The new year, so SAY SOMETHING.
For New Years Eve my date and I enjoyed a full head on sushi dinner, and a trip to the hand museum. ‘Look at your hands, see what they are trying to say to you…’ the good doctor and creator of the hand museum petitions.

My hands tell the time, and there is not much change that I’ve noticed. They are clenched now, my fingers wrapped around my thumb the way I grab a hold of Chris’ sometimes-

I begin 2006 work at the office, and the first e-mail in my work box is from a Lebaneese man…Beirut specifically- (would that be beirutinian or beirutinese?)

It reads only:
‘I am in the UK, she messed me up real bad that night.’

I’m sad to think of my friend in trouble…Killing an Arab plays scratchy and far away like the Atlantic, and I imagine a woman with dark made-up eyes glaring over a pale veil as my friend jumps from dusty oversized pillow to dusty oversized pillow; his arms flailing in the air like an escaped chicken. Thick smoke chokes the lamps overhead. In mid-hop he dials the airline and books his escape…

‘I am in the UK’ means he is not here in Texas and he is not back in Lebanon as we had tried to arrange on the 22nd. ‘she’ is his wife, and ‘messed me up real bad that night’ could mean any thing at all, but probably not any serious lacerations.

My new years resolution is to cook at home and not eat out so much. To get a feel for settling down a bit more.