Anyway, I had lived in NYC since 1998, and I kept not caring about the Times Square thing. But when 2000 rolled around (and all the rumors of catastrophe), I told myself that if I was ever going to do it, that was the night. Yay. So I went.

It was a strange evening. I was alone, so it seemed this quiet pocket of space followed me around in all the din and shoving and pushing and whooping and bottles uncorking and cheering. At one point a bunch of people were up on a car jumping. There were barricades letting us know which way we were allowed to walk and where we could celebrate. There were nervous cops with guns, bored cops with guns, cops with guns. Beams of light in the sky, as various manhattan pathways of luminescence opened up. We did the countdown thing. Someone spilled champagne on me after the thing dropped and when our eyes met I felt ten times lonelier because they got quiet then. But then they turned around after not saying sorry and the streets were just chaos. Lots of people milling about looking for a good Drunken Evening.

I cut straight for the subway because I just wasn't feeling it that night, wanted to get a train before they all got stuffed up if that was possible. I walked to an A line stop and bopped down the stairs. I wondered if the big dead guy on his back on the train platform had died before the thing dropped or after. Some cops stood over him, some other people. The train came, I went home. I thought about that dead guy a bit. Thought about what a shitty way to ring in the new year that must have been. The evening roused all the predictible existential musings in yours truly.

I know. Not the most dramatic story for "Most Memorable Ever." I have better ones. But it is the only one with a dead guy in it!

THIS YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS. I never do these. Because my life has had enough adjusted resolutions as it is. But I think I will take advantage of this line here to think about quitting coffee for two weeks. I won't do it tomorrow. But maybe in a week or two. Because I think my daily dos copas of strong coffee are doing a number on my body, my digestion. Sorry! No resolutions.

PREDICTIONS: We will all continue to be who we are. But tomorrow we'll be doing it for a day longer.

Spinach production will drop. Fruit harvests will shrink. Oceans will rise. Tortilla sales will rise.

Another big hurricane hits somewhere near Katrinaville, convincing some people that Global Warming may be a topic we should consider in a decade or so.

The level of Benzene in the air in Eugene, OR will not decrease. People will continue to ignore the fact that the way so many of us live is killing so many others. And ourselves. Others will blog about it. Yet others will get mad that many of us point these things out. And others will not be part of the discussion because they don't have Internet. But they will keep breathing the air around them.

Democrats will launch a blitz of investigations, not playing it safe as the Right undeservedly hopes.

Bush will reveal what some Americans still don't know: that he is not a President, but a dictator in his own mind. We will see this when Democrats try to hold him responsible for...anything. He is going to be the one to force the dreaded (needed) "Constitutional Crisis." He'll rush headlong into it. He craves it. Just as Hitler craved destruction for its own sake, Bush craves the exercise of power despite the setting or players or issue.

Bush's drug and alcohol use and public intoxication/tranquilization will become harder and harder to ignore as his bubbledream falls apart (well, as he is finally forced to realize it is falling apart). We'll get to see some really historic moments on TV. Or on Youtube, for those of us who don't have TV.

Americans will continue to self-educate, using the Internet. More and more people will learn real history. More and more military AWOL and speaking out will make its way into the news. The forces of resistance to American hegemony and imperialism will grow louder. Those using the same tired old (Neoliberal and typically Western) frameworks and formulas to think up "answers" to all the problems that have been spawned by those same modes of thinking will sound increasingly more ridiculous and irrelevant in the face of the obvious underlying and burgeoning Western symptomology. But the powers that be (and this doesn't just mean Washington) will sense the growing awareness and pressure to change behaviors that normally (without the Internet) the People would not know about or be interested in, and will lash back in various ways. Entrenched systems, like cornered animals, never go quietly. Will America grow, do the hard work of actual change? Or will she self-destruct as she snarls and protects her long-running patterns and interests? I don't know. But I fear that before this boil is lanced, it is going to rain pus. Mmmm. What imagery to take with you into that golden barleyhops night....

War with Iran. (Oh boy do I hope I'm wrong on that one).

Finally, as I have predicted the last two "hot" colors (Acid Green and Mandarin Orange) to sweep our culture, I predict that a Raspberry-tint is the next fluorescent highlight to take the stage.

REGRETS: That I gave up too much heart/info in relatively recent conversations with someone I thought would be thinking of me and treating me as a friend, and who really had other ideas. Oh well, live and learn.

That I didn't see the financial trouble or "communication problems" that lay in wait for me at my last publisher so I could have been more prepared when things were yanked out from under me at the last moment. But live and learn. I'm sure there's a reason it all went down as it did.

These are what I come up with...but I don't really regret either of them. Because I trust in my path. Whatever it is. And because I feel like I'm approaching parts of myself I am meant to find, and days that are good for me. So it must have all been just what it needed to be.

HOPES: To have another year in this crazy joint.

GOALS for 2007: Escribir más cartas a mi familia. Mejorar mi uso de español. Viajar y vivir en Califas. Leer más libros. Más del sol, tomar el sol. Muchos rayos de luz.

THANKS to the universe and her wild weave for the health of all my children and especially for the safe arrival of my youngest, Luna Sohalia.

Thanks to life for helping to open my eyes. These days are amazing and like no other.

Thanks for the creative forces in this plane for giving me gifts, art and such, music ability, the ability to spring back and seek strength, even when I don't have any left. My ability to be like grass. Underfoot and on top of the world. Green and in the wind. Rife with bugs and snakes and yet curving up to the sky like a field of new smiles. Wow scary grass metaphors but I kind of like them.

Thanks to ustedes. To all of you, for mixing it up at mi casa. The crowd has grown a bit since we began, and I give thanks to all those who have helped it grow. You know who you are. It's all noted and appreciated, and when, in 2007, I am awarded Most Popular Blog in the World Named "The Unapologetic Mexican"—again—I am putting all your names on the trophy. Straight up.

If you are new to the place, or normally quiet, give a grito below and say hey. Or hay. Or hay, even. You can settle in quietly to your seat from here on in. But as we usher forth our new imaginary calender, let's do it with some pasión! Or feel free to leave New Year's notes here, of course. No pressure. But in a few hundred years when they dig up these pixelated pages, don't you want Them dusting off your name? (Good argument, eh?)

Those who have been here for a bit know: this blog is not here to change the world, raise money for politicians, gain me friends or customers or clients, or anything like that. This blog is way of marking knowledge, investigating information, understanding myself and educating myself in new areas. It is an experiment and a personal journey and one day, it will not be here anymore. Because I will be on to the next stepping stone. There may be a new blog then, there may not. But I am walking a path, here. Not building a castle. As I told my father about my current gigs, they may not be around in six months because at that time, I might be busy carving vegetables and only able to write short poems with radishes. But because this is personal, I appreciate the good energy all that much more. And while on this path, I learn a lot from you all, and it's very good to have you around. It wouldn't be the same without you, so gracias para todas tus palabras y tus corazones. and I hope you all have a great evening and a great time in whatever you choose to do to see the new year in.

And because I want to see you around some more, I beg you—in all your evening or early dawn revelry—not to be like The Gibson, okay? Drink and scream all your conspiracy theories at home, among friends or family. Like sane Americans do.

¡Feliz Año Nuevo! Happy New Year!!