I spent last Saturday with a friend in China Town, eating real Chinese food (aka, very cheap), and shopping for $5 earrings, when we walked by an old man reading palms.

"I think I should get my palm read," I told her. "I could use some misguided advice from a total stranger."

"Ten dollars for ten minutes seems like kind of a rip off," she replied.

"Well, at least he seems more authentic than the New Age-y palm readers in Venice," I replied.

If by authentic I meant Speaks No English, this guy is the real deal. I'm sure his reading of my palm would have been riveting, had I been able to understand it. He did know how to say, "pay first," "no good," "very good," and "no good after 40." I assumed he meant to say this in reference to my chances of finding a partner and giving birth, but he could have been talking about my liver. What? No good after 40? You mean someone doesn't believe that women can be held in esteem and value by a man and, possibly, procreate after 40?!

"Really, I don't need to go to a palm reader to hear that," I told my friend's boyfriend later. "I think that reading was more about his old man prejudices than anything else."

"I think you could be right," replied Friend's Boyfriend.

Still, he did tell me that I need to wear more gold (I never wear gold), and not date men born in The Year of The Rooster (that would be "no good). Hey, no argument here. I do not get along with Roosters.

Just for today, I can seek guidance from dubious sources.

I really have to be careful who I talk to these days. According to some, every industry known to man is on the verge of economic collapse.

"Oh, the book industry is going down the tubes," said a friend. "It's impossible to get anything published, anymore."

Then what is Border's doing? Selling chairs?

Next thing you know, people are going to stop listening to music, eating and wearing clothes. We'll all just breathe the free air in our in the nude as the economy crumbles because people stopped shopping.

Just for today, I can stop listening to negative people.

I found out that I didn't get the Big Corporate Job I Really Thought I Wanted.

Damn.

And, then I turned on the news and realized that I'm not peering out of a pile of concrete and rubble, wondering if half, or all of, my family is dead, and if I will soon join them.

Perspective.

I want to go to Haiti and cover the news, heal the injured, coordinate the relief efforts, and blog about it. Unfortunately, I think the only position I'm really qualified for is blogger, and even then I probably wouldn't know how to survive carrying my own water, food, and camping gear.

But I do think I'm a good coordinator.

Just for today, I pray for the people in Haiti.

I made the acquaintance of tequila on New Year's Eve. I never understood tequila before. I thought it was alcohol. Nobody explained to me it's liquid goodness. I wouldn't drink it every day, (maybe just on the weekends), but I had to say good-bye to 2009 with a bang.

What happened in 2009? What did I do that made it so hard?

1) Quit job. (The "recession" is not a myth.)
2) Contracted swine flu. (I'm pretty sure, I didn't get it in Mexico, though, I did travel there weeks before the epidemic began.
3) Attempted to write a book. (There's a reason why writers have, historically, drank and smoked themselves to death).
4) Fell in love with "the wrong type of guy." (This has happened in past years).

Would I have done anything differently?

Yes. No. It's too late, anyway. It's now 2010. Hello, new age. Please be kind.

Just for today, I can celebrate a new decade.