I’ll do this as quickly as possible, as I don’t think there’s much in the way of serious existential crisis going on here.

Relationships: still in the same one. That’s all you guys get.

Socializing: I do what I can. A little hard, because people are spread out and busy, but all anyone can do is their best.

Sleep: way better in the second half of the year than in the first, but it still goes batshit sometimes, right now being one of those times.

Meds: no changes. Looking for good meds for acid reflux syndrome, suggestions welcome.

Therapy: my poor therapist. I’ve mostly run out of things to complain to her about that she can actually help me with. We probably need to start focusing on…

OCD: I haz it. I’m getting a little better at managing it, but sometimes, I really, really, REALLY get locked in on shit. If you talk to me and you think I’m having one of those moments (lately, they involve me talking about baseball cards to people who probably don’t care), let me know as it’s happening. Thanks in advance.

Food: I have good and bad stretches with my diet. Still trying to figure out what I like to eat at age 36 and change that’s good for me, and trying to pull myself away from whatever I’m doing in order to prepare it. Also having the usual struggles with what I can eat pain-free, related to the acid reflux.

Exercise: I totally shit the bed on this in the 2nd half of the year. On the plus side, my left leg is as healthy as it’s ever going to be for when I start running again, which will probably be as soon as some of this damned ice and snow clears.

SSI case: still waiting for a hearing. If my math’s correct and the line hadn’t gotten any longer before I joined it, I’d estimate an August or September hearing.

Other health stuff: have a new general practitioner, who will hopefully not be my “annual new general practitioner”, because I like her. I’ve got osteoarthritis (at its worst in my left knee and neck), acid reflux syndrome, migraines, slightly high cholesterol (but normal blood pressure for the first time in 4 years) and you guys know about my sleep problems. Finally looked into low blood sugar and thyroid issues, and neither of those are a concern for me, so that’s finally answered, and with a good answer to boot.

Fear: I just spent a year talking about this, probably to the considerable detriment of my site traffic. I’ve got a wrap-up mostly written that I’ll post after the 1st of the year, but the short version is this: I’m good on 43% of what I was afraid of in the past year, still working on 46% of it but actively doing so, and totally at a loss or dropping the ball on the remaining 11%. I’m not sure what those raw numbers mean, but I figured I’d put them out there while I had the calculator handy.

Second Life: abandoned ship for the most part, like everyone else has. Don’t feel too bad, SL, I stopped playing WoW too. I miss a few of the people and some of what I used to do there, but I’m working on contingency plans there. I probably will never have a full reproduction of my club Heck on a private Second Life server, mostly just because I’ve seen games that were made in this millennium, and SL’s graphics really don’t cut it for me anymore. Unless you have someone who’s an absolute wizard building and programming what’s there, they’re garish, clunky and look kinda like the worst of Playstation I-era graphics. I know, Mr. “I still own a couple of Pong systems” is bitching about graphics, but on something like this, they really do make a difference. I’ll visit periodically just to see what’s left of the place, but I don’t want to live there anymore.

Music: have some things in the works. Have some collaborators in mind. Still looking for more collaborators. Drop me a line if you’re interested in being one. Still also need to rebuild the home studio in a way that makes sense and doesn’t destroy my house. Starting on that in a few days.

Writing: the comic book stuff has been slow going, but I’ve been very busy with another project, and it’s the most fun I’ve had writing in years. The response seems to be decent, too, so I must be doing something right. I need to write on this site more often, too, and not just about fear and jogging. I’m actually getting close to being able to start doing this, which I talked about 9 months ago. Time flies, doesn’t it? I’ve also re-added my status updates to the site, though because of the clunky way the ping.fm plugin works now, they’re in the sidebar rather than inline with my feed. No likey, but it’ll do for now. You can always add me on teh twitters if you miss my brain ejaculating on you in 140 characters or less.

School: not happening until after the SSI case is over. Dropping this from the next update unless something happens there.

And, last but not least…

Money: this sucks as usual, but shit’s tough all over. Managed to barely do what I needed to in 2010, despite some compulsive spending in Q4 that complicated things a bit. Doing my best, looking to unclutter some more so I’ll probably sell a bunch more stuff in 2011. Have some other plans where money’s concerned that I’ll announce after the 1st, but not bore you all with for a year straight. In the meantime, if you love me or this site and want to contribute to my continued well-being in some way, it’s always appreciated.

My wish list, mostly for things to keep me sane while I’m in limbo, is here.

Here’s that list I keep a link to in the top left of the site of ways you can help the site out, some of which don’t include giving me money outright or buying me anything.

And, finally, here’s America’s favorite PayPal button! Thanks as always for your support, however you choose to give it.

This Week: Me 1, Fear 0
Total Score: Me 41, Fear 26

OK, 3 days and change left in the year, and one of the more high-stress weeks of the year (the week of Christmas) caps it off. The stress that comes with Christmas is kind of pissant in the grand scheme of things (especially if you’re a person without kids; kids and Christmas, that’s a whole different ballgame, and props go to every set of parents who do it right and care about giving their kids a good holiday), but it still creates fear, so we’ll talk about it. I had some typical week-of stress (“Do I have something for everyone I should have something for? Am I doing enough? Will I get everything done in time?”), and I was in the stores until 7:30 on Christmas Eve, but all in all, I kicked ass. I refer to the immortal words of Mr. Miyagi, who once said “Buddha provide.”

There’s some snow here on the East Coast, too, but that’s really no big deal. Not even worth awarding a point to in either direction.

Later in this week, or at the beginning of the next (I may wait until I’ve got the whole year under my belt), I’ll sit down with all 52 weeks of these posts and do a wrap-up. I’ve got next year’s resolutions picked out as well (which, thankfully, won’t be as emotionally intense as this year’s, from the looks of things), but we’ll talk about those in the wrap-up.

This Week: Me 0, Fear 0
Total Score: Me 40, Fear 26

Yet another very quiet week. One more week (well, technically 9 days right now) to go!

I barely got around to listening to much of anything this year. I’ve got a bunch of records I still need to familiarize myself with, so I may do another one of these lists in a few months now that I’ve remembered what I need to hear. That having been said, I’ve got 10 albums (one unfinished, weird as that is) that I’ve listened to as much as anything else this year, and one single that gets “Single Of The Year” despite a live version being on YouTube since mid-2008 (in fairness, the studio version just came out this year), and probably qualifies for “Single Of The Decade” (at the very least, it shares space on the podium with Andrew W.K.’s “Party Hard”).

Enough suspense. Here are, in no particular order, the best albums (and single) of 2010:

Accept
Blood Of The Nations
Nuclear Blast

This record kicks an unbelievably staggering, insane amount of fuckin’ ass. I said I wasn’t going in order, but I lied. This is the best album of 2010. Holy fuckin’ shit. Just go get a copy and listen to it a lot, so I don’t have to stab you or set you on fire or anything.

Ke$ha
Animal
RCA

She’s trolling us all. And I love her for it.

Tom Caruana
Wu-Tang Vs. The Beatles
deleted from Tea Sea Records

The final word in mashup records. You’ll have to dig around in some sketchy places to find a copy of this, but it’s so worth it.

Devo
Something For Everybody
Warner Bros.

It’s like they never took any time off at all. Devo are at the top of their game on this one, and they gave it the best record release party ever. All hail King Orange!

Roky Erickson & Okkervil River
True Love Cast Out All Evil
ANTI-

In every way, this record is a gift.

Celebration
Hello Paradise
Friends Records

Celebration are one of the best bands of the decade, and one of the best live acts I’ve ever seen. They’re not even finished releasing all the tracks from this record (you can get them all for free at their site, and get the vinyl when it comes out), and I still had to post this. Absolutely bewitching.

Ima Robot
Another Man’s Treasure
Werewolf Heart Records

Free of major label intrusion, Ima Robot have released an album that’s pure art. It’s kind of like their “Spilt Milk”, if you’re familiar with the band Jellyfish (no similarity in sound, just the same “art for art’s sake” approach). Layers upon layers upon layers. I hear Lennon, I hear The Cure, I hear Perry Farrell on his good days, and I still hear Ima Robot in there somewhere, too. This one’s a trip and a half.

Monster Magnet
Mastermind
Napalm Records

Do not attempt to listen to this record while driving unless you want to drive really fast, destroy your ear drums and flip the bird at random people in other cars. Yep, kids, Dave’s got his mojo back.

Hole
Nobody’s Daughter
Mercury Records

Courtney, you done good.

Meat Loaf
Hang Cool Teddy Bear
Roadrunner Records/Loud & Proud Records

What can you say? It’s Meat Loaf. People find ways, I suppose, but I find it pretty much impossible not to like the guy. He’s almost like a throwback to the vaudeville days in a rock n’ roll sorta way, and this record’s no exception to that. Seeing him play the material live really drove it home for me, too. Good people, that Mr. Loaf.

And last, but certainly not least, the best single of 2010:

A Lost People
Big Booty Bitches
A Lost People

Now, the first video for this musical masterpiece came out in 2008, but the studio version was released this year. I don’t care if the song came out in 1928, it’s still the single of the year. As I said above, it might even be the single of the decade. Oh, that video? Feast your eyes on it!

That’s all for now. As I listen to more of what came out in ’10, I may make another list of “Stuff I didn’t hear in the first 11 1/2 months of the year”, but this is what I got to that I really, really enjoyed.

This Week: Me 1, Fear 0
Total Score: Me 40, Fear 26

This week’s instance is really, really marginal by “fear” standards, honestly, but it’s the best I’ve got. As some of you know, I travel short-distance a lot these days. I’m only home for 4 days out of 7, sometimes less. As I was about to do it last weekend, I got hit by a wave of homesickness, and despite me liking where I was going and who I was going to see there quite a bit, it was a struggle for me to get out the door and drive there. I didn’t anticipate anything bad happening, but sometimes, I do just feel like staying home, even if I really do a shit job of enjoying the comforts of home when I’m here most of the time. I made it there OK, though, and I had a very good weekend, so in the end, I overcame…something. Was it fear? Laziness? Just homesickness, as I described above? I’ll put one in the plus column for me for now, but I’m not totally sure if this was fear. This wasn’t me thinking that I’m going to be shot when I open the front door to my house or get out of my car. (I have those thoughts a lot, thanks to December 8th, 1980 and too many movies after that date. Weird that I think we made it to Week 50 without it coming up. For my part on this, I just look around and make sure the coast is clear.) This wasn’t me being afraid of any kind of dying at all. It wasn’t me afraid of natural catastrophe, poverty, homelessness, war, pain, disease, being alone, losing people I care about, accomplishing less than I want to in life, or any of those other consuming types of fear you hear about from folks, some of them me, some of them not. I just struggled with the idea of leaving home a bit. Does that count? Am I reaching to fill up space here?

I’ll try to get Week 51 in sooner than I did Week 50. Then, we do Week 52 sometime around or after the 27th and a wrap-up after New Year’s Eve. Crap, I’m going to have to read all 52 weeks of this to do that.

This Week: Me 0, Fear 0
Current Score: Me 39, Fear 26

This week was really that quiet. See you next week!