I remember how the 2010s started. I left a party at a friend's house in the early morning, about 6 or 7am. I turned the first corner to the metro station and heard a horn. I looked, and there was this silver Volkswagen waiting in the traffic lights. The window was down, and the anonymous driver thrust his middle finger at me. Just a fraction of a second, as he drove off, burning rubber.

That certainly set a theme. The sort of thing that kept on happening throughout the decade^†: austerity, precarity, fascism in politics, egotism in persons. Still, many good things also happened. And many of those good and bad things now seem like they happened a long time ago. Such is the nature of time when getting older, I guess.

Anyway. Taking stock of the whole year — the good things, the bad things, then the books, the music, the TV shows, the movies... I'm no longer having fun. I got tired of the idea before even considering it. Just because I happen to have this blog, I felt like I should write some kind of retrospective on the whole decade. And that's too much, and I won't do it. A guy like Jason Kottke still has that will and that discipline — besides having to meet the expectations of patrons —, and that's why he's successful: go read his best of the best of the best listicle post if that's what you came here for.

I will do something else. I am pronouncing this website as in maintenance, as I cannot be bothered by it. Whatever is automatic will be updated (Instagram photos and Pocket favorites routed to Twitter), whatever is not... Well, then it won't. And whenever I finish writing my Ph.D., hopefully over the next few months, then maybe I'll bring over a mop and some Sonasol and clean up this unwieldy mess of a website.

Have a great New Year!

^† I know: we can't even agree on whether the new decade starts 2020 or 2021. Yes, years are ordinals, so a 'mathematical decade' starts in 2021. But a far more practical 'linguistic decade' — the _twenties_ — should cover 2020. It would be absurd to leave out the year the decade is named after. So. There.