It’s the last day of 2021, another pandemic-dominated year. In fact, another year where the real news was pandemic, politics and climate change. I hope we whittle that list down to two for 2022.

And today we get a UK basketball game (and a UK football game tomorrow!). Every game right now is a gift. My big fear on this front is that the basketball season will be cancelled or ruined by COVID breakouts across NCAA schools, in a year when UK could go to the Final Four. I know, I should worry about people’s health more than the basketball season, but…I can hold onto both thoughts simultaneously.

My heart goes out to the people of Boulder and Louisville CO who had wind-driven wildfires yesterday. About 600 homes burned down, so about 1500-2000 people left homeless and possession-less on the last day of the year. Brutal. I’ve lived through a couple of those wind-driven firestorms (the worst one in 2007), and they are horrific. You have to experience one to really get it. The 2007 fire left me with a permanent scar – a psychological one, not physical. But I’m pretty sure I was operating with some PTSD for years after that.

I got my 2000+ words written yesterday, and plan to keep doing it. I know the story, the characters and backstory so well from my previous drafts. This time it’s about getting the story down in a proper structure, and once I do that I’ll move on to another book and story. This one taught me that being able to write a good scene isn’t the same as writing a novel, with plot and structure. But I always have been a sprinter, not a long distance runner.

I’m writing this next month to finally finish a book I should have finished a year ago, but also to distract myself. 2022 is off to a rough start – the CO fire disaster, a million new US COVID cases per day (more like 600K officially, but many MDs say the numbers are vastly under-reported), regional health care systems again overwhelmed, travel anywhere is now problematic (again), and the Doomsday Glacier hangs on by a melting thread. Other than the US economy (for the top 75% in terms of income), it’s hard to find any good news. So…keeping my head down and pounding keys until further notice.

As we leave 2021 behind, here’s an appropriate photo. Sunset from the west coast of the Big Island, May 2021. Aloha.