New Year’s Obligations

Unless you’ve just now woken up from a coma of indeterminate duration and find yourself in a strange health-care facility without any idea of where you are or how you got there, chances are me pointing out that 2013 has but one full calendar day remaining is not so much skirting the obvious as it is skating out in the middle of a barely frozen Obvious Pond and plunging knee-deep into the icy water.

And, why, yes, I do enjoy ridiculously long run-on sentences to say simple things such as “Everyone knows tomorrow is New Year’s Eve, yeah?” That’s kinda what I do. Welcome to Puddintopia.

Incidentally, if you did just happen to wake up from a coma of indeterminate length, well, congratulations! Welcome back! The year is currently 2013 (although 2014 is a mere two days off), and depending on whom you ask, Obamacare is either the reason you’re still alive or the reason you’re being held against your will in that hospital while the zombie apocalypse rages all around you. Also, you may or may not be Patient Zero. Happy New Year!

Anyway, as the specter of a brand new set of 52 weeks is looming, I’m once again reminded of my contractual obligations as a blogger at year’s end. I skipped the Year in Review post last year because, well, laziness. Which means if I don’t manage to put something up this year, a horde of internet trolls will appear at my doorstep with pitchforks and torches, and will proceed to fanboy flamewar the comments on all my posts until WordPress has to deny service to my URL. Also, I’ll have my Certified Blogger Membership Card torn up in front of me. And nobody wants to see a weepy Puddin.

Without further feet-dragging, then, (which, I’m proud to say, I’ve done a fine job of thus far) I give you, the 2013 Year in Review for Jason A. Rust, aka Puddin:

• Posts from this humble blog were selected by WordPress editors to be Freshly Pressed not once, but twice through the course of the year!
• I wrote two, count them, TWO, new novels.
• I learned to play Bad Piggies with someone very important to me.
• I infected Middle Son with my newfound appreciation for Dr. Who (score!).
• Baseball officially became my favorite sport. Not necessarily big money major league baseball, mind you, but the small game played out of love for the pastime on patches of grass that are just big enough and just dry enough to make it work. Twilight hours spent with Eldest Son’s little league team proved to me that baseball is actually more much about life than mere sport.
• I got to go on a pretty sweet lunch date, and that had very little to do with the cheesecake:
  

  Having a lunch date with my favorite daughter. We haven’t eaten yet and she’s already trying to pick a cheesecake. pic.twitter.com/Jvyfa2ZwpG

  — Jason A. Rust (@jasonarust) September 28, 2013

• The heart and soul of my being here on this planet plane of existence—that is, the Puddinette—continued to put up with me, my grandiose schemes, my immature, inappropriate, and often poorly-timed wit, and my often, um, malodorous and noisy mortal husk for a thirteenth wonderful year. I still heart you more than even dark chocolate or beer, Mrs. Puddin. I am a lucky dude.
• Did I mention that I signed with a literary agency? It was kind of a big thing for me. Nine months later, I’m still elated at a subatomic level to be represented by Danielle Smith and Pam van Hylckama Vlieg of Foreword Literary.
• Something finally eclipsed the term “skinemax” as the most frequently searched Google term to bring eyeballs to Puddintopia. Thank you and congratulations, “narcoleptic manatee”! I have no idea why so many interwebbers are looking for you, but at least it’s a search for something besides free, blurry soft-core. Let’s just all continue to hope that the term “pudding enema” doesn’t overtake you in 2014.

So there you have it, my year in review. Is it pointed or useful at all? Probably not. But each of those things means something to me, and hopefully that will be enough to entertain you, at least a little..

Happy New Year, puddintopians! Be smart, be responsible, and beware Amateur Night on those roads. And may your 2014 be filled with peace, love, passion (of whichever sort you prefer), and a damn good brownie now and then.

Have an awesome holiday, and try not to set the place on fire.

Pud’n

PS: If you’re lucky (and by “lucky” I mean bored enough to care what I have to think about it), maybe Wednesday I’ll actually write a post for New Year’s, Thoughts I Have for 2014.