I don’t typically submit a blog post to my team of editors in the wee hours of New Year's Day, unless I want a black eye. Even with no parties to attend, these fixers of my scribblings have by now already toasted farewell to 2020 by donning celebratory lampshades, and are in no mood to try to make sense of the words I’ve splashed haphazardly onto the page for another 36 or so hours.

So let's bypass the editors today and use the opportunity to denigrate the shit year that was 2020 without their interference.

Yeah, OK, 2020 started off just fine. The impeachment of a sitting president may sound inauspicious, but I must admit it lifted my spirits, especially whenever Adam Schiff took the mic. From there it went downhill. The president was found not guilty, continued to ignore or not bother to read intelligence reports, and played down the new virus, which had secretly boarded a plane from China in order to attend a Biogen conference.

The rest of the year is a total blur. Stuck in our homes, unable to give hugs to our friends and family, watching helplessly as our favorite bars and restaurants closed, seeing people lose their jobs, remote school that barely resembled actual school … Ech. The year was a complete disaster before we even started counting all the dead bodies.

The only thing that has kept me from flinging myself off a tall building this year is that no tall buildings are allowing me in. I exaggerate of course. Having the best family anyone could hope to have, a meaningful job, and friends who are masterful optimists with great senses of humor have also kept me mostly sane. Not to mention that I've gotten better at brewing beer.

For 2021, my hope is to retain the family, friends, work, and beer and jettison everything else.