I'm annoyed because I wrote a big bunch of stuff basically finishing off the roundup so I could get on with the coasting out the year and then my comp froze and I lost it. Son of a bitch...
I plan to go to bed and sulk and try again tomorrow. If I'm not still sulking. So close though.
ETA: Aight...I'm ready.
If 2003 was: Tying Up School Loose Ends And Starting Fresh Back Home, 2004 was: Pushing Things Forward. I rang in 2004 in the company of Hani, Ant, and Ant's friends from school, with most of us resentful that one chick was keeping us from being merry elsewhere since she had to see the ball drop if what would happen would be different from any other fucking year. The days/week leading up to it, I decided to be dramatic and not spend the turning over of the calendar with the person who loomed so large that year but we met up later and started this year's mode of just being (mostly) platonic friends. It's been up and down, but it's been real. (BTW, that used to be one of those most mindboggling things because used to say. "It's been real"..compared to "it's been fake?" So silly.) On the guy front, I kept my head together mostly, despite a few spazz episodes. No dramatics, thank God. I'm just kinda floating.
My criteria has become more rigid in some ways, way less so in others. It's funny that I just realized that even though I made a conscious effort to find guys in normal places (compared to ones I ended up in random convos at 419 circa druggie wave time or you know, on the net or whatever), the same result came about in the end. Though, I've been more chaste this year strangely. Well, not really. It's been more of quality vs. quantity. Sometimes I think an actual conventional relationship would be nice for a switch -- and then I remember that I'm not the most conventional person. Something's bound to work out sooner or later, eh? I'm not holding my breath though -- and I mean that a lot breezier than that reads.
This year, I got a real fucking job and tried to fold myself into office life. It's totally a square peg in a round hole situation, but I surprisingly don't hate it or the 9-6/7, though sooner or later I'll be off for something more along the career path I've been planning for me. I've learned I'm a bit social maladjusted because I can't bring myself to muster up the nerve to be over the top social (for me) when it'd be in my best interest to do so, c.f. why I don't particularly get along with most of the co-workers. Live and learn. I've got about 50 more years of working ahead of me (if I'm that unlucky) to figure it all out.
The hardest thing about being a worker bee was giving up the party/night-owl lifestyle that got me through the tail end of '03. I started off the year pretty ambivalent about the places I had been going to though. There are no young people really anywhere that I go. The music isn't your standard radio/video fare. The crowd is pretty insular. The hours go either beyond 4am and/or everything is just getting started when the nightlife tourists are done circa 1:30/2am. The people around have been at it for a long time. I jumped in feet first but at a strange angle. "Kids" get chewed up and spit out all the time trying to roll. They aim for the big splashes -- getting an in via sex, drugs, or money. I'm broke, have been to too many NA meetings in my lifetime, and misanthropic, so I met people just by being there and being an aloof random magnet. I remember the first time I got the feeling that everyone was so strange and had to be on drugs. Well, they are. I've found that most are also emotionally-stunted and fried from years of abuse. You'll find yourself surrounded by hedonistic adolescents in the bodies of people at ages I'd like to think I'd have been known better. It's strange to be 23 doling out advice to 30-somethings and feeling that a prospect might be better in a few years when he hits middle age because maybe he'll act like a "real" adult by then. I found myself opting for shooting the shit and being a homebody over going out to rage until the sunrise. I could feel my interest in being out die as I spent a few too many Fridays in out of sheer exhaustion from lack of sleep all week long. It was easy for me to accept that I needed to find alternatives because really I wasn't missing anything. Plus bar drinks are expensive and hell on a figure. I'm on a bit of a sabbatical. I'm a true night owl, so I won't be gone for long.
The understatement of the year is that the apartment hunt has been my life. I really was addicted to CL listings and NYT real estate page and my newest fave website, Curbed. It was a second job for most of this year. But, we got it! I've got to say that my hatred for Queens only intensified as time went on. I've hate out here where I live now forever and became very disillusioned on the search as we were turned down time and time again in Astoria and LIC. The look on people's faces when PrincessNella and I would show up to look at places! "Wow...I had no idea you were black on the phone! And you're like super black...nappy hair and damn, y'all are dark!" Ant and I also had an episode in Brooklyn where the realtor was perfectly pleased to see a dark face wanting to move into a popular area, but not especially thrilled at the thought that my roommate might be more than that (definitely not) as a Chinese man. It was a mostly demoralizing and frustrating process. Especially those close calls that fell apart inexplicably. On the bright side, I've learned that there really isn't anything that can't be found on Craig's List...I got my job, a writing thing, easy survey cash, and now the apartment among other things.
Overall, 2004 was a lot of personal upheaval. I spent a fair amount of time taking inventory and feeling sad, frustrated, angry, relieved, disappointed, excited, and depressed about many things in my life and the world at large, but I think it has been one of my biggest growth years ever. I had great friends around and great adventures with everything I needed and most I wanted. It was rocky, but I feel good. Ever upwards.
Posted by Candicissima at December 31, 2004 08:37 PM