As I face the end of another year, I'm afraid 2014 may be the year when the last of the gray matter in my cranium finally dies. How I wish you could have known me when I was young. I was brilliant then! Not only was I more intelligent than most, but I was possessed of a wisdom beyond my tender years, which led me to a moral certitude on nearly every question that has ever troubled the human heart. Where did it all go? Now, in my dotage, I hardly feel certain about any thing! Worse yet, I'm beginning to think I was wrong about many of the things I used to be certain of. Furthermore, I'm beginning to distrust people who speak about almost everything with moral certitude, when it used to be such a comfort to know that I was right, while others were wrong.

My parents have both been dead for several years now. But they are getting smarter every year, as I go in the opposite direction! I don't know if any studies have been done on post mortem I.Q. improvement, but it is happening before my eyes. When I was a boy, my parents were idiots! It would not be inaccurate to say they were mentally challenged. My sister and I were most unfortunate to be saddled with them. They were always setting boundaries which squashed our youthful creativity, and giving unsolicited advice about subjects that I was much more qualified to judge than they were, being unsullied by years of life experience. Today, their bromides touch the chords of my memory, and I marvel at how right they are, after the years of experience and failure which I call my life.

And finally, and this is very disturbing, I visit this site, mostly, to see how my friends are doing, and not to ogle at the girls. Actually, "ogling" requires a visual acuity I no longer possess, along with a level of lust I rarely reach any more, except when the Yankees win the world series. Good thing, they've done it 27 times, or I might still be a virgin! Nevertheless, I still have a healthy appreciation of the female form. That's why I joined! And, since joining, I have seen the most beautiful real women in the world butt naked, and become friends some of them! Now, I really care more about them- their health, their grief, their joys, their depression-much more than their next set. As I say, this may be the year I lose my faculties entirely; but, until I do, I plan to spend it caring about you all for the wonderful human beings you are! That's what I know for sure.