Good Morning from OYIT [last day of 2009]

By Glenn There's something very special about today. For many people today will be the last day they wake up in prison. Nationwide almost 40% of the nonviolent offenders currently in prison will be paroled effective January 1st, 2010. That's tomorrow. And that's what budget shortfalls do to states. The best about the year finishing up is that after today everything changes. If you're unhappy, tomorrow you have one chance to become happy for the next year. If you're broke, tomorrow you'll have a chance to become rich for the next year. If you're drunk today, tomorrow you can become sober.

[We all have the opportunity to change our lives every day. You should use tomorrow as motivation if it's motivation you need, but don't pack a bunch of bad experiences into today with the the hope that 2010 can be better.]

Today's Weather

If you believe Nostradamus, you probably think today is going to start out with lovely weather but by evening the sky will be full of blood and frogs will be raining down from the sky. Fortunately the real forecast is substantially different from that. Some of us will be dealing with precipitation but it's not going to be too cold anywhere in our great nation. Frogs are nowhere to be found on the doppler.


Today's Bob Dylan Album

The length of time it has taken me to finally listen to Bob Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home is criminal, which is why I've been in prison this entire year (and why I can't wait to get out tomorrow). I'd rather stay in prison, though, than lose this album from my life. I like tons of songs on it! The lyrics are iconic/ironic and the guitar licks are as good anything John Frusciante did on Californication. If you don't like Bob Dylan at this point you never will, but if you like him and haven't listened to this album lately please bust it out. My favorite song right now is It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding). Wikipedia says: "In a 2004 interview Dylan called song "magically written" and said he didn't know how he got to write the lyrics. He further stated that he couldn't write songs of that calibre anymore."


Today's Year-End Retrospection

This website, One Year in Texas, has been open almost an entire year. 2009 was the year we learned whether Barack Obama would fulfill his campaign promises. For me, it was a year of personal highs and lows, latitudinally and emotionally. Michael Jackson finally died and John Updike had only begun to live, like the ten thousand fetuses they were aborted this year. The point is that 2009 was much different than the other years before it. We should acknowledge that and then move onto 2010, which will probably be the most like 2007.


Today's Prediction
To celebrate the close of the year which contained the 44th anniversary of Bringing It All Back Home, people will go see a Bob Dylan cover band for New Year's Eve concert. Unfortunately some of those people will see the real Bob Dylan, just freed from prison as a non-violent offender. I'll think about what it'd be like to go to sleep tonight and wake up in the morning of January 1st 2009 to live that year over again. Whether that actually happens will be revealed in tomorrow's Good Morning post.