The best thing about 2005 is that most everyone seems to agree that it wasn’t such a great year, and therefore I can join the rest of the world in choosing to put it behind me.

I’ve become wary of making grandly optimistic statements about the coming year, as I usually have to recant them by the third week in January. So I’ll temper my official decree a bit to merely say that I suspect that 2006 will not be the best year ever, only a solid fourth best ever, third best tops.

For instance, while I have no doubt that the coming months will bring some kind of financial windfall that will make it possible for me to quit my day job, as well as a sudden yet completely earned respect from my peers and enemies alike, not to mention nightly sex with countless beautiful women, I’m sure these things will be tempered by things like unexpected inclement weather, perhaps a flat tire, and the occasional unfortunate experience of being told about bad things happening to other people. The year is only three days old and already I’ve had to deal with the price of postage going up by two cents. The silver lining here is that I don’t mail many letters, so I can mark that as a bullet successfully dodged.

2006 already has many things going for it. The first thing that pops out to me is that it’s an even-numbered year. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that good things happen in years that can be evenly divided by two, otherwise Jesus would have simply been born a year earlier or later. Furthermore, I’ve always been a fan of the years ending in six. 1996 was a hoot, 1986 will always be the year that Howard Jones had a hit on the charts with “No One is to Blame,” and though I don’t remember 1976 all too well, it’s hard to imagine that I was very unhappy with an existence comprised of being fed when hungry, sleeping when tired, playing with toys, and drooling at will. I may just have to apply that line of thinking to the coming year.

I don’t plan on leaving the quality of 2006 up to mere fate and sheer numerology, however. The proactive steps I endeavor to follow in order to make this the fourth best year ever (fingers crossed for third best) include:

• Making my attraction to certain girls more obvious, mainly achieved through prolonged staring.
• Taking more plentiful and longer walks, thereby greatly increasing my chances of finding dropped money.
• No more staying up for twenty-four hours in a row doing Su Doku puzzles.
• Effective immediately: No more handshakes. Hugs only.
• Also, I’m going to work on better eye contact during conversations. No more looking into the eyes of the less judgmental person that I imagine to be standing to their immediate left.
• Public restrooms are no longer off limits; the bushes in the back of the establishment are.

2006. Look out world. And look out imaginary world, revolving just to the left of the real Earth.