I can’t believe it either––an update, by me, about the new year, right on New Year’s day? Impossible! Oh, but the world shifts ceaselessly, and anyone seems early once he’s late enough. So here’s a quick review of my year, and perhaps a prediction or two about what might happen in 2014:
As I recall it was a good, if not antisocial start to the year. A former coworker was having a party-slash-new job celebration, but my girlfriend and I fell asleep at something like seven-thirty only to wake up a half hour before midnight, so we stayed at her parents’ house and went to sleep shortly after breaking into the year. A couple days later we made the drive back to Florida, driving all afternoon and night, finally hitting Sarasota sometime in the afternoon. Later in January we went to Disney World, where I lost my mostly filled notebook, and then I started working at the art museum founded by John Ringling with his wife, Mable, coincidentally called the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. It was probably one of the quietest experiences of my life, and I’d certainly never stared so long at Renaissance art before. In March we went swimming with manatees in Homosassa. Despite a more than well worn wet suit with no neoprene in the chest or underarms, it was magnificent. We decided manatees are the lap cats of the aquatic world. A calf even nose bumped my face.
When April rolled around I made a seventeen hour drive starting in torrential Floridian downpours and ending in a chilly Texan Spring evening. Neither I nor my big orange and white cat ever want to undertake that drive without companionship again. I spent a few months reading inane essays written to inane prompts and living in makeshift quarters or other people’s houses, and began a semi-public haiku study.
The end of September saw our family’s last days in the Austin townhouse. A few weeks later, as Texas slipped into Fall, I traveled to Indonesia just in time for the start of wet season. It was actually the first time I’d been outside of the US, save for a long weekend in Baja a decade ago. I mostly spent the month eating all types of food, traveling to nearby places (including Singapore), missing my girlfriend and cats, and learning to scuba dive. Much of this is chronicled in my posts from November, check them out on the right side of my page.
I came back to the States at the beginning of December, just in time for an In-N-Out to open in Austin, and for a month of scoring STAAR tests. So my year boils down to a few paragraphs and thousands of omitted details.
I would talk about the events of 2013, but, save for some incremental progress on social issues, the most memorable were abysmal, depressing or tragic, so let’s spare ourselves.
My life is somewhat disjointed as the year begins. My years of travel and transience have ended; now it’s time for a satisfying job and a nice place to live. It’s also going to be a watershed year for my creative endeavors: I plan to start freelance editing as well as finally assembling some large scale works and increasing my poetic presence. Keep an eye out!
Well, my time’s up, and the year won’t pursue itself, so I’ll end things here. Happy New Year!
See Andrew Whiting. Read Andrew writing. 
Hahahahahahahaha