Super Bowl Update

As one decade ends and a new one begins, I actually find it hard to go back and review all the life I've lived in the past 10 years. Mostly, I'm just happy to still be alive and kickin'. I'm glad to be at a start of a new decade. It's fun to think of the new adventures that may await us rather than to worry away about how something else is ending. In 2000 I was 20, not yet out of college, knowing very little about myself or the world around me. Now I'm 30, and while the world around me still presents a lot of mystery, I have a much better understanding of myself and where I want to be heading. So on this last day of the last year of this past decade, I want to say a huge thank you to my family and friends and assorted partners in crime for sharing this journey of life with me the past 10 years. The love and support and laughter you have offered are what I remember most. I love you!

In more general terms, I think it's been a decade of technology, and a decade of fear. A decade of war, and a decade of hope. As the saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same, so I assume that in the next decade, life will go on in the world much as it always has - barring a 2012 cataclysm, an alien invasion or the Rise of the Machines. All of which I guess could happen! But y2K was a total bust 10 years ago, so don't go painting your "End Of The World!" crazy-person poster just yet.

2009 had some great opportunities for me. I'm glad that I made a long list of resolutions of things to do at the beginning of this year and wrote them down and referred back to them. I managed to do a lot of them, even if some remain unattended (tennis lessons, i swear i will get to you in 2010!). But I said I'd read at least 12 books and I wound up reading about 18 or 19, along with a dozen plays. I said I'd see 12 Broadway shows, and I did that too. I aimed for seeing friends in 12 non-Broadway shows, and overshot that goal by more than double. I went skydiving. I took a vacation by myself out of the country (which i WILL finishing writing about in 2010!) I was in a play. I wrote a play. I wrote at least 12 blog entries per month. I ran my second marathon under my goal time. I did this and I paid all my bills on time and kept my apartment on my own thanks to a steady day job. So I did pretty good in accomplishing the things I set out to do. I look forward to going even further in 2010.

So thanks for a good solid year, 2009! And thanks, 2000's, for all the new creature comforts like blackberries, reality tv, dvr's to record reality TV, the internet, HDTV, ipods and of course the slap chop and the snuggie that the world got to experience these past 10 years. Thank you to wonderful organizations that I've worked with including (but not limited to) the Nitestar Program and the Children's Tumor Foundation. Thank you to Squaresoft/SquareEnix for the several Final Fantasy video games I really enjoyed playing. Thanks for an Obama victory and the success of In The Heights. Thanks but no thanks to 2 terms of the Bush Administration, the fear-mongering that it imposed upon our nation and the world, the extreme fundamentalism and sensationalism that continues to hold far too much sway in the world, and of course those freecreditreport.com commercials I loathe with every fiber of my being. You gotta take the good with the bad I guess. Nothing's perfect. We can always hope to improve.

In the next ten years, I'd like to see some cures for the diseases and genetic conditions that affect so many people throughout the world. I expect to see some equal rights for gay people, some universal health coverage here in the States and hopefully some effing flying electric cars. It's time, folks. Also, it might be nice if the Knicks had a roster that could bring us home a championship as well.

Personally, in ten years I hope to have started a family, found creative success and saved some money (to pay for the family I've hopefully started). Also I really want to meet Rafael Nadal somewhere along the way. I hope to have ten more years of long New Year's Resolution Lists filled with my hopes and dreams and goals, and scratches across all of them to mark their achievement. I hope that for all of you as well, along with good health and prosperity. Raise a glass and toast the new decade! Cheers!