Happy New Year?

No, no, no . . . there is nothing happy about it!

How can I say such a thing before the year has begun?  Very easily.  First of all, it begins on a Monday - never a good sign.  But more importantly, Donald Trump is within striking distance of regaining the Presidency thanks to polls showing him more popular than ever among the Republican base while President Biden's poll numbers are lower than a gopher's basement.  Nothing - not a good economy, not increased infrastructure jobs, not his foreign policy leadership (least of all his handling of the Israel-Gaza War) - has turned that around.  We can't count on Trump to be taken down by guilty verdicts in his various upcoming trials, assuming they ever do come up, because he'll appeal them faster than you can say "habeas corpus."

Trump, meanwhile, has also gained support from people tired of hearing Biden's defense of his policies - which they feel have not benefited them - and even the threat to democracy can't seem to motivate voters, as they have apparently forgotten about January 6, 2021, in an apparent national amnesia epidemic.  Biden has his work cut out for him to restore not the soul of a country but to restore a memory to a country that, by accounts, doesn't want one.  

So, sure, your son might end up being sent to a labor camp in North Dakota and possibly being hung for treason because he called Trump a wanker on Facebook, but at least your groceries will be cheaper, right?

For the time being - the time being lasting through January 19, 2025 - we are safe.   After that day, we could and likely will be in great danger, as Trump Mark Two may take over and within a short time establish a right-wing dictatorship that lasts a long time.  

Enjoy New Year's Eve tonight.  It may be the last one you ever celebrate.

Slouching Into 2018

Twenty seventeen wasn't a great year for me, and now I'm going into the new year with a lot of psychological baggage.  Not only am I going through a severe post-holiday depression, the result of an unfortunate incident over a Christmas present  I received and the person who gave it to me  thinking - wrongly - that I didn't appreciate it, but it is so severely cold where I live, and by the end of this week, it could get just below zero.  Note that I live in the United States, the only major country that still uses Fahrenheit as its official temperature scale.  That cold.  (Oh, yeah, and it could snow big time later this week on top of that.)

Meanwhile, I can't get much done - it took forever to type this blog post because of Wi-Fi connectivity problems - and everything at home is out of order.  I am in just such a dark place right now that I can't imagine a way out of it.  And if I can't ring out the old, how on earth am I going to ring in the new? 

Maybe things will get better soon. After all, it's a new year that begins and ends on a Monday - what  could possibly go wrong?  Happy new year. :-(

Happy New Year

Well, it's December 31, another year over.  I suppose I should look forward to the new year, and I usually believe that a new year that begins on a Sunday offers the freshest of starts; a new year, a new day, a new month, a new week.  But not if it's a leap year.  January 1 of leap year falling on a Sunday means that February 29 falls on a Wednesday - giving the bleakest month of the year five hump days - and it means that next December 31 will be a Monday.  Who wants to end a year on a Monday?

Be that as it may, I have something to tell my readers. For years, I've been dreaming about traveling overseas, something I've never done.  I'd love to go to London; a friend of mine who went there said she noticed my  "London envy" when I commented on her pictures of her London vacation on Facebook.  I'd also like to see Paris and Munich, and I would like to go with my mother to Italy and see the seaside town on the Adriatic where her father was born.  I'd also like to find myself a girlfriend, and I would like to start looking by going on something I've never experienced - my first date. Finally, my mother has been pressing me to go back to school and get a master's degree, preferably in education so  I can become a teacher, or take some graduate courses in journalism.

So here's my announcement: I'm not going to do any of those things in 2012, and this time next year, I probably won't have any plans to do these things in 2013 either.

See you next year? Happy holidays.

Out With the Old

I'm ending a mostly disappointing year. Things didn't work out as I hoped - probably because I hoped against hope that I could accomplish a few things the economy and unfavorable odds rendered virtually impossible.

I started the year hoping to write an article on someone who lives near me - this person is of some notoriety but I won't say who it is - but my plans fell through. The person I wanted to write about decided not to agree to the idea. Although I finished work for my editing certificate from New York University, I haven't been able to find a job with it. I also wrote a play that turned out to be mediocre; I'm not getting back to it any time soon. I also started a blog tutoring service based on the blogging workshops I've done for my writer's group. How many clients have I had? Zero! Also, I ended my volunteer work for a dance company when I decided I wasn't really needed, and a woman I'd been courting told me to get lost - long story.

And I don't even want to talk about my car.

But there have been bright spots. I edit review articles for AllAboutJazz.com, a jazz Web site, thus gaining me some editing experience. I also made friends with some wonderful people through Facebook, and my life is so much happier because of it. So I guess 2009 is off to a good start . . . for 2010.

Maybe things will keep getting better next year . . .