Oh, by the time I post this shit I’ll probably be tipsy, as I don’t normally drink alcohol, and the cheap Chilean white I’ve got chilling in the fridge isn’t going to drink itself. And I quite like marking horrible annual events through the liquid medium of The Wine. Yes, I fucking hate New Year’s Eve, or Hogerty Dog as we sometimes never call it in Bonnie Fucking Scotland. Rob me of my senses, please.

Instead of dragging you through all twelve months of mind-numbing dreariness that comprised 2009, let me tell you how my year began.

It had its moments.

The end of each calendar year provides an ideal time to reflect back on the past twelve months – our successes, our failures, our new “Dancing with the Stars” champion. But the end of a decade brings the added pressure of trying to remember ten years of highs, lows, politics, and pop culture references. When you get right down to it, these decade-summarizing lists serve as little more than a contextual primer for the next Dennis Miller stand-up routine you attend. Still, any excuse for a rant, right? Here’s my list of important milestones we learned during the last decade.

I enjoy the hell outta film.  Almost too much.  I’m addicted, really.  I consider my taste in film excellent, almost to the point of arrogance and elitism, but I’m okay with that.  I tend to avoid American mainstream cinema, largely for it’s lack in creative and intellectual integrity, and instead steer myself towards foreign films, independent films, and films from highly thought of auteurs, the masters such as Kurosawa, Godard, Renoir, Tarkovsky, Melville and so on.

Have you heard about The Wraparound, the hottest dance for your politically-cognizant fancy-pants?

Guess what? You just did!

Here’s the deal: The corporate capture of Washington, D.C. has gotten so bad that left-wingers like online organizer Jane Hamsher and progressive economist Dean Baker are now finding common cause with the likes of Randian moron Grover Norquist and Phyllis “I hate gays” Schlafly. I am seriously not making this up!

Mama Penguino Hovers Closely

Mama Penguino hovers closely
And then quickly moves away,
Swiftly going wheresoever
Her heart may freely say.

Is that what we’re meant to call them? Naughties? I dunno. I should maybe call Oxford University. Or a large metropolitan area filled with people who have an opinion on the matter. Well, whatever we call the period from 2000 to 2009, unless you’re less than ten years old or now dead then you went through them too. And if you went through them then you must have had some experiences during them, it stands to reason. Unlike the decade.

Over the Holidays, as I reflected on the past year and steeled myself for the one forthcoming, I came to a STARTLING conclusion.

I haven’t a clue.

Yes, clueless.

On Christmas Day, a 23-year-old Nigerian national by the name of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 253 in Amsterdam and attempted to explode an incendiary device strapped to his leg over Michigan. Two days later, the Wordsmoker site was effectively shutdown by saboteurs. In the case of the Northwest flight, it took the red faced Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula three days to release this statement:

When I was four years old – almost five – I remember hiding behind the sofa in our house with tears streaming down my little face.  My father was leaving, for good this time, and my mother was arguing with him, as usual, and the reason I was crying was because my mother was crying.  When my mother stopped crying, I would stop crying.

I understood from listening to their conversation that my father was not coming back to our house when he left and for this, I felt profound relief.  This would be the end of mom crying, I thought.  This memory is fresh; I remember it as if it was just last week.  Dad walked out and the final slap-slap-slap of the screen door sounded like clapping.

THE REASON FOR THE SEASON!

1. I know Chillbear Latrigue. I started reading wordsmoker because he kept posting links to the Smokies on his facebook page. We work together and I trust him with my life. He was not working tonight so I wrote this with my feet up on his desk.

Winter finally came to Miami but it did not bring any cold. It looks cool and wet outside, but it’s ridiculously warm and humid, particularly for December. I stand at my window and look at the street below, glistening in the rain. The hiss of traffic tyres on concrete is clearly audible here, six stories up, on the other side of the sliding glass doors that line my balcony.

I recently typed the letters G-O-D into the Google search window. This picture shows what Google suggests when you type that. (Try it yourself!)

I was trying to type: “Goddamn, Megan Fox is hot!” But I only got three letters in before Google suggested “godaddy” so I ended up watching sexy Danica Patrick videos instead.

Betty had invited me to her Christmas Eve party weeks ago, and I had given her my usual noncommittal assurance that I’d be there. We were friends from long ago, going all the way back to college. She was an energetic, whip-smart, sassy, and all-around caring person, who saw through the bull of ordinary life with some kind of inner X-ray vision. Nothing seemed to trouble her, and I envied that immensely. She could brush off the downturns in life, and revel in the good times, having a knack for knowing how to have a good time in any circumstance. I knew her party would be a happening affair, with booze, and conversation, and games, and all sorts of interesting happenings.