The smell of hospitals in winter, and the feeling that it's all a lot of oysters, but no pearls.

I have a list of things here to my immediate left (that would be your right) that I could be writing about - reviews of things, media stuff I could wax slightly poetic about. But none of them seem terribly inspiring right now. Plus, I've had a glass of wine and I'm listening to a slightly melancholic mixtape I made for a friend of mine - one that includes the Cure, and the Decemberists, and "Here Comes The Flood" by Peter Gabriel, maybe the saddest sounding song ever recorded. It includes "Long December", the song that contains the lyrics at the top of this post - a song by Counting Crows that is just about the most perfect song about melancholy ever recorded.

In short, it's a tape for "the deep midwinter" as the old carol goes, when the days are short and the nights are somehow darker than normal. There's something akin to a full moon tonight, and I sit in my tiny darkened office involuntarily ruminating on the year that ended about 48 hours ago.

It was a weird year, and it ended weird - CNN was truly surreal in the last days of ought-6 (is that like a 30-ought-6?), with overlapping celebrity deaths - the pomp and solemnity of Gerald Ford, the boisterous gospel party of James Brown, the ugly, brutal hanging of the ugly, brutal Saddam Hussein. For all the death, it seemed an appropriate end to an especially troubling year, both on a national scale and a personal one, for the Mole. A year that included more legal activity than I had known in the previous 39 years; a year that was full of heart palpitations and fear and loathing and outright hatred. At the end of 2006 I have a doctor, a lawyer, and a therapist. If you have those three figures in your life you are both cursed and blessed - cursed that you need them, blessed that they are there.

I am older, this year - and that isn't just about turning 40 - its about learning, and experience, and pain, and disappointment. As ugly and vulgar as the last few years have been, this one seemed to contain the most body blows, the most eye-opening, awakening kinds of moments. I feel 40 years old, whereas when I was 39 I think I still felt about 30. In the course of one year I aged ten.

At the same time, I have found more true hope and peace in the last year than I ever have before - rediscovered the path I was on before I took a major detour about 16 years ago. As old as I feel, I also dont want to waste a minute of what's next, because I have much to make up for. Turning 40 still involves music, and comic books, and creativity, and friends, and love. But its all very different now, in ways that I cant put my finger on. But some nights, when all the cares that belong to me sit heavy 'pon my brow, it all still feels the way that line does up there, that beautiful couplet that says so much. It feels like a shock of recognition.

A later line in that song says "It's been a long December, and there's reason to believe that maybe this year will be better than the last." That's what hope feels like to me - maybe this year will be a little better than the last one - that's about all I can manage and still be honest. So here's to all of you three or four people who might read this little tome - here's hoping this year will be better than last year. Or even maybe a little better than that.