December fuck-it-all

Good riddance to 2018 the year in which the last of my quartet of beloved black and white cats died all of whom were euthanized but none of whom had a good death and the year in which the last of the more-than-the-toes-on-a-polydactyl-cat strays I fed over the last 19 years disappeared without a trace and the year in which the two doctors who championed me at work both retired and I find myself wondering and worrying about what my future holds if I am catapulted off the teeter-totter since I am 58 years old and there are bucketloads of unemployed and much younger and more qualified PhDs who would be competing for the same jobs and please don’t tell me to follow my dreams for I don’t have any and even if I did dreams cost money and I don’t have any to spare and the year in which a friend and long ago romantic partner’s cognitive plummet was diagnosed as Alzheimer’s and the year in which someone very dear to me continued to burn and to cut himself and the year in which my house was broken into for a second time and my garage for a third time and the year in which my house’s foundation was revealed to be shaky and my figurative foundation often felt the same way and my home no longer felt like a home but a house haunted by a clowder of ghost cats and vengeful concrete demons and the year in which I lost two car keys and travelled twice to a town a two-hour round trip away to have a new key made only to be thwarted by the most fucking incompetent Toyota technicians who fucked up twice and GOD I HATE FUCKING TOYOTA and I still don’t have a new key and can this level of incompetence actually exist in a so-called functioning global corporation and don’t bother responding because I already know the answer and I also know these griefs and grievances of mine form but a nanoparticle of the infinitely vast global crapload that was 2018.

And then there was this blogging project. I was glad to renew old acquaintances—which should not be and were not forgotten, but just in case they ever should be forgot, here is something to bring them to mind—and to make new ones. And I am sad it is over, since you have been such a wonderful community of writers and readers and such a collective back flow valve against the effluent that constantly threatens to flood our house-of-card fortresses (OK, this is a shitty and possibly mixed metaphor or analogy or whatever it's meant to be, but remember, I'm in the middle of a shitty basement renovation). And yet I am also glad it is over, for I feel almost constantly overwhelmed by stuff that needs doing and posting something every day—although I actually averaged once every 1.99 days*—added to the stuffload. 

Alas, I was hoping to post a profound and poetic summation, not this stale, yammering ramble. Apologies… and a toast to loads of happier ramblings in 2019.

*Thankfully it wasn’t a leap year, which would have downgraded my posting performance to once every 2.00 days.