There’s something about New Year’s Day that brings out the rebel in me.

Perhaps it’s the phrase “Happy New Year” itself, which seems to imply that misery and discord marked the previous 12 calendar months so here’s to hoping the upcoming ones will only be better.

Frankly, if we don’t count health problems and death in the family, 2008 proved to be a pretty damned good year for me, and there are definitely some parts of the past 12 months which I’ll mourn over not being able to live through again.

Or maybe it’s the way that people whose names I barely know somehow feel free to inquire what New Year’s Resolutions I’ve made. Whether it’s the lady who’s waxed my bikini line every two weeks for the previous year, the pharmacist who alone knows just how many pills or ointments I’ve needed and why, or the clerk at the drive-thru liquor store who’s grown accustomed to seeing me pull up in my pj’s without makeup at 5 minutes to closing time, what makes them think we’re on that good of terms?

What a truly hate about New Year’s, though, is all of the blank spaces ahead. The new wall calendar hanging pristinely in my kitchen, its empty dates begging to be filled with appointments and reminders of things I mostly want to avoid. The unfilled date line on the checks I write, each a small test to determine whether the passing of time has truly sunk into my brain. The empty Moleskine notebook I bought to use as a journal, and which now mocks my lack of personal insight.

Now that the Christmas decorations have been taken down and packed away, even my home looks empty and blank like the face of a model after her makeup has been washed off.

Yes, I suppose that barrenness could represent hope, a canvas upon which my life can take on new vibrancy, new detail. Those empty dates could easily represent possibilities for adventure, and upon the pages of my empty notebook perhaps I’ll write the next great American novel.

But they could just as easily suck and, if the past is any indication, most likely will. Why should I expect the ticking of a clock’s hand and the turn of a page on a calendar to change any of that? Seems like a lot of pressure to put on a year that’s only seconds old, if you ask me.

At least when it comes to those nosy people who insist on asking what my New Year’s Resolutions are, I’ve come up with an answer: in 2009 I plan to read the complete works of the Marquis de Sade, and also to find a better hiding place for the dead bodies.

That ought to shut ‘em up.

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