C Novi’m Godom.

Dear Friends,

I am celebrating the end of 2003 by doing the same things I usually do, only with infinitely more style and panache than every other day of the year. Also, as soon as I finish, I think, “Well, that’s the last time I’m doing that this year.” And it’s funny every single time. I mean it.

This morning, Heather made me wake up early to see her off to Washington, D.C., which coincidentally leaves me single on New Year’s Eve. Not that I’m complaining, since it was my choice. That just means I’ll have to find some random stranger to make out with at midnight. I do what I have to do.

So I started the day by cleaning¹, because it’s one less thing I’ll have to obsess about for the next five days I’m here alone. Then after coffee and the Y and Whole Foods², I went to see the Russian constructivist exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, since it’s closing today. Avant-garde illustration/writing and Bolshevik art were the subjects of almost every single paper I ever wrote for my major in college³, so I felt obligated. I asked the boy at the front desk where the exhibit was located, and he stared at me confusedly for some time until I said, “Um, it was in City Pages?” He then nodded and pulled out the map of the building, pointing out two tiny rooms at the center of the third-floor gallery.

Locating the exhibit was reminiscent of finding Sever in the corn maze. I wandered, checked the room numbers, peered at my map, then wandered some more. I finally found the rooms, which I think used to be the coat check, or maybe utility closets. But it was worth it, because they had some original books by Mayakovsky, and pages from About Two Squares by Lissitzky, which is everyone’s very favorite kids’ book about revolutionary communism. Well, apart from The Very Hungry Caterpillar, I mean.

Then I went to the art museum gift shop, which is probably my favorite kind of store, excepting the locally-owned tiny art gallery. Whenever I go to museum shops, I want not only all the cute little trinkets, but the books. In particular, those Taschen Icons series books. You know what I’m talking about, right? They’re catalogs of eye candy, and I want them all. So I did the logical thing, which was to come home and buy a few of them from Amazon, and put a million more of them on my wishlist. Essentially, it’s the same as owning them, without having to find a spot for them on the shelf. Once the wishlist extended itself to three pages in length, I decided to stop.

So now I’m doing more cleaning, and trying to figure out what to wear to Lee’s tonight. I might even go crazy and sit on the couch for a while and crochet like the old lady I really am. But, dude, the mesh bags I’m making are so very cute, not to mention useful, if you even start to knock them, I will make you feel the hurt. Yes, I will.

This time last year, I posted New Year’s resolutions. I’ve decided to forego them this year, because I’ve realized that my goals change every three or four months, in accordance with my life. There’s no way to plan things that could happen an entire year from now. I might be living in space by then. Or have joined a cult. Or both. When I click forwards from January 2003 in my calendar, my life only barely starts to resemble its current state around October. A lot has happened, and so I’m not going to even attempt to predict the future. I’m just going to be satisfied with what’s happened this year (and if you don’t enjoy cheap sentimentality, then scroll):

I was employed and miserable, then unemployed, then self-employed. I turned 30. I visited 25 states and 3 countries. I got my first tattoo, but not my last. I flew an airplane. I actually became kind of athletic. I met more people than I can count, and all of them are important to me. The pace of this life makes my head spin, and occasionally knocks me down. But I think I’m doing a good job of making the most of it.

So instead of resolutions, here are the very important reminders I’m scrawling on my mental list with a SuperSharpie. At the risk of sounding trite, as usual⁴.

1. Keep pushing.
2. Single people out. Everyone wants to be noticed, and remembered.
3. Collect experiences.
4. Ordinary sucks.
5. Life is the most important art project you’ll ever complete.
6. Claim your imperfections, because they define you.
7. Reevaluate and discard as necessary.
8. Regret nothing.
9. Treasure perfect moments. Let them go, trusting that there will be others.

I’m stopping short of a top-ten list of shit your grandma would embroider on little pillows, just in time to wish you all a very happy New Year. See you then.

Jenni

¹ In case you don’t know me well enough yet, ‘cleaning’ is secret code for ‘throwing everything out’. I fairly emptied the fridge, which was nice. Some other secret codes that apply only to me:

‘No Turn on Red’ = ‘Jenni May Proceed, However’
‘2 Minute Cooldown’ (on exercise equipment) = ‘Sprint Until You Want to Die’

² That’s a frighteningly common triad in my life. Hmm. Also, I won at the Y again this month. I wasn’t trying to*, it’s just that everyone else was slacking this month, what with the holidays and all. This is probably the only month I’ll sweep all three categories, however, even weight-lifting:

Go me.

*Dear Mr. ‘I like to lose’: I can see you rolling your eyes and sighing, so you can just stop that right about now.

³ Apart from the senior thesis contrasting the literary treatment of serfs in Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons and Tolstoy’s War and Peace; I consider the B+ I received on this 40-page essay a huge achievement, considering I’ve never even attempted to read War and Peace. Tolstoy was a hypocritical asshole.

⁴ At the Risk of Sounding Trite: The Jenni Ripley Story can be purchased from Amazon.com beginning early next year.