In Case You Didn't Know, It's Now 2010

I don't know if it's the rum and Coke I'm drinking (Coke Zero, to be precise) or the dance music on Sirius OutQ radio I'm listening to or what, but I feel compelled to write something. And not another movie review -- I've seen 4 movies this week, one per day, that I have to write up -- but something about the turn of the calendar to a new year.

I don't exactly have words of wisdom -- if I had it together that much I'd be gainfully employed and not burdened by a hefty credit card debt built up in the last few years. I don't have a Year In Review -- there are plenty of those all over the place if you feel the need. I don't have a Decade In Review, either. I'm a little like my friend Walt, from reading his most recent blog post, in which he says: "I suppose the point of most New Year's Eve blog postings is reflection on the year (or the decade) that has just passed.  I really suck at posts like that because my memory is terrible. Just awful. If it didn't happen in the last few days, it's all blurred into a great big giant heap of memory." And, again, there are plenty of articles looking back at the past 10 years. Besides, there are those who insist that the decade isn't over, because there was no Year Zero, so that the actual decade runs from 2001-2010, just like the current millennium started in 2001 instead of 2000. I am not one of those people. I respect their view but choose to ignore it.

I don't have Predictions For 2010 (or the next decade) -- there are, or will be, plenty of those all over the place as well. And I can't write about New Year's Resolutions because I don't make them. The only one I've made in the last few years is a silly, joking one: to sleep with a married man. Since there are now some places civilized enough to allow same-sex marriages, even in the USA, I suppose it should now be to sleep with a man who's married to a woman. But I digress.

So what do I want to say? I'm not that sure who's going to bother reading this. I know I don't have much of an audience here ("not yet, at least," he added, optimistically). I guess what I want to say (or what the rum and Coke Zero wants me to say) is that I hope 2010 turns out much better than 2009. I don't know how that will happen. Our world is, in many ways, a complicated and dangerous place. But, although it often seems like nothing more than a cliche, the start of a new year, whether or not it's the start of a new decade, always seems to bring the promise of a new day. (Good grief, I'm quoting Paula Abdul!)

So with that promise in mind, if you want your life to change, do it. Don't just talk about it. Do it. Do it, do it, do it. Stop talking about it and DO IT. It may not be, in the end, a change for the better, but how will you know if you don't try? (I guess this is as much a pep talk aimed at myself as at anyone else, but still, it's good advice, no?)

Happy New Year.