"Ain’t that just like me."

Yesterday I made a friend watch the videos for both Blackstar and Lazarus by David Bowie. "It's almost like he's planning the return to his home planet," I joked.

Last night not long after midnight, my sister texted me to tell me that David Bowie - the man who fell to earth - was dead.

I was stunned. I had strange dreams all night, and when I woke up this morning and checked the internet to really confirm the news, I found myself much sadder than I thought I'd be. I'm still sad, if I'm honest. I've cried a little, which seems sort of stupid as I never met the man, but there it is.

I was born in 1981, and so my first introduction to Bowie was Labyrinth. As I got older my mother informed me that the Goblin King was the one singing many of the songs I loved on the mixed tapes she would make. I remember playing Modern Love on my baby-pink tape player - running on batteries - in the back of my mom's car. She, my sister, and I all sang along. As I grew older I would discover Station to Station, Ziggy Stardust, Diamond Dogs... all of it. My sister and I watched The Man Who Fell to Earth, and for a while Voodoo even had the same hairstyle as he did in that film. He was a fascinating character who never truly faded from public consciousness, and the more you learned about him the more interesting he became.

David Bowie was more than just a rockstar. I think anyone who ever enjoyed his work felt that.

We were lucky to have him.

Majesty

It's a brand new year, and the blogosphere is full of articles on how to make this one the year of a new you.

I think Matt Bellassai has the right idea about that, really.

Hey, I've tried it. You can look at this very blog and see that. I'll be honest with you - every year it's usually the same shit: exercise more, meditate more, write more. 

This is not to say that I have not improved in those areas or that it's bad to have goals. I actually think it's great to have goals, because it gives us something concrete to slog towards when the going is tough. But once you reach a goal, there's another and another and another. It's not like you finally run that 5K and then just quit altogether.

Will I be the same person this year as I was last? Yeah, pretty much. I'll probably still drink too much wine, judge the outfits of every last one of my co-workers, play music too loudly and hate meditating. But there will be new shit, too.

The monthly show I help produce with Voodoo Pixie and Aleister Crane, The Comedy of Terrors, will be coming to an end. We had a good run, but we all have other demands on our time. I have a job scheduled to run through to the fall that is shaping up to be pretty demanding, Voodoo and I are trying our hands at a new project - a series of roundtable discussions on horror and an accompanying podcast, both called Dark Entries. (Why yes, I did pick the name.) I'm cancelling my membership at the YMCA, but my running is picking up again and I plan to take pole dancing.

Slowly, I am developing some sort of relationship with the Old Man. I'm still not sure what it's going to become. At the same time, I have discovered Sabbatic Witchcraft and find myself eager to read more about it. (How has this been hiding from me for so long? And now I seem to trip over it all over the tumblr and on blogs.)

Life progresses, although rarely in an instantly dramatic fashion. We shouldn't expect massive changes just because we said "happy new year" and we should not hold ourselves to such an insane standard. On the other hand, we also cannot use the fact that most often life is a case of same-shit-different-day as an excuse for our own inertia.

So do the shit that you want to do. Your habits now will help shape who you are ten years from now, so maybe make sure at least some of that shit is healthy. I highly doubt much of what is over the horizon will be easy, but I'm also quite confident that we're all a bunch of tough motherfuckers and we can handle whatever may come.

New year. Same you. (ie: still badass.)