Ah, the breach of the New Year is nigh. I got a calendar for Christmas and I can hardly wait to use it. I've fully practiced writing '08 on all my checks and the champagne is nicely chilled. Damn it, I'm as ready as I'm ever going to be.
Looking back at the year, even now, its difficult to classify. I was one man at the beginning of the year and another at the end of it, but in what shades, its hard to say. It happened. Change came. That's all that can be said of it.
When the year began, I was a renter. Now I own a house. Its not a magnificent one, but it does all right. More than that, its the first place I've ever lived that I've legitimately owned, not acted as though I owned, or said I owned, or wished I owned, but honest to god actually own. This whole thing, top to bottom, failing roof to cluttered garage is mine. Sometimes I strut around the place and feel the impulse to fly the flag out front. And why not? This is America and I own a house and I'm a man with lots of manly things lying around. Its the god damned American dream and I'm living it. Fly those Stars and Stripes, kiddo, I want the world to know.
That's how I feel at certain times, mostly in the middle of the month. Often that feeling eludes me at the end of the month when the mortgage letter comes or at the start of the month when the bank deducts my account. But that's the nature of investing, investing in yourself no less, and taking a few hits now and then is what being a man is all about. Right?
I also bought this year the first car I've ever paid off. Its a Ford, a good apple-pie SUV, not too big not too small. It guzzles gas like a like shower drain and I can't say that's ever settled well with me. These are new times, a new age, and Big Oil is as much a dinosaur anymore as the fossils they rely on. This has hit home in a personal way for us New Mexicans. Santa Fe is now under attack by Chevron and others wanting to prospect for crude in the Galisteo Basin and surrounding areas. The move is itself a desperate admittance, seldom heard stateside, that oil abroad is getting hard to find. That means t
he big boys of Big Oil are done playing with the Third World. They're coming home and we're going to see first hand the level of destruction they're capable. The battle is brewing in Santa Fe County and whether we succeed or fail at stopping them here, it will only be the beginning for domestic oil prospecting.
Me driving around in a chunk of Ford products doesn't help the matter much, but this is New Mexico and it still beats a horse. I don't know if you've ever been to the Santa Fe area, dear reader, but it is a place of many contradictions. Its one of the most liberal, democratic, pro-arts cities in American if not the most. One out of every three cars driving along St. Francis Drive has a sticker on the back that is either pro-Democrat, pro-Green, or anti-Republican. Save for the occasional funeral, I have never once seen a man where a suit in Santa Fe. Even at funerals, boots are the standard dress shoe.
And yet, you look around as you're driving through town and you'll notice the prevalence of sport utility vehicles and pick up trucks. In fact, on my last trip to California I found myself bewildered by the lack of pickup trucks and could measure my approach back to New Mexico by their ever increasing density. The reason is pretty obvious. More often than not your drive home consists of dirt roads. Most people live at the end of one and even in the middle of Santa Fe city limits, you'll occasionally find yourself spitting dirt from the back wheel. Albuquerque, the major city, is the sole exception and those living there can often forget that the rest of the state is one giant mud bog waiting to happen.
Santa Feans, then, are constantly struggling with the moral confusion of being rabidly liberal and driving all-terrain land tanks. To be accurate, most of them no longer struggle with anything of the sort and mostly drive along contentedly . And sure, you'll see a Prius or two around, often a-kilter in the slush.
In any case, I've lost sight of my topic and I'm dragging on when there's work to get to.
Here's wishing you a great new year.
[Pictured: you're typical New Mexico commute.]
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