magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

[ With the small exception of the use of standard capitalization this is an entry in classic magicbeans form. So I'm posting it, along with a self-portrait. Taken 10.33 this evening. As of which point the last three months of entries are still offline. And who knows what tomorrow will bring. ]

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Somewhat randomly, I just stumbled across an explanation of the origin of April Fools' Day. In the Julian calendar, April 1st was the beginning of the new year, being the start of the first full month after the vernal equinox. (The earlier Roman calendar began on the equinox, which was labeled as the first of Martius, followed by ten months, in more or less their present form, and then an unnamed, unnumbered period of winter.) At the time that the Gregorian calendar was adopted, and the new year was moved to the first of the month following the winter solstice (which had been more or less observed as the birth of Jesus for 15 centuries), a lot of people, out of laziness, ignorance, or protest, refused to play along. In France, a tradition of playing practical jokes on those who continued to celebrate the old New Year bloomed.

Earlier today I wrote:

I feel as if I should have been preparing some grand April Fools' Day joke for a certain number of days or weeks now. But, like pretty much any holiday that generally involves planning (or anything involving planning, really), I haven't done any. So when I say that I am thinking about moving back to online entries, this is not a joke, this is actually something that I am considering. When I say that I am scared to death of the prospect of going through it all again: looking for someone, finding someone, misstepping, falling in love, falling apart, but that I'm having these little crushes again, that I have feelers out on friendster and okcupid, it is the truth. When I say that mostly I'm doing okay, that's pretty much true as well. I'm not crying as much anyway.

On second thought, I'm not sure that I'm entirely ready to start putting entries online again.

Then I wrote the first few paragraphs of my entry for the equinox, which I had somehow neglected to do for the last week and a half. I had been looking towards the equinox, in a way, as a surrogate for New Year's. My resolutions had been (somewhat violently) put on hold, and while I had succeeded in achieving the largest of them anyway, the equinox still held the hope of new beginnings. Longer and warmer days, flowers and budding trees, and a world of potential. Instead the equinox passed, relatively unobserved, not unhappily, with a pint of beer in hand and an old friend across the table, but without the bells and whistles (and fireworks and streamers and requisite midnight kiss) of New Year's.

And now we're a full quarter of the way through 2k4. On a day whose cultural significance is an artifact of its once much more eminent position in the calendar (replete with bells and whistles and fireworks and all of that, but gone now). The first of every month feels a little like this. Every solstice and equinox. Every Monday morning. This constant desire for redefinition, for resolution. And here's the crux. For me anyway. This manifests as a constant desire for things to resolve themselves. It lies at the heart of my propensity towards sloth, my lack of motivation. Once a year, if we're lucky and not hiding from the world, depressed and (metaphorically at the very least) curled up under a rock, there is a day of resolution making. While the rest of year is made up of days embodying the potential towards resolution. The more days of significance, the greater the possibility of a synchronistic chance encounter. Good news from far away. An unexpected sum of money. It's a fortune cookie lifestyle. It's the daily horoscope. It's the greatest April Fools' Day joke of all, perpetrated by history and human nature, wrapped up like a beautiful birthday gift and presented to us every day of our lives.