With the holidays over, do you feel cynical, fatalistic … maybe even downright nihilistic? Try channeling those glum energies into a suitably morose but distractedly constructive exercise, like pondering Discover.com’s 20 Ways the World Could End.

The optimistic pessimist in me hopes for #2 Gamma-ray Burst. BOOM: Clean, instantaneous, and with no residue of our errant civilization for future sentinent beings to pick through and muse about our failings, unlike the human-triggered disasters (i.e., #9 Global warming, #11 Biotech disaster) or willful self-destruction (i.e., #15 Global war, #17 Mass insanity).

#18 Alien invasion tweaks my interest because it’s poetically just that we be subjagated into nonexistence by a higher life form like defenseless animal. It’s the dodo’s revenge! I also like #16 Robots take over, because it’s got Darwinian continuity. But as a bleak realist, my money’s on Doomsday scenario #8 Global epidemics. Hell, why not – all my money. I’ve seen lattice-based pandemic models that make my immune system shirk in fear.

Since several fanciful fates are included (#12 Particle accelerator mishap, #20 Someone wakes up and realizes it was all a dream), I feel entitled to advance my all-time favorite: Zombies. “When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth” (from Dawn of the Dead, a stellar cinematic dramatization by prophet George Romero). Zombies relentlessly feast on humans, leaving decreasing pocket of survivors who eventually succumb to the Pandora pitfalls of human nature. That’s so much cooler than boring and predictable #7 Flood-basalt volcanism.

If I’ve depressed you, take this Charles Shultz quote to heart: “Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia.” And then be cheered than there was once such a man like Charles Shultz.

I woke up this morning in Bethel, Maine at 8:30 am, body throbbing from back-to-back days of alpine and nordic skiing, stomach groaning from a 5-course dinner, and brain shrouded in the wooly effects of celebratory wine and champagne (not discernibly mitigated by virtuous water-drinking from 11pm to midnight.)

Every New Year, I am determined to start the year off right. At that point, the ‘right’ thing to do would’ve been to go back to sleep until check-out time and counted the day as a rest day, but instead I donned jogging gear and headed out in the freezing rain to the hotel’s recreation center, which includes a humble gym with mid-1980s cardio machines and weights.

I hit the treadmill on 5.5, slowly shaking off my hangover, thankful none of my running muscles seemed to be too affected by skiing. On the treadmill next to me was a slightly older, plump woman who started off walking and then took off in a tortured, unsteady gallop that was punctuated by raspy panting. Within 10 minutes, we were both perspiring cleansing rivulets of sweat. She was trying to make a new habit, I was behooved by an old habit, but on New Year’s morning, both can result in some pretty gnarly running.