Hello and I really sincerely hope that every single person on the planet earth who is not a cunt has a very happy new year. I myself plan on having a happy new years eve, but beyond that I have no idea what will happen. Actually, I have high hopes for at least up until about January 4th at 10:00 AM. The rest of the year could really suck after that. But who knows? Maybe it won't. I don't know, really, why I'm being so pesimistic. I'm probably just doing it to try to be funny. I don't actually have any misgivings about 2004 at all. It's just that I'm a comedian and I feel a certain level of responsibility to be funny even here and there's nothing really funny about recording my hopes that this will be a fine year indeed.

Also, though, I don't find much use for optimism in general. The older I get, the dumber I feel anytime I hear myself saying "Hey, I bet this is gonna be great! I don't see what could possibly go wrong!" And on the flip side, I don't remember a single time that I've said "This could suck" that I've looked back and thought "Jesus, what a fucking idiot I was then."

I do have one source of optimism in my life, though, and that's my daughter. Having her around gives me real hope. Not because I suffer from some delusion that her future is set and that nothing bad will happen to her. On the contrary, I entertain all kinds of nightmares daily of bad things that could be in her future, immediate and distant.

When we all flew here to the East coast for the holidays a week ago, I was sitting in the airport when suddenly I had this very vivid image of us in the plane, somewhere over the midwest and the baby starts suddenly choking and saying that she can't breathe. It has something to do with her having a cold and the altitude and suddenly she's gasping and I'm screaming for them to land the plane and everyone in business class in annoyed with us. I didn't tell my wife about this while we were at the gate because she probably would have cancelled the trip. I just lived with that image throughout the flight. What a horror show. Other times I look at my daughter and I immediatly project myself to her future and I imagine that some shitty guy takes her to Tijujuana and... I don't even want to get into that one.

So with all this in my head, how does my daughter become a source of optimism and hope in my life? It's because of her additude. At 2 years old she is the most upbeat, bright and cheerful person I know. She has no doubt that every day is going to be fun, hilarious and fascniating. Even bad times are never too bad for her because she is just too happy to let it get to her. It makes me feel like even if my life degenerates into a pile of shit, it won't matter so much because I see the world through her eyes now. Even the most horrible images of my own future don't scare me because of her strength. Happy new year.

That's all for now, my friends...

Thanks for reading,