New Year's Eve Ruminations

The year started with such promise: A new president and one I worked hard to elect, and a new majority in Congress, sadly none of them from Utah.  Yes, there was all the horrendous economic news, but we knew that at the very tail end of the eight horrible Bush years.  So, no matter how bad the job market is, you only have GWBush to blame for that.  It will be a slow slog to get out of that one, espeicially if the Republicans stonewall repowering the country with new Green jobs.  The party of NO seems to want us all to suffer a few years longer so they can blame the suffering on President Obama. I hope we're not so stupid as to let them get away with that one.

Sadly for me this year will be defined by the loss of my friend, Zelita.  Everything about her illness and death was shocking.  So I remain in a state of sad shock. I'm not the sort of woman to have scads of friends and losing my closest friend leaves a hole in my life that will leave the grament of my dialy life in tatters.  Her death has left me feeling old and frail, as if at any moment, I could be the next to go.  I've always assumed I'd die young.  But now I'm old.  How did that happen?

But on the good news side, my only male friend, Nick is taking me to see the new Clooney move next week, and my friend Tracy, who lives three houses up the street, is taking me to lunch at one of our favorite Mexican Diners next week.  I am not without friends.  And then there are those of you who've been stopping by for the past couple of years and though I may never see you in real life, I count you as my friends.

We've had a gawd awful month of sub-freezing temperatures and inversions creating dangerous air quality in Salt Lake, but today is gorgeous.  It snowed all night and all day yesterday, but this morning is sunny and air is clear again.

But the best news of all for me is that I've finished writing the novel, which I've re-titled The Narcissist.  I did a major rewrite.  Now I just need to do a readthrough to see if it's clean and free of typos or odd tense changes.  Then it's on to writing a query letter.  So, all in all, I'm starting the new year hopeful, and that's amazing in itself.

Happy New Year to all of you.