So, 2002 was a strange and mostly very good year, all things considered. It seems pretty arbitrary and maudlin to look back too much, not when it's so close behind, because you can't really see things very clearly by observing our little markers of time. The rocks outside don't seem hungover today. The last second of one of our years isn't any different than the second before or the second after, and really most of them are the same length and the rest of us don't know because we aren't in the labs where they make the tiny adjustment to a second here or there to make them fit the year. And yet we mark it as time changed, as an ending and a beginning -- even if we say we don't. It seems like most people are always looking for their next opportunity for a clean start, a fresh chance, a new beginning (what a redundant phrase that is). I'm not, and I never have been. I'm about celebrating what's past and what may come; about moving on, moving forward, with the particular satisfaction it brings. I don't want to start over, or reset the game, I'm happy with just being in it. I love my life, living it, and the world continues to fascinate me in ways that are wonderful and awful, wild and weird. I wouldn't trade my life for anyone else's, not for even one of those seconds, and that's what being happy really is. I think. So, today, I'll think about the things I want to do as this next section of seconds ticks away, and I mean to do them: but they aren't any different than what I wanted yesterday, and I'm only closer to achieving them because I know what I want. I hope the same thing is true for all of you: love your lives. They are precious and even if they weren't, that doesn't change the fact that they are yours, that they are the only ones you are guaranteed to get. Be happy; it doesn't take any more time.

There, that's my New Year's salvo, or maybe I mean salve. I hope for the best for all of you, for all of us, as always. Regrets? I'm with Frank Sinatra. There are people that have passed out of my life -- maybe for a little, maybe forever -- things that have changed profoundly over the last year that I wish hadn't, people who got hurt and people who hurt themselves, in ways I wish hadn't happened. But that is circumstance and it is passed and the only thing to do is keep moving forward, whether you drag or sail is up to you. Things still hurt, but I'd rather be dancing.

Anyway, my best. And I hope the hangovers are mild, and pass their time quickly.