With every New Year comes a new promise that we make to ourselves to get better. We vow that we’re going to finally get in shape, that we’ll take the time to show our loved ones we care, that we’ll start seeing the world or spend less time at work, and all that self-improvement hogwash you tell yourself year in and year out.

If superpowers can come from gamma rays or radioactive spiders or the simple act of being born with the right genes, then certainly, certainly, superpowers can come from meteorites. The only problem is, how do you know what powers you have once you’ve got them? I mean, not every power is obvious.

I can no longer bear this sudden absurdity I’ve found myself in. You first approached me in class after one of my short stories had been workshopped. You told me you liked it. Now I can hear you in the bathroom exfoliating your face or darkening my towels, whatever it may be. That doesn’t even make sense. I wrote an imaginary story on paper, a silly and blatant lie, and now I have to engage in dirty, dirty coitus with you. What happened between those two points? What is this syllogism?

If that chunk of space debris came from Uranus, than it can only be one thing: space poop.

Author Philip Roth, quoted in a New York Times article about his recently announced retirement: “Every morning I study a chapter in iPhone for Dummies, and now I’m proficient. I haven’t read a word for two months. I pull this thing out and play with it.”

Day One: Wow, is this thing amazing! It fits so perfectly in my hand, I just can’t stop touching it. Warm to the touch, responds to my every whim. The manual says I can even make it vibrate?!