Dear Calendar,

I realize it's been an entire year. I should feel like we've shared this time to the fullest, but I really don't. I should be sick of you by now, but I'm really not. Flipping back through your pages, I stumble across August and am struck by all the pleasure and pain we shared last summer. Yes, the summer of 2006 was excruciatingly hot, but I could fight the heat knowing you hung resiliently at my side.

Regrets, I have a few. Despite all my hopes, 2006 was not the year that "Brock Hard!," the big-screen adaptation of my unpublished autobiography, went into production, starring me as myself. But you leave me with hope for 2007, even if you won't be sharing my ultimate triumph with me.

Please don't take it personally that I have to throw you out now. There's no malice, none at all, I swear. We've had good times together. They've meant something.

I'm even donating you to the recycle bin, in the hopes that you will go to a processing plant and return to me as a 2008 calendar. Most likely I won't recognize you. And, since I have no idea what reincarnation is like for paper products, perhaps you won't know me, either.

Perhaps there will be an inkling, as I flip past the never-used December 2007 page and hang January 2008 on my wall. Just a flicker of mutual recognition, even an unconscious one. We'll pause a moment, neither of us quite sure what has just transpired. Then we'll go on with our days, unaware of the connection simmering beneath the surface.

Each month I'll reflect fondly on the time we've shared as I turn to the newest portrait of yet another fake-tanned, plastic-looking, ridiculously disproportional model in a barely-there bathing suit, and our bold, grand, eternal adventure will continue.

Sincerely,
Brockman