Happy New Year 2008!!

What the hell happened this year?

Perhaps nothing. Yet everything.

2007 was the year of sustainability. Al Gore won an Oscar, and then the Nobel Peace Prize for his jeremiad on global warming and calls for investing in sustainable energy. Even Republicans began buying Priuses.

For us, it was the year of "figuring it all out." Life: it ain't so bad after all. It's sustainable. Change may come (and better come) in 2008, but 2007 left us waiting. Hanging on. Hanging in there. Sustaining...

Benazir Bhutto's death capped off the year in dramatic fashion. But before that Marcel Marceau mimed his way to the grave, Jerry Falwell prayed his way to heaven, and Anna Nicole Smith captured our attention the way that Princess Diana's death moved us a few years before. Says something about our world. Kurt Vonnegut, Boris Yeltsin, and Luciano Pavarotti died somewhere along the way. Forgettably unforgettable.

The gap between the rich and the poor continued to grow. As the cliche goes, "The rich keep getting richer, and the poor keep getting poorer." We made sure that we were on the right side.

We finally had good sex. Sober. And it wasn't awkward in the morning. In fact, we spent the whole next day shopping with that person, only to finish the day cuddling. Growing up.

Work started making sense, and the new Xerox copy machine and cubicle move added a new six months of tolerance to our jobs. What we would have done without these perks we will never know.

American soldiers and Iraqis are still dying in Iraq. But it is a sustainable violence. Sustainable number of deaths.

Immigrants, both legal and undocumented continued to bust their asses, trying to make a life for themselves and their families. Washington forgot to take notice. Or it wasn't "politically viable" to act. Let the states sustain our policies. Or lack thereof. As long as those aliens still cook me a damn good Philly Cheese Steak for a dollar.

Next year we will go to law school, quit our jobs, move on with our lives. Next year we will have a new President, one who is "ready for change" and "ready to lead," or "stand[s] for change" or has "true strength for America's future." Next year the Cubs will win the World Series.

But this year we simply sustained.

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Happy New Year, and let 2008 rock your world the way you want it to be rocked...