Under a Blood Red Sky

I'll admit it. The last day of the old year wasn't half bad weather-wise here in the middle part of the upper third of the Original Thirteen (Southeastern Connecticut. I just wanted to see how tortured a description I could write. Not too shabby, imho).

Yes, it could have been better but it certainly could have been worse, a lot worse and I've lived here long enough to be one of the geezers who can attest to that. 

If you partied heartily, welcome to your first hangover of the year. One of the nice things about not drinking alcohol anymore is that looking out the window today on the first day of the next year isn't as dog-awful as it's been in decades past. It wasn't that I drank that was the problem. It had a lot more to do with the fact that I swallowed. Even now, the sunshine bores the daylights out of me but I'm also deathly afraid of the dark, hence my dilemma.

So clear-eyed and empty-headed, I look out on the first day of our new year and can see the gap between the promise and the performance at every level-personal, professional, and political. I think I even got them in the correct order, for me at least. Your mileage may vary.

Did you make resolutions? And have you already broken one or more of them? I don't think the Guinness Records people keep track so you can safely claim whatever you wish and however you will. Of course, escaping your own judgment will be harder to do since you know best your own tricks and traps.

I have hopes for 2024-not resolutions. I hope to be a better person to people I've known already in my life and to whom I have been less than kind. Unless they're a$$holes, in which case, no deal (I threw that just in case someone who has taken advantage of me thought I was going soft in my dotage and wanted another bite at the apple). I'll also add I'm not going to allow the past to color the future and recognize I cannot be forgiven for sins I've not yet committed.

This is Day One. We can go anywhere and do anything. We just have to decide and then agree on what anything will look like. Let's go.

-bill kenny