Happy 2008!

Dear Reader,

Happy New Year! I hope your holidays were festive, painless, and eventful. I've been on a whirlwind tour that started on December 22nd and ends in Alexandria tomorrow evening. Christmas has been a table for one at the Cafe Crazy.

I did everything on my list. I saw friends. I dueled to the almost-death in an epic game of Risk which will soundly echo through the ages (if only for the massive miscalculation that allowed the yellow armies a last dying breath to spit at me). I took up pipe smoking. I gave my grandparents the video Christmas card I made for them (it featured everyone in my family taking turns saying "Merry Christmas!" and adding a personal message). I spent a day color-timing with Dave, and wrote half of the first featurette script. I smoked cigars with Mark on the back porch. I worked from home and actually got some work done. I saw cousins and aunts and uncles and spent more time with my nieces and nephews than I have in the past two years combined. I wrote with Mat. I helped Jessie navigate a friendship minefield as we all struggle to redefine ourselves under the searing heat of adulthood. I got to watch others open my gifts, got to have a little Christmas with my Mom and another with my Dad. I got to drive Mark's manual VW Jetta all the way to Ohio and back and only stalled it once! I went piano shopping for four hours. I met my sister's new dog. I rung in the new year with a kiss or seven from my future wife.

This was, like, in eight days. Jess spent the week sick with the flu. I had a great Christmas. Hers was, frankly, horrible, and we're both excited to go back to Alexandria and regroup. The second day I was here it felt so...comfortable... and I realized that mentally I've barely left. Sitting on the steps at 5725 feels as natural as it ever did. Maybe more so now that I appreciate it for the oasis that it is. I felt like at any moment Scott would come out to smoke a cigarette, or I'd see Bryan walking up the steps after a long day at the office. Time stretched and stood still. In one moment I was seven and creeping down the steps to see what Santa brought. In another I was 70, looking back on all this and wondering, "Where does it all go when it's gone?"

The whole week became a meditation on family and friendship. I have a weird disconnect sometimes with the things of my childhood. I have to remind myself, for instance, that my sisters are the people I grew up with. We just don't get much time to be siblings, what with the kids and crazy schedules. Even more rarely we talk about the happy times before the divorce. It was a long time ago now - 16 years come this August - and those windows are shuttered for longer and longer periods, only opening now for brief, meaningful glimpses that cast a sad shadow on what is left. My father's financial stability should be my mother's, you know? Little sadnesses slip through cracks in the windowpanes.

But so, too, do little joys. I am absolutely adored by my nieces and nephews. Of course you're thinking, "Duh, Martin, you are, like, the coolest!" (I'm paraphrasing your adoration for me, of course), but the adoration of children is in many ways like the adoration of a puppy dog - warm, uncalculating, and unceasingly fixated on play. And when they ask you what you "do," they are asking, "What are you doing?", as in, "What are you doing right now that could possibly be more important than playing with me?"

I totally burned out on being "Uncle Martin," but that's okay. They were worth it. And they're not my kids, so I have the luxury of time to recharge. Slowly the secrets of unclehood reveal themselves.

On the friend front, I had many meaningful interactions. Dave and I had a blast color-timing scenes from the movie. I feel closest to him when we are working on something together, and in 2008 I want to find other things beside the movie we can share. Mat and I had another "Steps of Life" conversation on the hallowed ground of 5725 Phillips. He is allergic to smoke, and yet sat on the stoop with me for an hour as I tried vainly to keep my pipe lit for more than 10 seconds. Trying to paraphrase a conversation with him would be an exercise in futility, so just take my word that it was, per usual, awesome. I am blessed with guy friends who can be cheering the exciting finish of a Penguins game in one moment and discussing the intricate mysteries of love and life the next. Much as the rain does not make friends with shallow pools, I do not make shallow friendships. If you're my friend, it is going to be an intimate affair because, if you haven't noticed, I hate surface-level interactions. Not that we need to be rowing in each other's deepest waters all the time, but I want to feel like I'm interacting with your gears and springs, not your clock face, you know?

I was reminded this break, by some of the troubles Jess was having with her friends, just how important my friendships are, just how fragile the agreement is on which they are based. It was a wake-up call in many ways. When I was younger, I could afford not to pay too much heed. People called me whether I called back or not. Now, though, as those people grow and get stronger, and I realize their value to me, I simply cannot afford to lose one single friend. They are far too precious, and are becoming harder to replace. I will keep that in mind when it's time to write an e-mail or send a card. How hard is it really to make the little motions that remind someone they are in your thoughts?

That's definitely one resolution for 2008. As I approach getting married, I need to shore up my other relationships, too. I have a feeling they are only going to get more important, not less.

-Martin