Reading through my thousands of Latin American RSS feeds for Global Voices, I can’t begin to tell you how many January 1st posts started with the New Year’s resolution to once again start blogging more frequently. I assume the same is true with English-language weblogs. I wouldn’t know, I don’t seem to have the time to keep up.

It’s not that I no longer enjoy reading what I once called my “daily” blogs. Just the opposite. Finally getting an update from Myke, knowing that Medea will soon be living in Colombia, that CAD and Laurie got to meet in person, seeing Cindylu’s favorite photos of 2006, knowing that Travis still suffers from idealism, Elenita is drinking champagne, finding out that Joe who I, like many, have mistakenly called Art, is actually named Arthur, that Xolo has been exploring NYC with Sara, that Jenn is now a fellow japanese tourist, that Thivai had a relaxing and disconnected vacation in Dego, and discovering that HP can actually write as much as he talks; this all fills me with joy. It’s like a family reunion, only with people that you like. (just kiddin’ all related people snooping around).

However, lately, other things have also been filling me with joy. These include netflixing with Mari, talking with Booger in the Oakland rose garden, and reading books (those old things with printed pages). Blogging hasn’t gotten old – not at all- it’s just that the world outside the laptop is really lovely too.

Which brings me to my next order of business: my Ph.D. thesis of the month. Standing outside Casa Yee last week in Mulegé, I was sure that my Ph.D. thesis of the month was once again “Early 20th Century Chinese Influence in Northern Mexico.” But then after reading this article at Big Sky Cafe in SLO, I decided to switch. The thesis for January ‘07 is: “Analyzing Online Usage Behavior Within a Positive Psychology Framework.”

I mean, we all spend a lot of time online right? Sometimes it makes us happy, sometimes it makes us feel productive, and sometimes it makes us feel like we are wasting our lives away. So, using observation, surveys, and clever web-based experiments, I’d spend four years and a lot of taxpayer money to come up with an outline of what online activities and patterns tend to create happiness and which don’t. Just the kind of fuzzy-wuzzy, lovey-dovey science that HP loves.

Nor is it that I no longer like blogging myself. It’s just that more and more often I glance at the clock – like right now – and it tells me it’s 10:30 when I tell it that it should still be 7:30.

Still, there are three posts I’d like to get our there. A summary of my time in India, a summary of the trip Mari and I took to Baja, and Oso’s Catalog of Pop, Volume Five.

If I get those three up in the next two weeks, I’ll do the macarena.

Finally, I know that pessimism is deadly, but I can’t help it, two things have me feeling very distraught. 1.) I can’t get Beyoncé’s song Irreplaceable out of my head. This happens to me occasionally, annoying pop songs get stuck in my head. It happened with that Nelly Furtado fly like a birdie song and Julieta Venegas’ Si. But the thing about Irreplaceable is that it never would have even entered my mental radar if Mari hadn’t pointed out the lyrics. I’ve gotta hand it to Beyonce: “You must not know ’bout me, I can have another you any minute” is one hell of a line. And then, when she does the finger thing – “to the left, to the left” – ha, I love that shit. That’s going to be my answer for every annoying question I get in 2007: “to the left, to the left.”

Oh well, it could be worse, I could have el tema del verano stuck in my head.

OK, right, second thing that is really distressing is that in just 50 million years from now Los Angeles is going to be a northern suburb of San Francisco. This does have it’s benefits, I realize – it would be easier to lunch with Cindylu and Compton might border Haight-Ashbury – but that doesn’t seem to outweigh the obvious: proximity to LA.