null

It's time for the yearly introspection tour with null. If you're wondering why it's only yearly...well, I have the depth of a mud puddle for the most part. Either that, or I'm flipping another digit on my age.

Last year about this time, I figured to finish shedding the weight I put on during the troubles of aught-three. I also figured on getting my first novel picked up and ready for publishing.

Unsurprisingly, neither of those things happened. The weight stabilized at about forty pounds more than target, and while trying to find a literary agent, I came to the paradoxical conclusion that the majority of them are functionally illiterate.

Despite missing both of those milestones, I actually grew as a person. Honestly, that didn't come until very late in the year, though. For the most part, I played my perpetual role of the self-satisfied, callow yuppie to a tee. I purchased expensive things, took first class plane rides, and laughed it all off. I purchased what is essentially a video game on four wheels, and my hoonage terrified passengers and bored the people unlucky enough to read this space.

I also played my perpetual role of the talented prima donna at work. I yelled; I threatened; I kicked things; and I made things work. I get away with the first three, because I always deliver on the fourth.

Somewhere in the latter part of the year, I asked myself if that was all I wanted. For the first time ever, the answer was, "No. I can be better."

I did my research and found a therapist to help me figure out why I got so frustrated. To my perpetual amusement, therapy turned out to be my therapist repeatedly trying to apply a statistics-laden science to the anti-statistic. I have learned things, though, and I can now safely predict when I'm going to be angry. Net result? I'm a lot quieter and happier, and I'm becoming an elder statesman among my peers. Turns out that the key to commanding more respect wasn't being right all the time, but it was being collected while doing so.

The other key to calmness turned out to be as simple as cutting caffeine and sugar out of my diet. No longer constantly wired, my penchant for cartoonish super-villainy abated. I found my energy constant, and I had the happy ability to lord that over everyone. "Oh yeah? I don't need chemicals to live, man. I'm high on life."

That last bit didn't really happen.

Despite my stated mission, after removing all my bad habits, I have not become the most irritatingly self-righteous person on the planet. Maybe like third or fourth, but not the most. My social conscience has fully developed, but unlike other people bearing the weight of such an appendage, I don't feel the need to try to burden anyone else. If they decided to pick up a little, that's none of my affair.

So what to do for this year? Try to lose the spare tire. Write something new and try to get that published. Grow into this quiet peace I've found.

A start at an MBA probably wouldn't be amiss.

What will I do for the special day? Work. Dinner out. Catch the first showing of V for Vendetta at the Cinerama. In bed by one. Like a semi-good boy.

Then on the seventeenth...nothing special. I fully expect to have the yearly argument with my sister as to which day my birthday is on sometime that evening:

I hope you're all well. I'd say I'm better than I ever have been, and those of you that know what I've been will understand how big a statement that is. Those of you that don't should just take me at my word. I'm good for it.

Now, if only I could figure out why I woke up with Social Distortion's "Ball and Chain" in my head this morning.