{"id":2623,"date":"2008-12-31T11:41:44","date_gmt":"2008-12-31T16:41:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=2623"},"modified":"2008-12-31T16:02:15","modified_gmt":"2008-12-31T21:02:15","slug":"3-2-1-0-i-said-zero-dammit-zero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2008\/12\/3-2-1-0-i-said-zero-dammit-zero\/","title":{"rendered":"“… 3… 2… 1… 0… I Said ZERO, Dammit, ZERO<\/em>!”"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This post’s title alludes to this little tidbit<\/a> of news: 2008 will last
\na second longer than most years.]<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"The New Year, per usual, calls to mind resolutions about what we hope will come within the next 365ish days. I’ll get to that in a moment.<\/p>\n

First, though, I want to note that whatever else it stands for, December 31 also marks the anniversary of a pop-culture phenomenon’s passing. I speak of the final Calvin & Hobbes<\/em> strip, December 31, 1995.<\/p>\n

The frames reproduced in this post aren’t from that last strip<\/a>. Its creator, Bill Watterson, had for years fought with newspapers about the constraints imposed on cartoonists by conventional newspaper page size and layout. Eventually he won that battle, at least for his Sunday strips, and the final one (like many others preceding it) shows the result: a gorgeous sprawl of irregularly-sized and completely non-rectangular moments in his characters’ lives, much of the space simply blank. The idea of either (a) reducing the whole strip to fit RAMH<\/em>‘s layout or (b) slicing it up for the same reason, well, it just felt blasphemous.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"So there’s this strip, then. Not one of the big Sunday numbers, and not even a New Year’s strip. (It was originally published April 17, 1986.) But boy do I love this message, and it brings me to the issue of resolutions.<\/p>\n

Too often, and really for no reason at all, to resolve something — to promise myself something — means to cancel out something I’m dissatisfied with. And wow, is there a list of those somethings:<\/p>\n

Lose weight. Exercise more often. (Hmm. Could there be a connection there…?) Put Grail<\/em> (or whatever it’s eventually called) to rest, after fifteen years and four drafts. Sell<\/em> something, damn it — some piece of fiction — at least to an agent if not to a publisher or periodical. Finish the Web sites I’ve been working on, others’ as well as my own. Be more consistent and reliable about paying bills. And so on.<\/p>\n

Not to deny the importance to me of all those goals, but I think it’s important, too, to honor inwardly those things which I’m glad I did in 2008, and hope to keep doing next year. And it’s important to imagine those things which have nothing to do with “improving” myself, but everything to do with leaving me happier in twelve months than I am right now.<\/p>\n

And I’ll start with that big sunny field — and a party to celebrate its appearance, after many miles of walking, on my personal horizon.<\/p>\n

No details necessary on this sort of resolution. It’s not a wishlist for something specific, after all: just a frame of mind. The sun shines; passing clouds drop some water and move on; a breeze blows; somewhere not too far distant a dog barks, and up closely a cat [edit to add:<\/strong> or — duh — a tiger] rubs against your ankles, and a little kid tugs on the leg of your pants. A train whistle blows. A crowd cheers, somebody laughs, a brow furrows in concentration, a tear splashes on a countertop. And always — always — the right people are on hand to share the moments.<\/p>\n

Whoever you are, reading this right now, thank you for being one of those people.<\/p>\n

And now, on a rather different note, Oingo Boingo sings us out of 2008 at their own party, assisted by the casts of Nightmare Before Christmas<\/em> and Corpse Bride<\/em> — and a spectacular job of editing on this YouTube video:<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

Happy New Year!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post’s title alludes to this little tidbit of news: 2008 will last a second longer than most years.] The New Year, per usual, calls to mind resolutions about what we hope will come within the next 365ish days. I’ll get to that in a moment. First, though, I want to note that whatever else […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[38,247,94,273],"tags":[864,865,866,867,868],"class_list":{"0":"post-2623","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-backwards","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-02_in-the-news","9":"category-comics","10":"tag-new-years-eve","11":"tag-new-years-resolutions","12":"tag-calvin-and-hobbes","13":"tag-oingo-boingo","14":"tag-dead-mans-party","15":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-Gj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2623"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2640,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2623\/revisions\/2640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}