New Year's 2010

So, 2010 was a pretty good year for me, all

things considered. The rest of the world, not

so much. But for me personally, it was fairly

good. There were oil spills and earthquakes, a

death in the family and a lost friend, but

there was also Maria, lots of Magic: the

Gathering, a wedding, a trip to DC and two good

semesters.

The oil spill was a major fuckup in a lot of

ways, and our government did not handle it

well. (Haha, well. Get it?) Tony Hayworth is an

asshole. Thankfully it's over now.

The earthquake in Haiti was nothing less than a

catastrophe, and in all likelihood it struck in

the very worst place it could have: Haiti was

already a dirt-poor island, and now it's going

to take the Haitians years, maybe decades, to

repair their home--as well as billions of

dollars they don't have, even with foreign aid.

Thankfully no one directly involved was an

asshole about it (That I'm aware), but Pat

Robertson, the evangelical Christian jerkoff

said that the earthquake was God's way of

punishing the Haitians for making a deal with

the devil to be free of French rule. Oh sure,

our god is a kind and loving one. But piss him

off, and he'll ruin your life, your children's

lives and quite possibly the next couple of

generations too. Pat Robertson is a crazy

asshole.

My paternal grandmother's sister Sue died in

the middle of the year. For those of you who

don't know, I haven't had much contact with the

Davenport side of the family since I stopped

talking to my dad, and I had been dreading this

sort of thing. I did talk to my grandmother for

like two hours on the phone, although I did not

get to visit them at all. Hopefully that will

happen sometime this year.

I lost a friend in January, although he isn't

dead--yet. He's a total psycho with highly

self-destructive tendencies, so I'm sure it's

only until his current long-distance girlfriend

breaks up with him until he gets back working

on that. Nick Parry sent an awful lie of a

message to Maria's parents, misconstruing

something innocent into something he knew would

make them furious. And, in his own words, he

did it "just to be cruel." All this after I

personally washed his self-inflicted cuts and

played nursemaid to him for two and a half

years--all this after my family and I took

him into my home and treated him like a

brother. He had his own stocking for Christmas.

We fed him and clothed him, and he repaid us by

(you guessed it) being an asshole. Just after

all of this, I sent him an impassioned plea for

some sort of apology or acknowledgment of

guilt, but he pretty much told me to go fuck

myself, so I told him to get out of my life.

Then, nine or ten months later in October, he

approached my in a dark parking lot and

attempted to "apologize." I put that in quotes

because when he walked toward me, I could tell

through his body language or facial expression

if he was going to attack me or something else,

and his tone of voice was not in the least

apologetic. So I told him that he was indeed

and asshole and that his apology, such as it

was, was not accepted. I haven't spoken to him

since and wouldn't have it any other way. Nick

Parry was, is and in all likelihood will

continue to be an asshole--until he finally

succeeds in killing himself over something

asinine.

Ok, now good stuff.

Maria and I celebrated our second anniversary

of being together in October. So that's pretty

cool. We've had our small spats and squabbles,

but for like 98% of the time, we've been quite

happy, and I hope we stay that way for a long

time yet.

I used to have a lot of people to pkay MTG

with. However, at the beginning of the summer,

I suddenly found myself with no one. At home--

no longer talked with Nick--Chester moved to

Texas--Guillem at home in Spain--no local

Friday Night Magic place, and no way to get to

Carrollton every Friday night. So I taught

Maria, Andrew and Amber all how to play. (I

discovered that I'm fairly good that that,

too.) Those three all got really into it and

we've had some really great times playing

together.

My maternal grandfather remarried in October of

this year. His wife, my grandmother, died in

2004 from complications with Multiple

Sclerosis. And now he's married to a very sweet

lady who apparently is reorganizing his thirty

-year mess. The wedding was a lovely little

small affair at a small church in Rockmart that

my grandfather actually helped restore. They

seem very happy together and I wish them much

continuation of that happiness.

I went to the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or

Fear, also in October. That might have been the

most fun I have had ever. The rally itself was

amazing; the drives there and back were

hilarious in a lot of ways; the intervening

time was spent wandering around underground

with Guillem or cavorting with him, Andrew and

Amber and eating at fantastic sushi places and

Bosnian restaurants. It put me like two weeks

behind on homework, but looking back, it was

worth it.

I've made the Dean's List for like the past

four semesters. That makes me feel good,

because I feel like I really do try when it

comes to school, and it's very gratifying to

see some sort of acknowledgment of my hard

work. I have to say I've become a little jaded

with Creative Writing classes, mostly because

it's too organized, there's not enough time for

real writing with all the other crap you have

to do and (the biggest reason) I don't see the

point in trying to help people who simply can't

write and aren't interested in the professor's

opinion on how to make their farce of a story

better. That was really frustrating these past

two semesters and hopefully with my own

influence and no one else's I'll write more and

more often. I know I've written more in the

past two weeks than I did the entire second

half of last semester, so that's promising.

So there's my year in snapshots. I had a pretty

great time and I hope you did too. Let's hope

2011 is full of much more win and far fewer

disasters. Cheers.