2009, you weren’t much of a looker, and you kicked me in the ass when I deserved it, and a couple of times when I didn’t. Economically weighing the pros and the cons of 2009, I’d say this was the worst year of my life. All iffy fifteen years of it! Good thing, I guess, that you don’t weigh years that way.

I’m pleased with the things I learnt from you, 2009, like how superior plaid pajamas are to other varieties of pajamas, and how to deal with bipolar II in a parental unit, and how to write without over-using dashes and fragmented sentences and adjectives like “ebony”. I’m less happy with the aforementioned ass-kicking you dealt me, but hey, that’s how it goes, I guess. I’m sorry I can’t be “profound”, or mention anything “game-changing” (one of my father’s famous phrases) or “miraculous” that happened to me this year. I’d say I don’t really care about New Year’s anyway, it’s just a flip of the digits of an intangible number, but I’m wearing a party hat, aren’t I? Gotta live up to it, right?

I hope we can part on good terms, 2009, good in the “I’ll pretend I didn’t see you in the supermarket check-out line” way, good in the “no more goddamn croquets, Miss Applebaum” way. Yeah. Just let your buddy 2010 know that, next year, I’ll be dealing out the ass-kicking.