The Living Present

They told me they could use me for a special project, one that would pay a little more. I had a feeling that they meant I would be blowing up balloons for eight hours. I was right. All in all, it's not a half-bad way to make a C.

We had an air compressor, so I didn't have to use my own breath. Although, out of curiosity, I did inflate a few in the old fashioned way, to test my lung capacity. After two and a half years of packaday smoking, it hasn't changed that I could tell.

We rigged up the many hundreds of balloons in a big net above the theater. At midnight someone would pull a length of plastic fishing line and the whole thing would come undone, creating a bombardment. We also made use of a tank of pressurized helium, cardboard cutouts, ribbons, streamers, plastic hats, noisemakers, leis and other party favors. When the rest of the staff arrived, everyone was dressed up and the girls were beautiful, in many cases more breathtaking than balloons. This was to be An Event. My shift ended at six, just as the crowd began filing in. I was half-tempted to stay, just drinking and watching the shows I'd seen a thousand times and generally getting in the way. I would have had very good company, and I would have been able to see the fruits of my labors, so to speak. But I had been unable to sleep the night before. I was exhausted, and I nodded off a few times on the train home.

Back in my apartment, feeling a little refreshed, I popped open a bottle of Chandon, a decent California brut that I paired with a fine assortment of microwaveable pizza rolls. I chain-smoked until I fell asleep around ten, I suppose, and woke up in time for what would have been midnight if I lived in Oregon.

In other words, it was like most nights, more or less. I can't stand for it anymore. I'm not asking 2011 to be better, necessarily, just different. It's not a request so much as a commitment. I can make this a new year, at least for myself. I can stop moving from one rut to the next. I can progress instead of merely aging. I've said that before, probably. And I don't doubt I meant it every time. Clearly there is something in my nature that must change before anything else can. I've a few ideas already.

"What we call failure is not the falling down but the staying down."--Mary Pickford