“The setting sun, and music at the close, As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last…….” —Richard II

I hate New Year’s Eve….

Not a fan, never really was. All the whoo-hoo hoopla. Party, party.

I know, I get the whole “start of a great new future” crap. “Clean slate” and all of that….. Yada, yada, yada. [“You ‘yada-yada’d’ over the best part.” “ I mentioned the bisque.” But I digress….]

Many times I’ve slept thru the countdown thing.

Usually this was at the end of a particularly rough year and I had no great hopes of it getting any better in the coming one. Hmmmmm, the list of particularly sucky years gets longer and longer: 2000—loss of marriage in June, 2001—loss of grandson’s innocence on Sept. 11th, 2006—loss of ex-husband in March, 2007—loss of job in February, 2009—loss of mobility [of sorts] in March. But the all-time winner is 1980—lost my eldest brother and a cousin AND had a major car accident—all between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

So I guess you can see why I haven’t always had a bright sunny outlook at the stroke of midnight on December 31st.

But—this approaching new decade may be okay. I finally have a job that pays fairly well—and is secure. I am digging myself out of massive credit card debt slowly but surely. My kids seem to be in good, happy places. And my grandson is doing well in college…. So……. We’ll see.

Ever the optimist am I.

# # #

2009 has been a really strange one in the national zeitgeist.

We started off with an historic inauguration of an African-American to the presidency—after a campaign that featured a woman as a truly strong viable candidate. Two major milestones in our country’s growth. And there were several openly gay people elected to office as well. Some states/towns passed laws supporting gay marriage and others passed laws against it. For every 2 or 3 steps forward, we take a couple backwards…..

Of course the scandals continued: reality TV acrimonious divorces, governor’s confusing Argentina with the Appalachian trail [hey they both start with “a”], companies collapsing left and right [under the weight of their execs bonuses] and, of course, Tiger, John Edwards and Bernie Madoff.

And there were the usual political wrongdoings too. [Don’t you just love the way Jon Stewart said Blagojevich?!?] California went broke—and practically burned up. But the Governator STILL can’t pronounce the name of his state!

But, as usual, it was the celebrities who took the cake for crazy. [Kanye—I’m looking at you] Media whores “Speidi” go on yet another reality show—and quit because their hair products were messed with. Who would ever have put David Letterman and sex scandal in the same sentence? And Adam Lambert being way too gay to win the clusterf*#k that is American Idol. And them dumping crazy-ass Paula! [I'll admit I watched some of her reality show--it was like watching a train wreck] And Rosie splitting up with Kelly—see gay couples have the same issues straight ones do, people.

As you know, this year was particularly fraught with the deaths of famous folks: Ed Mc Mahon, pitchman Billy Mays, Farah Fawcett, Patrick Swayze, Brittany Murphy, DJ Am, Natasha Richardson, Edward Kennedy, Walter Cronkite, David Carradine and, of course, Michael Jackson.

Phew—I’m too exhausted to Facebook now…..