So far, so good

There's no real sense for the year to begin in January. Our history of new year designations is jumbled at best, but then so are many of our conventions. I allow myself a just a few grumbles each year regarding the dates for Christmas, New Year's Day, and the start of the World Series. Finally, though, it's stare decisis. Let's get on with it.
As I've mentioned before, I don't make New Year's resolutions. Anything worth changing was worth changing on any other date. You can go to a lot of  A.A. meetings before finding anyone who stopped drinking on January 1st and stayed stopped. We make changes in our lives when the right combination of circumstances comes up.
In the early crime dramas, we learned that a person is guilty of a crime when it can be shown that the person had the means, opportunity, and motive to do the deed. Well, the same is true for positive change.We change not only when we want to stop doing the wrong thing, but know what the right thing is and have the resources available to grasp onto the new behavior. It isn't even necessary to change for a good reason. Change seems as random as any other kind of fortune. Some folks seem to be able to make it happen at will while others have this slipping double-reverse timing chain between effort and results.

When 2010 started, we had some ideas about what was ahead. They were modest plans, I thought. Whatever image we had for the year, it turned out to nothing of what we'd imagined. And yet, we're better than OK.
So, finally, that's why I don't make New Year's resolutions. The best parts of my life have come to me when I didn't get what I'd planned, didn't get what I said I wanted.
We went to First Night and wrote on the Wishing Wall. 

Cassie at the Wishing Wall (click to enbiggen)

People asked for a cure for AIDS, shoes, Love, Peace, and Happiness, Justin Bieber, all the way up to a wish for "Cole to shut up." I read the messages, speculated a bit about each person who'd written a wish, and then went for dinner. I had a combo platter of chicken curry and vegetable korma. Most years I get the curried goat.