2008 Year in Review
The last couple days I have meant to write this, thinking I would first have a beer to put me in a writing mood. Unfortunately this only served to put me in a Warcraft mood, and suddenly the day was gone and I hadn’t accomplished anything. So it is now Saturday afternoon and I am attempting this in a different room.
Overall, the best description for my 2008 was “uneventful”. I guess in a world and national sense there is a lot that went down, but personally I found it mostly forgettable. After 2007 perhaps that is nice, but I’m hoping 2009 is more interesting.
Work: A-
The company went bankrupt and got bought out, locking in my stock options as forever worthless and crushing my stock awards by 95%. I may also be out of a job in a few months. So that sucks. But in terms of my direct reality, it was a great year. Worked on several interesting projects that all turned out very well, and all the crummy projects went away before I had to do anything too unpleasant. I have a high degree of respect and influence in our group, and can exceed expectations without having to work particularly “hard”. Worst-case for 2009 has me getting 7 months of severance payments, and a new job could be a good thing. Similar to 2007, work is the area where things probably went the best.
Home: C
I am sick of being a home owner. I don’t need the space and hate the maintenance; it was probably a mistake. I tried to sell in the summer/fall, and had zero interest and a lot of stress. I like the house ok, and if it manages to sell anywhere near projection I should make at least a little money on the whole experience. But no one is buying, and the cats seem determined to ruin as much as possible in the meantime. I also have a roommate now, due to unfortunate circumstances. It isn’t something I would have sought out, but we get along and it is nice to have a bit of rent coming in. Hopefully in the spring I can sell and get back into an apartment or something where I belong.
Relationships: D+
No one stole from and cheated on me in 2008, so bonus points for that. No broken hearts, just one solid bruising and a handful of disappointments. Nothing went the way I would have liked, but I’d rather be alone than in something terrible and I seem to be a pretty bad judge. Every “matchmaker” friend I’ve talked to has come up empty, so I must be pretty unique. Here is a handy cheatsheet of qualifications: can’t like TV too much, should enjoy giving and receiving backrubs (specialty in shoulders a plus), athletic, attractive (I am a guy after all), joins in my flights of fancy or at least finds them endearing, good at scheming, ridiculous sense of humor, philosophic tendencies and love of language, awareness of what is going on in the world, good at directions or at least ok with getting lost.
Friends: B-
Not sure how one writes a section like this without offending someone. I would describe 2008 as a splintering. There is now no one that I hang out with on a “regular” basis, i.e. no conversations like “so what are we all going to do tonight?”. I’m still friends with everyone from before and not any less so, but the cohesion is gone. Some new groups are coalescing, but I am peripheral there and will likely stay so. Reconnected with Is this year, which is a major boon (you should move to Charlotte and we can cause some trouble). Facebook offers a new dimension of sorts, MySpace is dead. Not much more to say.
Culture: B
The world is getting weirder, and mostly in a direction I approve of. Burger King has created a cologne, which was beyond anything I would have dreamed. It feels like people are starting to emerge that create in my style, where I can finally enjoy the lunacy without having to generate it all the time. With the repudiation of Bush I am hopeful that we are moving away from anti-intellectualism, though the eagerness of many to praise Palin still gives me pause. I think people are bound to be disappointed with Obama (it is hard for any president to have a direct positive impact on anything), let’s hope the inevitable backlash doesn’t land us in theocracy.
Spirituality: A-
Learned a lot this year, mostly about how it doesn’t much matter how much you learn 
. We have everything backwards, almost everything is broken. Souls are in complete disarray and everything is clouded. A lifetime isn’t enough to sort things out; at our best we can barely sketch outlines. Forget the “culture wars”, it is a distraction. Fight things like Despair, not the guy who cut you off in traffic. Start to open your eyes, but don’t lose sight of where home base is. Um, it was a pretty good year but nothing that lends itself to words really and nothing I predicted or could place on a linear path of any sort.
Miscellaneous
- Favorite album of the year is The ’59 Sound by The Gaslight Anthem. I joined emusic for about 6 months and had 75 songs per month, which is a great way to try new things. Found lots of good stuff, but this one is my favorite as an album. If you don’t like it, I am baffled by the differences in human taste and will find it pretty much pointless to ever recommend anything again.
- Best facebook responses of the year: Tom (Is as close runner up). The one about dancing and catharsis is the crown jewel, but I’m impressed by the consistent quality and bringing new things to the table (I never even saw “unibrow” in that picture).
- Most unplayed videogames sitting on shelf at one time: 7, right now. I am at a loss and don’t even know how to proceed. Should I stop sleeping? Give up exercising? These are all good games that I want to play but I need to focus on one at a time or I get confused.
