Happy New Year, (and thanks for coming)!

When I woke up on the first day of this bright, shiny, still had the gift-wrap and the price tag day, the first day of 2012, I felt like a kid again. Actually, I felt like a 13 year old.

I had a wet dream. I woke up wet and sticky, my just purchased the day before Calvin Klein underpants clinging, and dripping, in all the wrong places.

I tried to remember the last time I actually had sex - because, when a 32 year old has a wet dream, it is surely time for some kind of accounting, and drew a blank.

It was some time when my father was in the nursing home, and my 21 year old pot-head paramour, with the oddly sexy BO came over and injured himself on my penis. Since he fell off of it do quickly, I clearly didn't get off that night - but I'd certainly come since then. While alone, and listening to Thelonius Monk, with a glass of wine and a burned copy of "Bad Boys on Duty," or in the quick, hurried, beneath the sheets, fevered style of the 13 year old lying alone in the dark.

Nevertheless, there I was at 5AM, January 1st, creeping out of bed at a Hilton Garden Inn and trying to shower and change into boxers without waking my sleeping, snoring, female dear friend. This was both out of courtesy and a hint of shame and/or confusion

So, my accounting came up short, and I wondered what it said about me that I spent the previous evening - New Year's Eve - at a sedate, suburban party, with pink champagne and kisses on the cheek at midnight.

I rang in 2011 by jumping on the bed in rehab, while my fellow inmates clanged lockers and blared gangsta rap. I'd say fireworks on the 9th hole of a golf course while smooth jazz, and children, played in the background is a definite step up.

Between the high-end suburbs New Year's Eve, and the drinks by the pool at the hotel bar where we started our weekend, between the crab and spinach dinner, and the smoked salmon breakfast, I found myself feeling luxe. I think 2012 will be a very good year, for shopping and eating, working, and travel. Houston taught me more about myself than I would expect to learn in two days.

Like most lessons, I get the feeling it's going to be bittersweet - money, yes ... sex, no. To paraphrase Robin Leach, I anticipate champagne wishes ... and wet dreams.