New Years Day is the greatest of all holidays -- the comradery, the optimism that breaks the soul-crushing monotony of real life, the mandatory smooching (!), the poor dancing by well meaning drunks, and did I mention the arbitrary nature of the whole thing? We choose one day out of all of them to say, "RESET, let's start it all up again and see how we did over last New Years Day" Well, last year at this time, me and my live-in girlfriend were in a bad way and couldn't work it out. We split up just a few weeks later after trying damn near everything we could think of, and if you're reading this right now, you probably know that I've been known to get obsessed over girls, and this one in particular. She broke my heart, I broke hers, we split up, then the heartache set in. I tried to move on, I moved out, I found out who my friends were, I lost some weight, I learned to drink my feelings, I questioned my own feelings, I questioned the motives of everyone --literally everyone-- that I knew and trusted and cared about for years!

2009, you broke me man. You kicked me in the knee and peed in my eye, and you told me again and again to just give in and lose and die... But I wouldn't do it, and with the sympathetic ear of people who love me, and people who held me up and carried me when I couldn't go any further (and I hope you know who you are), I made it through. Or at least, I hope to! Honestly, the year is still 24 and-a-half hours from completion, and there's a chance, as miniscule as it may be, that I still might not make it.

So reader, if you wake up on 12/31 to the infotainment news channel of your choice, and there's a story in the local briefs about, gosh, I dunno, a bus full of chimps smashing into an apartment and the lone tenant being crushed by the bus and subsequently trampled about the face and neck by the aforementioned great apes, know that it was me, and that I died doing what I love -- watching monkeys trample things.

And to 01/01/2010 12:00:00.01, you are the starting line for what I hope and pray will be the year I've been working up to my entire life, and in the event that anything major and noteworthy (or, let's be honest, miniscule and blogworthy) happens in 2010, YOU blog reader, friend, confidant, YOU will be the first to know about it.

Sincerely,

Smooth Lou