Welcome to '09

Lo, I have hibernated through the long Autumn, and have re-emerged, invigorated by the, uh, dark, chill... winter. Crap.

Anyhow, I'm back.

Much has happened, children! In the coming days I shall hold forth on topics as diverse as fancy beers, family holidays, the real war on Christmas, open relationships, important ways in which I disagree with Jared Diamond, and, of course, science and pseudoscience in the news. The world is interesting!

Today, however, I would like to talk to you about this new year in which we find ourselves.

The double meaning in that phrasing was not an accident. For me, personally, 2008 was something of a trial, and I feel like I'm coming out of it stronger and... purified. I'm sure I'm not alone in this; indeed, it seems like perhaps our whole nation feels somewhat similar. There are going to be a lot of hard lessons to come for idealistic people who worked very hard for very good reasons to elect Barack Obama and other good candidates. Politics isn't going to get any less ugly overnight. With any luck, most of us will learn some balance from the experience, rather than simply getting burned. Of course, there will be good to come, too, so don't think I'm prophesying doom; rather, while it won't all be sunshine and roses, I don't want the learning experience to be so bitter for some that they lose sight of the good.

That was all a very prolix way of segueing into simply saying that I'm feeling good about 2009. Implying that I'm going to "find myself" might have been employing a little poetic license, but there are a lot of things that I've just been putting off for a "better moment" for a while now that I feel like I could just maybe start to tackle soon. Some of them will be work, some will be pleasure, and some will probably just be strange, but it's about time I started moving forward again.

I hope you can too. Peace.