The Aztec calendar was 365 days long, divided into 18 months of 20 days each. A handy bit of calculation reveals 5 days left over. These, the Aztecs called "hollow days." These were extra days, left over, bad luck.

While I don't think they're bad luck, I've always looked at the span of days between Christmas and New Years in much the same way. Holidays, hollow days, what's the difference? They're never good for much. Lots of businesses are closed throughout the week (the publishing industry, case in point), comics are usually delivered a day late, mail is delayed, television is full of reruns, you name it.

Since I became a full-time writer (well, part-time writer and full-time dad), though, I've come to look at these few days as one last chance to clear the decks before the end of the year. To address any final commitments left undone, and start the new year with a clean slate. Over the weekend, while others might have been wassailing or whatnot, I managed to finish up two long-overdue interviews. By week's end, I hope to have finished the some final tweaks and revisions on Fire Star. And then it will be Sunday, and 2006, and the shittiest year (personally, at any rate) in living memory will finally, at long last, be over.

Beyond work, we're trying to catch up on entertainment a bit, as well. Allison and I don't get to the theater much, not since the arrival of Georgia almost two years ago. I think the last movie we went to see in the theater was Bewitched, which promised to be a bit of metafictional brilliance and, well, wasn't.

Last Thursday, for example, we finally got to see Serenity, when our copy ordered long ago from Amazon finally arrived.. Oh, sweet baby jesus, what a great flick. Joss Whedon is indeed my master now. Not a single complaint, except that it wasn't, oh, a year or two longer. More, please.

Tonight, we watched The Christmas Invasion, the holiday episode of Doctor Who, the first full episode to star David Tennant, the 10th Doctor. If this is any indication, the new series will be well worth waiting for. I especially liked the ways in which this teaser for the second season of Who also served as a prologue-of-sorts for the forthcoming spin-off, Torchwood. Watching Harriet Jones, Prime Minister go from comic to dramatic to frightening to pathetic in the span of just a few scenes was worth the price of admission.

It was a crap year, but it's almost over. Only five more days left. Hollow days. Make the best of them that you can.