I confess to approaching the advent of a new year warily.

A few years ago (hell, a LONG time ago now - time marches on, eh?) I was at the fearful cusp of my life, or so it seemed that week. I had just been asked to depart my college a few credits shy of my degree for reasons of money and my own lack of academic desire, and I was now faced, at the dawning of another new year, with a long unknown space in front of me, with no employment, prospects or permanent shelter to my name.

Given all of that, I opted to tick away the old year with a pair of my dear friends at one of their apartments. It would be a safe, quiet, insular affair, exactly what I (and my addled psyche) needed.

Except that about forty-five minutes before the baby new year marched the old year-man away, I was seized with tremendous pains in my midsection, as if I had consumed the entire tub of baked beans Roger Daltrey is bathing in on the Who's Sell Out cover.

What the hell? My diet in the previous week had largely consisted of the blandest and most nutritious foods. Regardless, I sheepishly excused myself to the bathroom where I sat on the porcelain seat of honor, desperately trying to purge myself of whatever evil spirits had entered me and trying (most likely in vain) to stifle the thundering blasts emanating from my nether regions. But, like the bathroom graffito goes, that was all.

I sat there a good while, occasionally feeling good enough that I would stand and begin to raise trou and prepare to rejoin my friends, but then stunning pain in my abdomen would curl my body and guide my bare ass back to the round seat.

It wasn't so bad. My hostess was a graduate student of English and had stacks of books within reach. From outside, I could hear muffled conversation and the fake-happy voices of the TV announcers offering play-by-play commentary of the revelry.

I looked at my watch. It was only five minutes before the local clocks would mark the beginning of the new day and the new year for my time zone. I strained, let loose an accidentally unmuted trumpet and tried to stand again, only to be forced again to a seated position. Outside my tiled prison, I heard the announcer count down the end of the year with a breathless excitement that suggested that the inevitable passage of time was the most exciting and unexpected occurrence since that unfortunate radio broadcaster delivered what was slated to be a commentary of an uneventful zeppelin docking in New Jersey ("Oh! The humanity!").

The New Year was here. I had ushered it, in what I judged then (and still do now), in an appropriate manner - straining to accomplish one more task, meaningless to everyone but myself. I liked that.

Oh, but gentle reader! That's not entirely the end of the story. About ten minutes past the hour, a hard, black-as-tar bolus of evil splashed into the toilet, accompanied by an immediate sense of well-being sweeping through my body.

I stood up, hiked my pants up. And joined my friends and got drunk, quick as I could.

Thankfully, nothing that unfortunate occurred this year. In fact, I had completely forgot that it was New Year's Eve and I fell into bed and sleep before the witching hour. If this new year's shit had a color, I've been reflecting, it would be grey or maybe beige.

Ho hum.