2008: The First Hundred Days

Well, for all the fanfare which greeted the year it's been a frustrating tussle, at least for me.

I've been sick since the end of January, the principal underlying cause being neurosis; there's so much to write, so much to read, and so much to do that I spent most of February asleep on the couch. In my zeal to write my way out of my crappy job and my boring life I may have inadvertantly burnt myself out. Lack of exercise and an electrolyte imbalance conspired to make my body unable to do any of the things my mind had been screaming at it to do; this was followed almost immediately by a fallen arch in my left foot, which replaced a month of numb apathy with a month of excruciating pain.

While in my mind I realize that I only have a year or two more of this before I can relax a bit, I also realize that I may not be able to take a year or two more of this, and so will have to force myself to relax now, in order to allow both a time to rest and the time to look after basic life skills before the ability to do so is lost forever. Already I can feel myself pulling away from people in person, preferring the company of people on the Internet (although that tendency has always been one of my strongest).

Also on the minus side, I lost my first columnist; check out his new enterprise here. The Pop Culture Institute's loss is his own gain, and I wish Mr. Gagne the best of luck grappling with the impenetrable irrationalities of Christianism.

On the plus side, I couldn't be happier with the way my writing has been; I've written fewer posts, but the ones I've made have been longer, which is all a part of my plan to train myself to start writing for magazines at some point down the road. Also, there's been some innovation; despite its failure I quite enjoyed the virtual vacation, and am quite looking forward to writing another one, knowing now what sort of a commitment it is to write one. I'm also looking forward to meeting your needs better with the Reader's Choice feature, which so far is being won by Mr. Davey.

The next few months ought to see some great innovations, including interviews, fiction (both serialized and one-off), a second series of Vancouver Views, and of course the long-promised debut of the Poppets. So stay tuned!

~ MSM