The Year Of Living A Year More

Today is the first of the year, and I for one feel compelled to address something. It certainly has nothing to do with New Year's resolutions, which I have never made a point of making, let alone keeping. It seems to me that somehow this must be yet another seasonal event ginned up to sell something. Actually I suppose that it's been ginned up to sell everything, ranging from exercise equipment to college tuition. Are various retailers and educational institutions allied together in a massive worldwise cabal? No, I can't say that I believe that, but the only reason I have for being skeptical is my standard distaste for those who show particular interest in conspiracies. I think it's a series of coincidences based on predictable human behavior.

Neither is the thing I'm interested in anything to do with college bowl games, which are presently in full swing and which used to mean something once you got to New Year's Day, but now are meaningless all the way until you get to the very last one. I admit that my ire has been raised just typing that, but I'm not at all going to devote this post to something like that. The Bowl/Playoff debate is yet another meaningless debate which I have checked out of. They'll do whatever they want to do, and it affects me little if at all. I have more productive lines of argument to pursue.

The thing that really interests me is the date. It's very hard to get used to the date for me. It looks weird to me, and maybe to you as well. It'll stop looking weird and we'll both forget it ever did, and that in itself is kind of weird. Now that I write a few checks every month, there is a serious risk that some will be wasted because I forget that it's 2011. I have a hard enough time remembering to change the date to reflect a new month. I'm writing this in advance, so I don't know just yet what on Earth they could have done to account for the fact that this year has not got two zeros in it. As if the economy was not bad enough, there will be no novelty sunglasses shaped to spell out the year for retailers to boost the bottom line.

I am expectant of a very good year for myself if the date does not trip me up badly. Once I get beyond the pair of birthdays very close to me which are annually my first point of focus, I should get quite a bit done. Of course, one of those birthdays being my own, I will have to cope as I always have with the adjustment of my own age in addition to that of our calendar. My age will be harder. Of course, this year I'll be getting back to an even number, which always was more comfortable for me. That may be of some help as I inexorably grow closer to the age at which it will no longer be laughable to those around me when I express anguish at getting older. Anyway, happy new year.