12/31/2016

Well it has been, and will continue to be, an *interesting* year!

MargaretMargaret
Filed under: @ 4:51 pm

New Years’ Eves I have known….

I’ve been pensive because a week or so ago I came to the realization that it was 20 years ago this month that I called my first boss at my First Job as A Grownup, got his wife, chickened out on actually speaking to HIM, and told her that I was leaving for Hawaii in two weeks and I wasn’t going to be coming back.
And, of course, I’ve been pensive about the state of American politics. If, by ‘pensive’ you understand that I’m saying “scared shitless of”.

I have, and probably will continue, to drone on and on and on and on and on about what a shithead Dr. First Boss was and what a horrid job that was. I’ll try not to here.
I was terrified. An assload of student loan debt, no job prospects despite having been looking for several months, and, thanks to Dr. Shithead, pretty much convinced that I shouldn’t be a veterinarian.
New Year’s Eve 1996 was spent on Oahu. That may have been the year we walked down the block and joined in at a party that one of Joan & Tony’s neighbors was holding where a _very_ many things were going kaboom. Or it may have been the year that we bought a lot of things that go kaboom ourselves and annoyed the snot out of the neighbors as well as scaring the living daylights out of a very young Caitlin (here’s a photo of her firstborn, Calvin, by the way)Calvin Lee Anthony

with sparkly spitting ground bloom flowers that went kaboom at the end. Scared the piss out of me too, the first time one went BANG when it was done spitting sparks.
Despite death, medical issues, moving, and general chaos, though, 1997 turned out to be a pretty decent year.

Let’s try another decade back.
Hm.
New Year’s 1986
I’d finished my first quarter at Evergreen and had the world ahead of me. I probably spent the evening with The Trompler Foundation burning things in Eric’s driveway and dancing around chanting ‘UBI’.
Halfway through Regan’s second term and hopeful that we were at least not going to get another four years of THAT when the next presidential election came around.
I loved being at Evergreen. The learning environment was exactly what I needed. I was excited by what I was learning (if not, precisely, the mechanics of learning it…. #readtoodamnmuchFreudforanyone’shealth) and planning for my future. A lot of things are possible when you’re 18.

New Year’s 1976?
Sheesh. Carter’s set to take the White House and I’m simply *aching* to get out of third grade. I probably tried to stay up until midnight and then was ticked the next morning when I realized I’d fallen asleep.

2006? Home. Family. Friends. A good fire, sacrificed Spam, and knowledge of the year to come. A little trepidation, a new job in the offing, two more years of Shrub, and the conviction that we could stand together and keep going. And we did, and I did.

Which, if I think about it, is an echo of where I’m at now (minus the ‘new job’ part)

Happy New Year y’all. Let’s see if we can at least achieve that.


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