this i want to remember
a sense of urgency about this:
morning, on the couch, ehren says to me, “i love your elf face.”
and my heart runs over.
the span of 52 weeks
It was more than a year ago when I had brunch with my two Brooklyn Es at the Dumbo General Store and talked about the relative length of a year. 52 weeks? I kept shaking my head, running the palms of my hands along my cool bottle of soda. 52 weeks? How can anyone get anything done in 52 weeks? We have so little time each year! I kept exclaiming it to my friends, who laughed with me. But I haven’t gotten over it, really.
As these 52 weeks draw to a close, I’m still completely bewildered. What happened in all that/so little time? This is about when the same time last year when I said, with unswerving confidence, 2008 will be a great year. I knew it. I know it. It was. Even when it sucked, it was great. Considerable. Appreciable. Whopping. Important.
2008: the year I learned how to write a joke.
I embraced the love right in front of my nose and the object of it.
I made some sort of stupidly successful go at this self-employment thing. So I made my own huge tax bill. I made my own jerkface boss.
I flattened out my spine and sat in my chair too long and gave myself a chronic back condition. And was in constant pain for more months than I’d care to count.
This means that 2009 will have to be the year that I fix my bad back.
I networked. Oh man, I networked.
I never got over my indecisiveness about my hair. But I learned to love accessories.
I went to the south for the first time, proper.
I started writing The Female Gaze, which is a plan I hatched at that same Dumbo brunch over a year ago. Yay.
Moderately famous people let me ask them questions. And they answered.
I volunteered, and realized how much I missed it.
And there were lots and lots of good times. And too many times I didn’t have fun because I was too busy. 2008 was not a year that I achieved any kind of balance. But, I lived through it and I’ll learn. More learning, 2009.
And going into it, I have no cavities.
So. It was great. And 2009 will be so much better.
We did.
I’ve been holding my breath for over a month now, not really able to articulate how much an Obama presidency would mean to me, to the U.S., and to the world. And now that it’s happened, I am beyond speechless.
But two simple words will do for now: joy & hope.
We’ve got a lot of work to do, America. But this, this is the right first step. I am very, very proud.
colorado
i just got home yesterday from 5 days in colorado – denver, silverthorne, colorado springs. what a joyful mess that was – some consulting work, a lot of catching up, some late night drinking, and a fat lot of altitude adjustment. there was delicious chips and salsa, and many flipcharts with strategic planning notes on them, and the I-70 corridor that I can drive with my eyes closed, and a ridiculous rental car, and my favorite thrift store, and there were friends who had as much to tell me about their lives as I had to tell them. it was nice. it was cozy. it was fun. it was… not home anymore.
