Post-Hiatus

Greeting
I'm not going to wish you all a happy new year because I think happy is a transient state of mind. Instead, I bid you a New Year of Shalom. May you find true understanding and love in grace.

New Year's Dates
Last night at a New Year's Party I met a young lady named Julie. She is a liberal-Mormon-turned-baptist and fierce American. Her New Year's Resolution for last year was to truly become an American, to try to understand conservatives and blue collar workers, to get a taste for baseball and church and patriotism. She told me that this last year was one of the best ones she's ever had and this year's Resolution is to have a year just like last year. One particularly poignant thing she shared with me was her desire to start a vernacular movement. On her travels from Utah she has been spreading this new paradigm. Consider: how long will we continue to call our dates Two-Thousand-And...? In the last century, we said Nineteen-something. This year is a fantastic time to ease ourselves into the new way of doing things. Instead of two-thousand-and-eight, rather: Twenty-O-Eight. The elision of the syllables between twentY, Oh and EIGHt. Starting this process in 2009 or 2010 would be a much more difficult transition. While we're all trying to remember to write 2007 2008 we should also train ourselves to say it in the most forward-looking way possible. Do it for Julie.

A Declaration of War
I have found mouse-droppings behind my refrigerator and beside my suitcase. This is simply untenable. I saw one today climb out of Gabbie's Trashcan. Attention Mice: This is your last warning. Leave my premises or I will be forced to take Lethal Action (in the guise of self-defense of course). This warning is superficial and is intended to keep yours truly out of a war-crimes trial. I have already purchased said munitions with blood diamonds. Illegal immigrants will not be tolerated! I realize that the economic trade agreement that I made with the gas company means that my sovereign space is warmer than yours, and that I am inadvertently polluting yours, but that does not mean that you are allowed to illegally sneak into my territory and reap the same benefits for which I have worked so hard. If you turn yourselves in, no one will be euthanized, merely deported. You have 10 minutes.

Memo
To all of you Proponents of Amnesty for Illegal Mice in My Apartment: Take A Hike!

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