We all want to be new versions of ourselves with each New Year. But change is hard and it’s much easier to love the one you’re with. To tolerate the one you are.

After two years of COVID, social justice demands, insurrectionists, the fact the Trump won't simply die from a goddamned McDonald's fueled heart attack, economic instability, cyber-attacks, droughts, floods, bizarre heat waves followed by epic snowstorms followed by massive wildfires and urban blacks beating up old Asian ladies on video, trying to find some sort of positive, self help path forward seems impossible.

...that if anyone still does New Year’s resolutions, they should include the goals to mind their own business, place their anxiety into perspective, and maybe take a few walks a week. Keep it simple for 2022.

2021 was an odd year for everyone, globally speaking.

I can see them when I sneak out from the basement, walk to the front of the house and peek into the windows like a pervert, but I cannot participate in their life. I can hear them occasionally talking about me, but the longer I’m down here, the less I come up in conversation. In another few days, I expect to hear the voice of a man telling Katie he’ll love Harry like he was his own just before he moves his shit into my house.

I don't see myself in Scrooge much—not wealthy or particularly skin-flinty with dough—and I'm not Republican in any way yet I'm finding a bit more appreciation for Bill Clinton-style centrism. For me, it's those fucking chains of Marley that give me pause.

Santa Claus is as real as the fact that this time next year, covid won’t be a problem.

We can’t escape the world but we can re-learn Patience and Self-Discipline.

...that you should read O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi before Christmas Eve.