Well, Thank (Your Deity's Name) THAT Year Is Over With

As I've gotten older, I've noticed that time seems to go by more quickly than it used to. Unless, of course, I'm having a shitty day at work, in which case every five minutes seems to take an hour to snail by. Years, in particular, have stepped on the gas and started ignoring the red lights. It seems that we've just seem the glowing crystal ball fall in Times Square when it's time to watch the ball fall again.

And with most years, there are regrets to be expressed for the passage of time: Did I accomplish everything I wanted to this year? Did I lose that weight? Did I get that raise? Did I spend less and save more? Did I get laid? At all? Am I better off now than I was at this time last year?

But with 2001, the attitude was much different. We couldn't kick that year out the door fast enough. We might not have even had the courtesy to open the door first. I mean, is anybody out there to see 2001 over and done with? Anybody? Hello?

(Insert miles of silence here.)

Didn't think so.

I won't attempt to capture on this page the impact of September 11 and its aftermath, which continues to this day and will likely continue for years to come. (I want to write about the events of that day--which should be easy, since you couldn't scrub them off my brain with a thousand Brillo pads--but not right this minute.) Every other joy or sorrow or anything else in-between of 2001 seems trivial by comparison.

But okay. 2001 is over. Finally. At long fucking last. The Christmas decorations are coming down all around. The drug stores are just finishing up their clearance sales and have already filled their holiday aisles with Valentine's Day cards and chockies and teddy bears. (Bleargh.) In my apartment, La Casa del Terror, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer figurines have been packed away in the large green storage container along with the red pepper lights and Grandma's small lighted tree. Only the Christmas cards remain affixed to the fridge, and they will come down today, which would have been my father's 67th birthday. (Yeah, Dad was just a couple of days younger than Elvis, though he managed to outlive the King by 18 years. Happy birthday, Dad.)

So now that the Old Year is behind us (don't look in the rearview mirror; it might still be there) and the New Year is here. That means a clean slate, a fresh start, a new hope, a time for positive outlooks and possibilities. I stopped making formal resolutions years ago because, well, I never kept them, but I do like to look ahead and pick a particular area to improve. This year, I think I'll keep it simple and general: I want 2002 to suck a lot less than 2001 did. I canÍt control the whole wide world and how fucked up it continues to be, but I can try to make my own cluttered little corner of it better. And considering that 2001 sucked harder than a brand-new Hoover, 2002 can't possibly be that hard.

Can it?