2010 kinda blew.

I had major health issues and major struggles with my depression. As a result, I blew a deadline on my next book, which I still have yet to finish.

I realized that some people I thought I was close to weren’t really there for me in a meaningful way. These epiphanies come when you’re sitting around week after week thinking dark, with no one around.

I watched a Democratic president with overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress govern with his fucking hat in his hand, accomplishing some good things that could have been great had he acted with a tenth the chutzpah his ridiculous and vile predecessor had.

I watched ignorant rabble and theocratic authoritarians rebuild their power and influence in a time when rationality and progressive values were initially emergent, thanks to the lack of effective political leadership by that president and his party in general.

I didn’t get to sleep with Olivia Wilde.

And, basically, not a whole lot of good happened in my life otherwise.

Now my year has opened again with illness, and my “fine Irish melancholy” is clawing my eyes, and I feel somewhat  less than motivated to write about the good things I experienced last year. It’s an effort of memory even to recall such things. But I’m going to, because I’ve established that tradition and keeping to it is good discipline, and because it may do me some good to think back on some positive things.