Snarkastic

Fuck the Year in Review: Year Four

That was then:

I rang in 2004 with my best and brightest, had a few days with the brain triplets and Black Lightning, then bolted for the Frozen Northlands and Clark '04. Met Michael Moore, and the General himself, and more Yankees than was probably healthy or beneficial. My birthday was the Worst Ever, hands down, as people tend to forget you when you're a thousand miles away (not that the ones who were closer made it appreciably better, but that's water under a skinned cat). Then Nashville, and even with the way things turned out, I wouldn't have changed a thing, wouldn't have traded total immersion in such a dedicated and cerebral culture for any conceivable prize. Best Valentine's Day Ever. Monkeydash. The Return Of The Snark. Boozin' on the Brine '04. A new domain, a new site, and our little interweb empire grew just a little more. Zobo Eve. My three darlingest boys gone before I really knew what was happening. The easiest breakup I ever had...for about nine days. The Great Schism. Pocket Armageddons and Whack-A-Meltdown. May sweeps. High Adventure at the Boyd Bridge, Krystal, and Boeing. Into the Woods, delivered into our hands and taken away. REK. Wisdom teef. Whorehouse, which deserves more than a sentence, but for once we all said what we needed to say when we needed to say it, and anyway, it's not like we'll forget. The Fab Four/Five and our offstage hilarities. Secrets and lies. Hive 2.0. Power struggles and Prom Redux. Playhouse Academy. Drunk & Drown. Movies again. Killer instincts proving out for worse. Operation Pompeii: The Assault on Mount VeShrewvius. Summer at the hotel with Caesar. Jesse and I coming through, in a fourth-quarter Hail Mary on a summer night in the middle of the street. The Shower Snark game. The Worst. Movie. Ever. The end of a dark summer. The move to Tor2ga. The Shark Abyss, the Octopus Gardens, MooMoo Farm, and Ian McKellan's Eagle Ranch. A bumper crop of new freshmen, and all our sophomores back in fighting shape. August doing what it does. The best classes and professors I've ever had at the same time. Getting Defamed. Labor Day at the new beach crib with Hurricane. Sky Captain. The Florida game. WASP. The Georgia game. The debates. The Alabama game. Halloween, and Show Us Your Teeth 2K4. Getting my heart broken by an American institution, and learning forserious that a good man can't get elected President, at least not now, not yet. Working ItW. CUT. My site broke the internet. "I just lost, like, four bets." Confidentials and aliasing. All in all, a Fairly Wretched holiday season. Eleven months summed up in the shriek/sob/smile routine that we're way too good at. Joan and I, one year closer to holding all of Western civilization in the palms of our pretty, entitled little hands. And, just in time to end the year in the stratosphere...gatherings and laughter with True Minds, and a brand-new eucalyptus tree in the unlikeliest of places and times.

So. Annus mirabilis? Far from it, save in the academic sense of the word, but guess what? We're about to get another shot. You may now ask questions.

Is gravitas enough for the American people?
Apparently not, but it'll do me just fine.

Is this over?
No, no it is not.

Will you ever be able to let go of those who return your love with nothing but poison?
I haven't yet managed to, not really, but who's to say? Perhaps even more than their love, I am grateful for the perspective I gain from those closest to me. Maybe this will be the year.

What is this?
It's St. Elmo's fire. It's our time on the edge.

What have you learned?
That while I'd give a great deal to have skipped over most of the head/heartaches of the year, the lessons gleaned therein are vital. The most crucial being that I'd never put anyone I loved through what I've been confronted with these past months, and that somewhere upstairs that's got to count for something.

What are you grateful for?
True Minds. My Hivemates. My eucalyptus tree. My daughters. West Coast offense. Tang. The ocean and the stars. Rhythm. Cadence. Communion.

What'll you do now?
In the immediate: Ring out the year the way I rang it in...with more than a few of the entities listed above. After that? Commence to doing to Them What Done Us Wrong what the ice age did to the sabretooth tiger. After that? Keep on keepin' on.

What other reply could I make, really, after this year of trials and treachery and love? What else but, "What's next?"

Farewell and goodnight to 2004, the Year of the Yellow Rose.

I'll be right here.

Posted by Nastinchka at December 31, 2004 08:16 PM