My years are not advancing as fast as you might think, but perhaps there are some changes.

Since my late twenties, I'd suppose, I've had a little ritual surrounding this particular point on the calendar. I figure I can't be the only one.

I always try to make sure, on this first day of the month, that there's tasty food in the house, cash in the wallet, beer in the fridge, etc. before I go to bed. I run around and check things before I turn in, as if I were carefully leaving milk and cookies for Santa Claus.

I just want the day to be prepared, in case I wake up that next morning, Groundhog Day morning, over and over again. I figure it'll save me a ton of time, if it's anything like the movie.

Usually I tell myself that one of these years, I'll arrange to be within walking distance of Andie McDowell when I wake up on this date, which would also save me a ton of time if I wind up looping that day. The first thing I figured out about that movie was, once you figure out you get a free reset every time you wake up, hell yeah you taking chances on her. Why not be prepared? Be nearby?

This year, though, is the first one where I realized that none of these rituals are guaranteed to help me hold any of those marvelous ladies on my mind, even were I to connive my way into catching one.  Of late, my long-time friends have been telling me the tales of why they got uncaught from men.

"He stopped doing those little things for me that made you like him, Frank, the little things that made me happy."  "Once I found out, I realized how many times he's done it before, Frank, it's a pattern with him."  Those guys really were perfect for them once, they were making the right magic for the women my friends used to be... and then those men went back to doing all the shit they'd done before...

Thinking of these stories, relating them to me, I'm certain I'd fall into the same mistakes, I'd do the same shit I always do.  I'd call what I do a pattern, if the word didn't ache so much right now.  How would I manage to hold (for example) Andie McDowell?  Could I make myself stay on the wheel of repeating days long enough to outgrow myself before I claimed her?  I thought, and thought, but couldn't make myself think I could.

Then I thought to myself - "wow, the way I'm feeling, it's like my attitudes are evolving as I repeat these same old things. I think the way I feel about Andie McDowell now puts me a little over ninety percent of the way through the movie."

I'm kinda scared to go to bed, as I have about six different levels of meta all tangled now.

I don't know if I'm before or after the part where I have to drive the train tracks tomorrow.