Like everybody else this morning, I've eaten my last chocolate eclair, drunk my last glass of champagne and begun a more tolerant, pious and markedly less interesting life.
The good news is I'm pretty sure that by Friday the real world will thrust itself upon me and I will simply be forced to deal.
Meanwhile, I took a news break to catch up with a few people and issues that kept me busy the past year. Every writer, of fiction or nonfiction, likes what writer Kurt Vonnegut calls "man in a hole" stories. You know: Man falls in hole. Man gets out of hole. Everybody is happy.
Sometimes we get those O. Henry endings instead, with clever twists that you don't expect. Most often, however, I think life has been written by Raymond Carver, snapshots in time with no resolution and few answers.
Here are a few of mine.
Chuck Van Heuveln came to me in January with an incredibly sad story. He has cerebral palsy but was able to work full time under a state program. But he was turning 65, and the rules of the program were going to force him to retire, which he didn't want to do. In order to keep his health care, he would also be placed on general medical assistance. He would then lose his pension to the state, which would cause him to lose his St. Paul condo.
I wrote about Chuck, and people in the same situation, three times. Late in the last session, the Legislature exhibited a rare display of bipartisan sanity and changed the law. Chuck has kept his job, and his condo.
A few weeks ago, ARC of Minnesota, a disability advocacy group, presented Chuck with an award for helping to change policies that affect people with disabilities in Minnesota. Not surprising. Chuck has been an indefatigable warrior for disability rights his whole life.