Closing Time

With less than a week before we shut the door on 2007 and welcome 2008, the sense that one should evaluate the past year is strong. If this were not true, why else would we be inundated with "Top Ten" and "Best Of" and "Year in Review" lists during this run through the calendar?

I am no different. I would love to generate a list, if only to feel that I had done my part for posterity. Summing up our short time on earth is one of the ultimate needs of humankind. Leaving a record of our experience, of our existence. I mean, doesn't everyone need to know what I think is worthy after this latest lap around the sun?

Perhaps. Perhaps not. Here's my problem, no matter what anyone thinks: after about two weeks (if I am lucky) time begins to swirl together for me. It's as if my brain pool's temporal capacity is fourteen days or so, and after that, minutes, hours, weeks, months just spill over the sides and run together on the cement floor of my horological chamber. As a result, my list of "Top Ten" political events of 2007 could include anything from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacies to the Paris Peace Accords. My "Best Sports Moments" of 2007 could include anything from Missouri football's brief moment at #1 to Earl Morral's performance in leading the Baltimore Colts to victory in Super Bowl V. My "Best Movies" of 2007 might include Michael Clayton. It might include Michael Collins. You see where I am going with this, I am sure.

So, I will spare you my confused lists of our postmodern life in 2007. There are many places to go if you so desire to read such lists. You may go here. Or here. Or here. Or here. But you can't go here.

To appease those of you who simply can't get enough of the lists, here are my Top Ten Moments of My Own Personal Life (Which You May or May Not Be Able To Read And Say, "Hey, That Happened To Me, Too.") Which May or May Not Have Happened in 2007)).

10. The bemusing time I did that one thing that everybody laughed about the next day, but I couldn't remember doing it.

9. The hilarious time somebody said that one thing, but they meant something completely different, and it wound up changing the meaning of what they meant to something gross.

8. The mildly uncomfortable time that one girl asked me that weird personal question after I'd just met her, and I didn't want to be rude, so I kind of stammered some ridiculous answer.

7. The exhilarating, scary time those guys chased us down the alley because they thought I had made some obscene gesture at them, but, really, I wasn't even aware of their existence until they started chasing us down the alley.

6. The bizarre time we got that phone call at two in the morning, and the person on the other line was looking for that guy who used to live there, but he hadn't lived there for, like, three years, and the person on the other end of the line was sort of threatening the guy who didn't live there anymore, and I couldn't do anything but laugh.

5. The delightful time I woke up on that Spring morning and the sun was shining through the window, and it was warm on my face, and, for just a moment or two, I had no sense of needing to get anything done.

4. The wonderful time I lost that really important thing and thought I would be in really big trouble, until Monkey came in with it in her hand and said, "Is this what you were looking for?"

3. The troublesome night when I wound up walking home from the bar because somebody was being really weird, and I couldn't handle it.

2. The peaceful twilight I was wandering through the park and watching the bats fly around above my head in the darkening sky.

1. You know: the one time.