2011

The clock shows that it's less than an hour until midnight and 2012. I'm watching an encore presentation of Austin City Limits--Tom Waits from 1978, the year that I turned 20. With a background of guitar, bass, soft drums and muted trumpet, Waits is in a gas station setting on stage. He shows up between two old gas pumps, and he's smoking a cigarette. He moves forward and takes a seat on a tire and starts telling a story in that voice of his.

2011 wasn't a banner year. Sure, it had its moments, but the stretch from January 1 to tonight is mostly colored by difficulties--I was denied promotion to full professor, a slap in my professional face that came completely out of the blue; my first surgery ever (hernia), followed by the most serious health issue I've ever faced; late in the year the death of a good friend and colleague; and finally head lice.

But it had its great moments as well: I published a poem; I had some great gigs at Good Stuff Grocery, Korner Kopia, Iron Horse Station and Acoustic Coffeehouse; I had a great couple of gigs for the honors students at Yoakley Hall, ETSU; I played the Waller in the Holler with the White Water Band and did a good solo set there as well; I reunited with Mark Chesshir for a great little duo gig at Dennis Cope's birthday party; I enjoyed teaching Native American literature through the fall semester; some fine times with friends, particularly with (in addition to those listed or implied above) those great folks from up on the mountain in Erwin.

Tom Waits has his band on the stage. He has a guitar now, and he's singing with that voice and laying down some lyrics:

"And at night when it's raining, it's pouring
The old man is a-snoring
Now I lay me down to sleep
I hear the sirens in the street
And all my dreams are made of chrome
I have no way to get back home
I'd rather die before I awake
Just like Marilyn Monroe
Why Lord you put my dreams out in the street
And let the rain make 'em grow"