It's a deadly time. My grandma, of course, went last week. More recently, my neighbor's sister died at the age of 33 from cancer. A former professor had another stroke (but lives on, heaven knows how), and a pillar of the Philadelphia Goth community died last week in a car accident.

Christmas is not an excuse for delaying death, and I'm sure a random sampling of deaths in any time period would not show Christmas as being any safer than another timeframe. Maybe I'm getting older and gloomier.

Hell, don't many people die this time of year from suicide and drunk driving?

I've made a promise to go the entire month of January on less than 20 carbs/day. My gut is expanding exponentially. If I keep on my current weight gain plan, the Chinese will run screaming when I set foot in Guangzhou.

Today is New Year's Eve and many of you loyal readers may expect a wild evening from me, but tonight's activities don't involve much more than driving to Philadelphia and boozing it up in my friend Shelley's aprtment with (of all things) a bunch of people who are already coupled. How exciting will it be to act as the party's designated lonely, single guy? The clock will strike midnight, the couples will embrace, but the single guy will have only his vodka martini to snuggle with.

I will whisper to my booze, "You've always been there for me."

My last several New Year's have been similarly understated. I've had better, wilder times on weeknights with work in the morning than many a recent New Year.

If this New Year's were half as exciting as TorCon or World Fantasy, I'd be elated! Speaking of TorCon, I'd even suffer the painful disdain of an ex to get to the revelries I spearheaded in Toronto!

But these are my friends and

FRIENDS ARE ENEMIES WHO HAVEN'T GOTTEN THE COURAGE TO KILL YOU - YET