Who Wants To Jump Off A Cliff With Me? And Other Chill, Wintry Dreams of Summers Past.

The day ticks slowly past as my tentative grip on reality continues to erode. I'm standing at the bottom of a narrow crack in the earth, somewhere near Moab, with Aron Ralston trying to figure out how to properly cut off an arm with a dull pocket knife. It's tricky business, and there is little room for error. The terror trickles down my spine. What's next? What's the score? Let's do this!

But then I am jolted back through time and space by my melancholy kitties jumping up on my chest for some attention, and I realize I'm back on my couch in South Salt Lake. I feel depleted by my journey to the desert. I better drink some kool-aid, and post a blog about it, before going back. Kool-aid really hits the spot, and does wonders for my mental and emotional endurance.

My ability to move spontaneously back and forth between South Salt Lake and Canyonlands National Park is made possible by my new Kindle. My wife loves me so much that she gave me one for Christmas. It provides me with some much needed escape from these January doldrums. I need some adventure. I need a sunburn on my ass. I need to see something that I haven't seen before. I'm a needy, little needer is what I am, and I wish this Wednesday could be more like a Friday already.

The most harrowing adventure I have had in recent weeks was when I was briefly driving for UPS and I found myself in a sticky dilemma where I had to deliver a series of random next day air package in 7 minutes: 1 mis-labeled package to the sixth floor of 6350 South and 3000 East, 2 heavy boxes to the third floor of 6360 South and 3000 East, and 3 envelopes and 18 large boxes to The Store at 2050 East 6200 South a couple of miles away. Impossible you say? Perhaps for an ordinary, sane person. But I have surely done weirder things. With the right kind of motivation, and a little creative problem solving, a person can be made to perform wild and desperate acts. I like to move fast. The wheels of commerce must not be made to stop. But that's another story. Let's just say I got it done, without even breaking any rules. I find my adventure where I can in these dark times.

2010 was a bad year for my adrenaline addiction. All in all it was a great year for most things, but I can't even recall a single time that I could say I nearly died during that time frame. I do love being alive, but it's good for a man's soul to stand on the edge of a tall cliff and stare into that precipice every now and then. It's difficult at times to comprehend the difference between life and death unless you can walk up to the fence in the middle and peer over at the other side. I have done this a few times in my younger, wilder days. Once or twice I even stood atop the fence and jeered at the hounds of hell whilst peeing in the wind. Can you grasp that? Never mind. That too is another story.

Where was I?

I got a Kindle for Christmas and it is probably my favorite of many gifts that I got this year. My Christmas was very full. I got more things than I even know what to do with. I got an Ipod too, which I am currently using to listen to some Wu Tang Clan. "Wu Tang Clan aint nothin' to f*** With!" So I'm locked and loaded. I got my reading material to feed me deranged inspiration, and I'm pumping some mad jams to crank me up into a crazed, and dirty blood-lust. I'm almost ready.

I don't believe in New Year's Resolutions. They are almost always about superficial ways of being more attractive to the opposite sex. I have no time for dieting, or going to the gym. And I wouldn't go to the gym even if I had the time to waste. Life is too short for that, I can promise you. Nevertheless, I can't overcome the New Year's appeal of new beginnings and second chances. So if I confess to a New Year's resolution it is to have more fun. I intend to spend some quality time thinking a little less, and living a little more, Hanging with the right people, and making no excuses. And I'll try and drag the right people along with me, probably kicking and screaming. I will get some photos out of my head. I will see and do weird things that make no sense at all, and this time I will ask all the right questions.

It's 2011, but let's party like it's 2012 if you know what I mean. Let's cut this damn arm off already.