I’m not going to be watching a Nalbandian-Federer final, come Sunday. So, I decided to do the next best thing: warm up to this newbie and resort to the most therapeutic sport of all – write about it (Andy should try some of that, I think. If he’s anywhere near as eloquent on paper as he is in person, and if he wields a pen better than he wields a racket, he could come up with some masterpieces).

Barring the very real possibility of a disappointing straight sets victory as is often the case in a men’s final sporting Roger Federer, the grand finale seems pretty promising.

Let’s face it – we needed a newcomer to try and match up to this man. Roddick has absolutely no valid answers, and probably the most effective strategy for him would be the one he’s often opined: punching Federer in the locker room (which just might work). Hewitt for the most part is out of the men’s tour, if his competitiveness this slam (or lack thereof) is anything to go by. Agassi is quite visibly in his final throes, however much zeal he has left in him. Nadal couldn’t effectively tackle Roger anywhere except the painfully slow courts of Paris. Safin, quite inarguably, has the game to beat Federer, but last time I checked, you gotta be there to do it ;) And Sampras, probably our safest bet, is no longer around. So, maybe, just maybe it has to be a 20-year old Cypriot who’s taken the world by storm with as much his shot-making as his passion and intensity, not to mention that irrepressibly (it seems) disarming smile :)

Philosophy apart, even technically, he seems to have a game to match Roger’s: a powerful serve for a powerful serve and one ingenious forehand too many. Not only is he an athletic all-court player, using practically every shot in the bag – bounding up and down with his exuberance, as we’ve seen over the past couple weeks – he also seems to have a very solid service game. We know one-dimensional big servers don’t do well with Roger (think Andy) cos he effortlessly smashes returns to the most impossible of serves and the baseliners, for their part, are pretty much left scurrying around the court, thanks to his versatile shot placement (flashback: Lleyton, cos past tense is perhaps fitting here ;)).

Few would argue that Safin is probably Federer’s closest matched contemporary, what with his innovative shot-making, that awesome serve, impeccable groundstroke and a lethal backhand that comes closer to rivaling the Swiss’s own than any in recent memory. Now, Baghdatis seems to share Safin’s all-court coverage, his high-powered ace and his return of serve was pretty incredible against Andy. And from the little we’ve seen of the fiesty Marcos, he seems far more mentally tough than the temperamental Russian ever was. I’ve also seen some almost Federer-esque forehands from the kid, which, coming from me, is saying a whole heckuva lot. Not to mention the fact that he’s just making his debut and perhaps a thousand times hungrier.

While I don’t expect him to beat Roger on Sunday (a belief instigated by wishful thinking, but made more credible following watching his ruthless demolition of a more than aggressive Kiefer into the wee hours this morning), I think the talented Cypriot will come pretty close. Roger has a 3-0 head-to-head against him, but let’s face it, Hewitt had a 7-0 lead over the Swiss maestro at some archaic point in time.

Times change and the past three weeks have belonged to a certain Baghdatis and quite rightly so...

Articulate!!! That’s your only job!

You don't have to whip out a stellar ace or save a scary breakpoint. You simply have to talk about it! So how about doing it well?

Bad enough that the Australian Open is falling outrageously short of expectations (despite the fact that my expectations were pretty low to begin with). Other than the occasional Federer or Baghdatis thriller (cos the former is appearing more and more human and the latter that much decidedly surreal), the only reason I switch on ESPN2 is cos Dr. Phil or some loony who calls himself a comedian are the only competing factors on television (just to be clear, Dr. Phil doesn’t call himself a comedian but uncannily appears like one).

While sport is unequivocally pleasing to the eye (be it the artistic orchestration of a near-impossible serve and volley on grass, the sight of a wicket-keeper rise with the ball and nestle it in his palms or a QB’s impeccably placed 25-yard touchdown pass to a favorite receiver), often times it is all about the ears.

Yeah, and especially so when I am watching an early-round Roger Federer match where the exhibition is quite strictly, from one side of the court. While asymmetry is all good in Baroque paintings, on a tennis court, not so much.

So, while it is quite fitting (and sometimes, downright relieving) for an announcer to be speechless when Sampras churns out a phenomenal forehand winner at almost two sets down in a Wimbledon final, when you are watching a third round match sporting a world number one, you’d like to hear more than the squeak of Roger’s tennis shoes as he effortlessly demolishes his opponent, 6-3, 6-4, 6-3, throws in that high-powered ace, the amazing forehand pass and then the backhand half-volley for good measure.

If the commentators at the Australian Open think that tennis fans are watching the match to actually watch it, they’re sadly mistaken. The reason we are watching it is cos we enjoy the sound of a tiny ball being tossed back and forth in the background and more importantly, we like to listen to lesser mortals extol the exalted phenomenon that is Federer. And the feather in the cap is to take the necessary cues from crowd applause and look up just in time to catch that unbelievable backhand lob and smile. The rest of the time we are flipping through a magazine, browsing weblogs or focusing on the potato on our plates (I must say even the prosaic spud tries to compete in variety with the many forehands so artfully dispensed, but the broadcasters seem to be running out of adjectives).

And if I am fortunate enough to switch to NFL, I almost jump out of my skin because the contrast provided by the footballers is deafening. Joe Buck is going – he’s past the 40 yard line, the 30, the 20, the 10 --- TOUCHDOWN STEELERS! The tone, the pause, the modulation – in the right places at the right times. With intensity, with passion, with zeal. Almost as if he were on the field himself.

I know for a fact that I have watched some lackluster cricket matches just for Harsha Bhogle. And I am quite certain that Nirmal Shekar’s eloquent essays added an inexplicable dimension to my Sampras obsession in the ‘90s (not that I needed help in the area ;)).

So, obviously I am outraged when Patrick McEnroe says something lame like – He seems to be in a hurry to dismiss him.

Yeah? How about we dismiss you and send for your brother? Darn, we desperately need Johnny Mac down under!

Sporting Sunshine...

Just what Pittsburgh and Seattle have been asking for. Some much-needed sunshine!!! What Mother Nature has denied them for years, a sport called football has delivered :) So what if it is oblong and brown instead of spherical and yellow ;) As long as it can generate the passionate fervor and heart-stopping reverence in the way only sport can.

And since I’ve spent the last two weeks in rapt attention, glued to a screen that displays men fight for the ultimate prize – domination - by smashing a small green ball across a court or grappling over a bigger brown one over a field, I thought I might as well philosophize about it.

Some famous person once said that the only part of a newspaper worth reading is the Sports section cos it celebrates man’s victories instead of denouncing his failures. The rest is about death and darkness and dismay.

And I couldn’t agree more. Aside from the occasional TO-controversy or Ganguly-bashing, sport for the most part, is about hope and happiness, about triumph and joy, about all things branded “positive” by the world we live in. And it remains thus pristinely uncorrupted despite the many fallacies of humankind, that seem to taint every other realm...Where we celebrate the winners without necessarily condemning the losers.

Little wonder then that nothing else man accomplishes – gene cloning, endless trips to space, the world’s smallest microchip – seems to generate the kind of universal applause seen in true sporting wonders. And the standing ovations at the Oscars and Pulitzers still fall a tad shy, since there is but no objective winner in the arts, where beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and there is often one beholder too many. But when competence is judged on the basis of numbers, a 10-7 or a 6-4, other than the occasional ‘bad’ call, everything seems fair in this rosy world where armstrongs win multiple tour titles and samprases break innumerable records.

Since I’ve followed the lovable sixth seeds with growing fondness this season, I’d sure like to see them lift the Lombardi trophy, for having been denied it time and again by a worthy competitor, they’ve slowly but surely, worked their way towards it...And now that I have drunk the NFL kool-aid, I can hardly wait...

Down Under: Possibilities, Probabilities, Plausibilities

Roger Federer wins his seventh grand slam and sets the stage to grab all four in a calendar year.












[Sorry folks. After learning that the only two players -- the temperamental Safin and comical Nadal -- who could realistically give Him a run for his money on a hard court are out of the Open, I’m drawing a blank. It’s also a shame that Agassi is not in, considering the courts of Melbourne have oft seen him at his finest. I’m afraid this is going to be an even cleaner sweep than any we’ve seen so far.

Unless Roddick performs a magic act or Nalbandian does a re-enactment of the Masters cup final.

As for the women, Kim Clijsters is probably out, if not physically, then at least mentally. I was hoping for a long-awaited all-Belgian clash – since the Williams’ sisters seem to be nursing injuries (to their pride ;)). I don’t even recall any of the other women players, but I think it would be safe to say they go something like _________eva or _________ova (there’s like a dozen of ‘em).

As a patriotic Indian, I am rooting for Sania Mirza, of course, cos she goes into this slam as a seeded player. She is ranked 34 in the world and seeded 32 this Open. I also just found out that she is second only to Maria Sharapova in popularity rankings (if google-search frequencies are anything to go by -- though that could just as easily be attributed to the exclusively Indian tendency of sitting at a computer and typing words into a search box). I am hoping it’s more cos of her attitude and game than the nose-ring and very vocal t-shirts, but hell, I’ll sustain that for the sake of an Indian girl being the 34th best in the world...

In tennis gossip, apparently Roddick and Sharapova might have something going! Won’t that be cute – the currently uncontested studs of American tennis (I use the terms American and tennis loosely ;)). I am wondering if she’d grow taller than him though, and if he could teach her to be a sport and to laugh in defeat...hmmm...

On to more important things – one of the matches to look forward to in the early rounds at Oz would be a potential Roddick - Thomas Johansson match-up. I still remember their stunning 4-setter at last year’s W. Roddick needed two tiebreakers to dispose of the Swede. That’s the wonderful thing about the big servers vs. the baseliners. You hardly ever see a tiebreak in a Federer match (mostly cos he never lets it get to a 6-6 point). And let’s not forget that Johansson has won this slam before, beating Marat Safin, no less.

A probable Federer-Haas meeting in the round of 16 should be exciting. There’s something about Roger Federer’s aura in a grand slam that makes him invincible, but Haas is Roger’s most recent ouster and watching two all-court players (even if one is waaaaaay out of the other’s league) on hard turf is always fun.

One early round match that I’d be sitting glued to the couch for is a possible match-up between Nalbandian and James Blake. You say Blake and you look back to the stunning five-setter between him and Agassi at last year’s US open. I can only begin to imagine how it would be to watch his powerful groundstrokes and splendid returns against an eventual baseliner like Nalbandian. In any case it should be a treat to watch two baseliners battle it out.

And here are the fantasy late-round matches that are playing in my head right now (though fantasy is a bit of stretch, cos I can’t imagine anyone but the following four make it that far).

SEMI-FINAL: A Roddick-Nalbandian clash should be interesting. Nalbandian is already battling a virus (and there’s some doubt about whether he’ll even play) – a big-hitting Roddick is the last thing he needs. I have my doubts about Andy himself – you never know with him. Though David doesn’t yet seem mentally prepared to take home a slam trophy. Plus the very real problem of misfortune combined with the fact that he can’t shoot up and fire an ace to befuddle his opponent.

Now that Hewitt is in Federer’s draw he’ll have to kiss goodbye to his hopes of winning his country’s slam this year. As one fan put it, Hewitt would stand a chance if someone knocks out Federer for him. But who? Considering neither Andy nor Nalbandian will see him till the finals, Lleyton is left to fend for himself. And he has no answers to Roger’s game – if that wasn’t clear before, it was in the US Open, where he was hitting harder than ever, moving farther forward from his beloved baseline and yet coming up consistently short, literally. Apparently Roger is trying to claim underdog status behind the Ozzie – underdog status to a man he has defeated in the last 9 meetings. This is what happens, I think, when you find yourself leaps and bounds ahead of the pack. You want to get back down to the level of the lesser mortals. This is certainly not a match I’ll be looking forward to.

FINAL: I am dying to watch Nalbandian face Federer in the finals. Before you go all wide-eyed, consider this -- there is a very real chance that Nalbandian will beat Roddick in the semis, cos he is pretty good at de-settling the top players, and I think David has never been in better form. Also, he has had a more recent victory over the god of tennis (I am searching my brain for when Andy did that last, and coming up with nothing). Technically, Nalbandian has the game to win against a big server on a hard court. His heavy hitting from the baseline and excellent returns are probably the best in current men’s tennis.

The other possibility would be the much watched and re-watched and uncannily reproduced Andy-Roger clash. Roddick doesn’t stand a chance but I look forward to his cheerful bantering. Talking of which, here’s a recent exchange between the two –

When Frenchman Monfils lost the Quatar Open final to the world #1, he chose not to answer a question about any weaknesses in Federer's game.

"Don't say anything," Federer said.

"No, speak up," shouted out Roddick to loud laughter.

Oh, I just love that guy.....If only I didn’t worship the other, I’d be rooting for him...

I do realize that after drawing a blank I have rambled on for about a thousand words. What makes it even funnier is that I would watch a grand slam diligently if Roger Federer were the only contestant. So, I’ll just wind up now with the amen of tennis: GO Roger!]

Let’s be melancholy...

Ok, it’s official. The Christmas season is behind us and it’s time to be melancholy. Either wholly or in part because I sat through 20 minutes of The Daily Show last night, waiting for the laughter to come but it never did. So, while all the comedians out there are still trying to get their bearings (I think they go through the holiday season like John Milton without ever uttering a joke or laughing at one – they need their break), I did the next best thing, namely, switch to a Sex and the City re-run and settle on the couch with a box of tissues.

Yeah folks, that’s my next agenda – make a case for being melancholy. Have you ever had a day, where after all the cheerful how are yous and engaging conversations and effervescent laughter, feigned and unfeigned, you need to go straight from the coat rack to the desk, deliver a monosyllablic greeting to a co-worker, plug in your ear phones, plonk down on the chair and just be sad? It’s called i-need-a-break-from-all-the-cheer and it’s good!

In a world where everything is labeled, it’s only natural that we associate being morose with something “bad”. When there is a crisis someone cries. It’s the most natural thing to do. Yet the immediate human reaction to crying is to stop it. “Don’t cry,” people say gently, thinking they’re being very helpful. Why not? That’s what the lachrymals are there for (excluding their other important job of delivering pleasure to the haughty pink bulb called the onion we can’t do without). Hell, it’s the first sound a human being makes. That can’t be unnatural!

Sometimes, there is nothing better than sitting down on a couch or crawling under a comforter and weeping your heart out – for no apparent reason or for a variety of them. It’s easy too. Settle down with all the goods – namely, a good, weepy situation, a loaded lachrymal gland and some kleen-ex. And cry. Just make sure you do it on your own time; noone wants to watch a sniffly, tear-streaked, mucus spouting human being. While I’m at it, noone wants to watch one yelling into a cell phone or farting loudly either.

Right from the time of Shakespeare’s Jacques (who in my limited knowledge of the bard’s work, is the greatest character ever made) we have attributed a certain trait-like quality to melancholy, making it an inextricable part of personality. But what if melancholy were merely a feeling, that one lapsed into in one’s most pensive state? Melancholy has oft been associated with art – the great poets’ most profound feelings came to the fore when they were sad, composers created masterpieces at their melancholic best and many an artist has brushed a stroke of pure genius in his most dismal state.

In last year’s October issue of The Atlantic Monthly, Joshua Wolf Shenk quite eloquently – and after extensive research – says this of arguably a person most famed for his gloom, “Lincoln didn't do great work because he solved the problem of his melancholy; the problem of his melancholy was all the more fuel for the fire of his great work.”

So, why is melancholy bad?

It’s an intense feeling, just like euphoria is an intense feeling or hatred is an intense feeling. It shakes you to your very core and the sheer magnitude of it is very different from your normal state of mind.

Catch-22 has got to be the closest contemporary attestation. One of the most popular books ever written, it is a satirical comedy that cracks up at least half the world. So do dark comedies like Dr. Strangeglove and tragically comic writers like O’Toole. So, what I am really trying to do here is, sell sadness by giving you evidences of how it can be entertaining, how it can be popular and finally, how it can be ‘good’.

Two years ago, my best pal and I started the “Laugh at yourself series”. We decided that if we are not going to have THE life, we might as well laugh at the one we do and be merry :) It includes everything from academic troubles to bad relationships to profound online conversations to dreams that won’t ever come true. And believe me, despite being a saga of all our woes, the inherent irony never fails to crack us up (whoever said Wodehouse was the infallible in the area? You want a good laugh? Look at your life ;)).

So, while sometimes it’s great to laugh away your worries at other times it’s splendid to just let the tears roll....

If this post has left you with the feeling that I am going to slash my wrists, you haven’t got it. So, now go to that corner and cry...

If you still have doubts about it, I’ll leave you to ponder over a few of Shenk’s lines, since I couldn’t say it better: “....what needs "treatment" is our own narrow ideas—of depression as an exclusively medical ailment that must be, and will be, squashed; of therapy as a thing dispensed only by professionals and measured only by a reduction of pain; and finally, of mental trials as a flaw in character....”

Resolution: Be wary of that stranger in your inbox!

It’s that time of year again and you’ve spent about two weeks thinking up the best protocol for that big moment on New Year’s eve -- it could be a fine party, a bar-spree or watching a crystal ball drop; in essence, they all achieve the same thing: pretend that the 31st of December is somehow different from the other 364 days and a fifth. The universal laws of physics and astronomy and sociology shake your deep-rooted belief, however, because the sun still rises and sets (I don’t see it from my corner of the world but everybody swears it’s out there somewhere) and people still say hello and comment on the weather (New York city dares to be a little different because there it is more like hello followed by a ribbing in the stomach or running you over). All said, just another typical day.

However, there’s one thing that promises to be different, no matter what:

You open your email New Year’s day and find a deluge of messages from people whose names you barely remember, some that were on your “ignore” list, but miraculously got back in, thanks to the efficiency that is yahoo and others that don’t particularly care whether you have a great moment or hour, let alone, a whole year. So, while you are still just getting over your annoyance at the clearly meaningless names in the sender’s list, frowning at one that sounds very much like the guy back in college who’s most sociable skill was an ominous stare, it promises to get worse. You open all the emails simply because you have to. Also, following the hype and hoopla of the night before, New Year’s day itself is pretty laidback and you’re not sure what you would rather do. Plus, protocol dictates that you do something newyeary. What better than opening New Year messages? So, you open each email and find out that ALL of them read the same:

Dear All,

Wish you & your family & friends a very Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year 2006 !!

I should grant them this: they all get the year right. So, it’s not something as hollow as copy-pasting last year’s message or sending a pre-designed draft, mind you. But I am thinking yahoo and every other mail service should let go of the “send to all on your address book” feature, cos preceding the two-line message that I now have indelibly stored in my long-term memory from having seen it year after year and message after message, is an endless list of people totally irrelevant to me and my life (I admit, just a tad more than the sender himself). The more tech-savvy ones have learnt to do the bcc thing, which doesn’t really help, because the “all” speaks volumes, and you’re left wondering how many million fortunate beneficiaries you are part of.

And that gets my over-active mind pondering over how much of the well-wishing I could realistically get. I mean, this person wants not just me and my family and friends (which accounts for about 20 people off the top of my head and 100 if I sat and counted), but the whole wide world and its family and friends to have a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. Now, I don’t know about you, but I think that’s asking for too much. I am sure nature and destiny and god will agree with me when I say there is something wrong with that line of thinking and that much well-wishing. You can’t wish for too much in life. I would say it’s mighty benevolent if you just wished for something good for yourself, your immediate family, your best friends, picked one favorite cousin, your uncle’s adorable dog and the salesgirl at the supermarket that is always nice to you.

So, I wouldn’t dig out email-info for every person I have ever known, snatch that post-it slip floating around from yester years, pore over the address book from an era when it was still fashionable, put names in alphabetical and chronological order, re-align an approved list of festive words to form a coherent new year message and spend five precious minutes of new year’s eve sending out an email. The people I care about get the message – either through a personal email, text, phone call or without me ever having to say it and knowing in their hearts that I could wish nothing but goodness for them. And while I’m at it, I don’t really need a day called New Year’s and have a crystal ball drop to say it to them. That day I need to go drink in a bar and get wasted and watch circling lights and wonder if they are indeed oblong and pretend that I enjoy doing that more than I would settling down on my recliner and watching a marathon of Friends :)

Oh, and before I forget, a Happy New year to ya’ll!