2012: Whap!

Holy moly—it’s the end of the year! And here’s me unprepared thinking that the whole Mayan apocalypse thing would obviate having to do a round-up of 2012.

My bad!

Looking back on the year there are a few experiences that stand out in my mind:

That whole nightmare with my health insurance cutting me off (without mentioning it to me) five days before I had knee surgery shadowed the entire year, I’m afraid. I’m deeply grateful that people I didn’t know stepped up to the plate to help me out of a serious pickle. I learned a couple of things from that: make sure your check clears the bank. And there are government functionaries who will do their job and make a megalithic corporation back down. God bless ‘em.

I made a commitment to post to this blog five days per week, which turns out to be a considerable effort. You might not think it takes anything at all to come up with the drivel I share with you, but it does. Some days the nonsense just flows. Others I have to Google randomly for hours to find something that either amuses or outrages me enough to share it with you.

However, the House of Windsor can usually be counted on to supply me with something.

Developing back pain that, on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being “shoot me now”) was hovering at an 8, and being severely restricted by having the crappiest health insurance it’s possible to pay into, turned out to lead me to a Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner. Not only did Dr. Woo take me from the 8 to a 4 on that scale at my first visit, he introduced me to the benefits of acupuncture.

Woo was the first chiropractor I’ve ever seen who didn’t start out by taking a flock of X-rays and then schedule me for three appointments a week until my insurance benefits ran out. He felt my pulse and checked my tongue; told me to lay off sugar, drink more water and get out and walk for 60 minutes at least a couple of times a week; and he’s given me exercises to do to strengthen my core muscles.

Until about October, I was exploring the various trails around here several mornings a week. It was pretty painless exercise, actually, and it got me out and about.

Since seeing him and running out of early morning daylight, I finally broke down and joined a gym. Okay, I didn’t join it until December, but since doing so I’ve gone there on average five mornings a week (except while I was in Sedona), cranking out 60 minutes of cardio exercise per visit. I’ve lost about four pounds, which may seem insignificant and indeed is a drop in the bucket compared to what I need to lose, but is still something positive

But I think the biggest thing for me this year was deciding to produce at least the first draft of a novel. As of this weekend I rounded the corner on 95K words. What’s really amazing to me about this is how much better I feel about pretty much everything since I started working on this. I find it a lot easier to deal with moronic recruiters (of whom there is a massive surfeit in this world), ADHD executive directors and the other vicissitudes of the Silicon Valley.

As with the blog, some days the prose flows and some days I have to Google randomly for a long time to spark something. But I’m really glad I took it on.

As for rounding up 2012 in general—I’ll leave that to Dave Barry; he’s been at it a lot longer than I have.

I particularly liked learning about the Predator drones and Waziristan.