Like a lot of people, I feel a need to look back on this last day of the year. Not that where you've been gives much of a clue to where you're going, but perspective is always valuable for itself.

For me personally it was a difficult year on a number of fronts, but most things ended well. My biggest regret is a ruptured friendship that may not be reparable, torn apart because of what my friend calls "an enormous error in judgment" on his part. That's what happened, but I keep wondering if I should have seen it coming and maybe gotten out of the way.

On the other side of the scale is another friendship re-established that I'd thought was gone through my neglect, a few others deepened, and a couple of new ones that already mean a lot to me. There are my four fabulous nephews, two with health problems that were frightening on diagnosis but that could be far more serious than they've turned out to be to be. There's Eve, my goddaughter, and Lily, my greatniece; they're new since last year.

There's a book I worked on with everything I had, worried I couldn't do justice to, then worried I couldn't sell, now sold to a great editor at a publishing house that seems excited about it. And there's the decision, not easy but absolutely right, to leave the day job.

In the larger world, things seem to be spiralling down, and there's plenty of reason for despair. I can't operate in the political sphere as I used to in my 20's and 30's; I can't take it anymore. But I comfort myself with people like my nephew Dan, who can and do. I try to make a difference to each stranded starfish I come across, and hope for the best. That's what I hope for, for each of you, for 2004: the best.