Going Forward

Man... "Going Forward" ranks right up there with "Go From There," and "It Is What It Is," and "At The End Of The Day" isn't it? Yet another popular phrase that people don't even hear themselves say after a while.

But, you know, going forward I'd just like to say that I'm sitting here thinking 2011 is going to be an interesting year. I'm not saying it's going to be a good year, just interesting. There's a couple things I have going on right now that I haven't mentioned at all that I have some hopes for. One of them a collaboration on a project that came up out of the blue this past fall. Another that is kind of related and kind of not.

I have the next piece of writing already in mind and will be getting this last ridiculously boring thing out into the hands of someone who is going to try and find a home for it in the next week or so.

What are the chances of me finding myself in some other employment by this time next year? Well that's hard to say. I've been looking in earnest for a couple weeks now with little luck. And just in the last few days here all of a sudden we've had an uptick in activity in signed contracts and actual deposits. So who knows? It can't be that the economy is slowly moving again, can it? My work is usually like the proverbial canary in a coal mine. For better or worse. Time will tell.

I just have a general sense that something good is around the corner and I can't really put my finger on it. I'm not so sure it has anything to do with me so much as to the people I'm close to. One person in particular is overdue for great news. But this is nebulous and I don't know what it is at all. Just a sense.

It's just I'm through with years clicking over before I have been paying attention. Jesus, my granddaughter is going to be 8 this coming year. EIGHT? When the hell did that happen and where was i for that all this time?

There is an interesting phenomenon that happens when you grow old. We all know about it and laugh about it and pretty much agree with it. It's sort of like the Betty White Syndrome (which I just now made up) wherein when you get old enough you can pretty much say anything you want and get away with it. I'm sensing a general drift towards that kind of power in my life. We'll see if I just chicken out.

In 2011 we are having our 40th high school reunion and the thing that has struck me the most are the number of people from our class of '71 who have croaked. I still don't know how someone who was generally outside the lines in school manages to get on his SECOND reunion committee in ten years, but I'm beginning to suspect it's because I ended up being one of the people with the least amount of baggage from those years. It still astonishes me the number of people who want nothing to do with this. Not that I don't feel that view is valid, just that I don't understand it. Seems to me a person would have to have baggage to feel that way, no matter how much they say it's just a matter of interest. I look with suspicion upon it.

In 2011 I will be telling you about a slew of things that will be making their way back into the small press world. The time has come to quit sleeping through it all.

In 2011 I am going to get below 200 and stay there.

In 2011 my oldest daughter gets her Masters. She will be a master accountant. But since both of my daughters are already currently making more money than me a year I'm already pretty proud of them.

None of these are resolutions. Resolutions have the character of things that may or may not be. I'm simply telling you "what it is."

Yet another stupid saying like "going forward" and shit like that.