I began 2013, as I ended 2012, sick as a dog. I'm getting better, but my sickness obviously involved my absence from the various New Year's Eve (and weekend) celebrations around (Plastic Passion and Mittenfest, first and foremost). Though sad to miss them, I wasn't as secretly wrecked as I would have been had I been, say, in my twenties (or even early thirties), though I was objectively sorry to miss a rendezvous with a visiting friend from Massachusetts (today, what's worse). Maybe it's the passage of time, but I seem to give less and less of a damn about New Year's Eve with every passing second. There's logic to this, I reckon; it's sobering enough contemplating one's increasing mortality without having the fact of it shoved in your face for two days. Add to that the frenzied pressure of having "THE BEST TIME EVAR!!!" and it can be a little much.

Atop all that, my biology-enforced ennui *almost* scuppered my planned goal of finishing one story a month last year. I could forgive it near anything else (including the planned completion of a longer project by, well, yesterday night, part of which I spent watching this*), but never that. I'm not entirely satisfied with the results, but I *did* finish twelve stories in as many months, thereby proving I could do it. Now I can start behaving a little more sensibly. Said behavior will almost certainly include further blog posts. Part of the reason I've been so reticent on this score for essentially half of 2012 is the heavy writing load I've set myself. Much like cooking for a living, it's not something one's terribly anxious to get into when "off," but part of the project over the last year has been to get myself into a better balance of life and work (of both kinds), and I think it's worked pretty well. I've even toyed with the idea of starting a new blog, one focusing primarily on literary matters, but will likely stay with the old girl for the time being. So whatever else this year brings, the present address will doubtless lumber along (hopefully in the next week or so), with a little more agility than before.

*I had never seen that episode before, which surprised me. Starts off beautifully, tightly written and directed, and then that happens. What the hell? Though, to be sure, there's also this.