What is it about the week between Christmas and New Year's? Why do you feel like you've got a hangover every day even if you haven't been drinking? And, OK, even if you haven't been drinking that much?
You have all this free time and just sort of piss it away. It's like you're identifying yourself with the old, dying year. And in this there is a strange kind of push/pull. You want it to be over with, like a trip to the dentist. Yet you hang back, not knowing what the new year holds in store for you. Janus has a new relevance and rediscovered power to strike terror, or unease anyway, into your heart.
We usually go away at Christmas, busying ourselves with other sites and sounds, smells and tastes. Couldn't manage it this year. And after years of complaining "why can't we just stay home for the holidays?" I'm complaining "why did we have to stay here for Chrissake?" Some people are born to bitch. Guilty as confessed.
All I can say is, Kapalua would suit me to a T right now.
Bea and me say hi from B.A.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21444245@N00/2145943687/
Posted by: AC + BR | December 29, 2007 at 11:36 AM
Funny you're in BA. We had originally planned to go there for the holidays...before deciding to go to Barcelona.
Seems like a lotta bloggers and Italian wine producers are down there now, including David J Rodriguez and the Piandibugnano guy, Giorgio Bucelli.
Big country, small world.
Posted by: Terry Hughes | December 29, 2007 at 01:55 PM
actually, im off from before xmas to jan. 7, and i'm getting lots of blog and website work done (and other writing) and tasting lots of wine and champagne. and walking dogs. and watching the fifth season of The Sopranos with LL.
Posted by: fredric koeppel | December 29, 2007 at 05:24 PM
Terry,
Don't feel bad. It's probably raining in Kapalua this time of year anyway! Happy New Year!
Posted by: Jeff Mazen | December 30, 2007 at 07:15 AM
Very true...which is why I drove over to Paia all the time. What a beach!
Posted by: Terry Hughes | December 30, 2007 at 12:50 PM
Terry, I don't have your chutzpah for kvetching, I may have to grow a pair of some kind.
Sitting in Mendoza wondering why I don't have the guts to kill myself & insist on dragging my failures on & around. What am I doing here?
--to quote Rimbaud by way of Bruce Chatwin.
I can't go on. I will go on-- to quote somebody else.
Posted by: David J | December 30, 2007 at 09:08 PM
Jesus, David, why are you still there? At the ends of the earth. Get back to PR or to NYC. At least you won't be miserably alone.
Posted by: Terry Hughes | December 30, 2007 at 09:25 PM
I hate drama queens & I seem to have become one!
--it's what happens when I can't run regularly for my therapy & drink more than my permissible two-three glasses of wine a day...
But I can't go back. Can't do th prodigal & return to the family game table with its last-man-standing, winner-take-all, high-stakes existential poker between my brother's widow, surviving brother & Dr.Dad & stepmom, not just yet.
To put further pressure on me, Argentino friends in Puerto Rico *&* here are watching, some of them rooting for me to manage some kind of little deal...but I *will* get over my isolating, don't-make-waves & be-a-goodboy program & will kvetch a bit. Got a draft going already.
Thanks for being there & letting me share.
I *so* wanted you to bring back news of Barcelona & the Pyrenees or wherever you managed to traipse...I miss La Vallee d'Eyne more than just about anywhere else these days. Japi Niu Yiar!
Posted by: David J | December 31, 2007 at 02:01 PM
Well, I posted something...maybe I was meant to be a sociologist...but like Bruce Chatwin, I had a problem with channeling my energies into Academia...so I'm just a failed musician, performance artist, whatever.
Life does stumble on, one way or another...Rimbaud *did* make some money running guns in Ethiopia, didn't he?
Posted by: David J | January 06, 2008 at 01:30 PM
Well my boy, you do sound like a real desperado. Be careful running those guns into Bolivia.
When do you leave Mendoza?
Posted by: Terry Hughes | January 06, 2008 at 01:40 PM
If only I had Rimbaud's poetic cojones...
Y'know, I *should* find my way to Bolivia--
there is winegrape cultivation there, in a well established polyculture tradition, it seems: they use chile/ají/pepper plants for support of the vines, instead of the 'falanga', which the Falanghina grape derives its name from...(ask yr Campania friends if you don't have the lowdown at hand)
Agenda: visit Bodega Cecchin by weekend. Maybe take my two-three week Chile 'vacation' by third week in Jan...
Alphonse DeRose, of DeRose Winery in Cienega Valley, Hollister, will be here in March. Gotta email him & see if he's something like my plan B...
over'n'out.
Posted by: David J | January 06, 2008 at 10:39 PM
Well, I just saw Mondovino again tonight, so head up there, and keep a hold of your head...
Posted by: Terry Hughes | January 06, 2008 at 11:07 PM
there a difference? I ask because my grandma always ate brown eggs. I would love to know. Thanks.
Posted by: Aaliya | January 28, 2008 at 04:31 AM