light the corners of my mind
I hadn’t really been into the Winter Olympics this olympiad — I’m still not, really, although I watched the Men’s Snowboarding on a whim and was surprised to see that Shaun White was still competing, since that’s a name I actually know, and I haven’t followed extreme sports for some ten years.
Then I stumbled upon a fascinating article about Olympian Adam Rippon, and upon reading of the author’s love for watching figure skating as a youth, I myself was transported back to high school.
I started compiling data for my Year In Review way back in November because I knew this would happen. It happens every year. I want to post my Year In Review, but once January comes, I can’t find the time/motivation to sit down and do it.
This year, I finally decided to sit down and get it done during the last weekend of January. Yeah, that Sunday when there was a widespread cable outage in my metro area. *facepalm* So, I started writing and organizing in the text file I use for later blogging, saved on my Pusheen thumb drive. Then my son asked me to play Balloon Catch with him, then LEGO, in between the loads of laundry I still had to wash. So, the Year In Review didn’t happen on Sunday.
Monday was a sick day for both me and my son (at least I didn’t have his fever and wheezing cough), so it didn’t get done Monday.
Come Tuesday, though, I managed to squeeze in some time over lunch and in the evening to start gathering my data and making it presentable. Finally, this evening, I sat down after I got Connor all tucked in and finished everything up. I stayed up later than I probably should have, but it’s done, and I’m glad.
I’m not feeling the meta-reporting about my blog posts this year — instead, I’m focusing more on what actually happened during 2017. Even without the blog entry breakdown, though, this Year In Review will be chock-a-block with data you mostly didn’t care about in the first place.
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Fourteen years ago today, I married my best friend. Since then, we’ve lived in three homes, adopted one cat (still healthy as ever), visited four countries (plus Hawaii), had a son (who graduated Pre-Kindergarten last night), and still remain best friends.
I love you, Aaron. Happy Anniversary.
P.S. Thank you for the anniversary flowers!
This is my elementary school t-shirt from the 1986-1987 school year. I was in fifth grade when I got it; in the photo above, I’m age 41 and wearing it again.
I remember I was so mad when Memaw bleached it and the collar and sleeve rings went from dark blue to brown. I also remember that it’s in such good shape because it didn’t fit me long afterward. (Puberty was not kind; I gained some 20 pounds over the course of my seventh grade year, and another 20 in eighth grade.)
A few days ago, I decided to revisit my box of old t-shirts that I’m saving for themed quilts (or just because). I discovered that I’m almost ready to order a Totoro-themed quilt or a rock-band-themed quilt, I’ve got a ways to go for Connor’s superhero-themed quilt… and I discovered that this shirt from 5th grade I’d been saving is a size large.
So I tried it on. And it fit.
Mind. Blown.
So, even when I’m feeling down for having recently regained ten pounds of the 80 pounds I’d lost, I still have this: I can wear a shirt I wore on a Gifted class field trip to Cape Canaveral when I was ten.
Who remembers Scour?
I have vivid memories of working at my college job, sitting at my desk in the office next to my co-worker, Jeff, and one of us getting a song stuck in our head. Off to Scour, to download and listen to something random, like the theme from the A-Team, or some esoteric 80s song, or some freedom rock (turn it up!).
Did I know it was shady? Sure. Did I care? Nope. It was available, and there wasn’t exactly another avenue for me to quench my immediate musical desires back in 1999, and it was before the days of packet-sniffers that would throttle bandwidth or flag me for peer-to-peer activity, so…
Fast forward 18 years to 2017.* When I get Billy Ocean stuck in my head, I pull up Spotify on my work laptop — I pay a subscription fee of about $10 a month for Premium — and search for “Caribbean Queen.” I get an entire compilation album of Billy Ocean’s greatest hits, and I listen to the sounds of elementary school for a good half hour. Unlike some 20 years ago, though, I don’t have to wait 15 minutes for a 3MB mp3 to download over the 10/100 BaseT ethernet connection.
And it’s completely legal.
*Side note: I still can’t get over being 40 years old and so vividly remembering multiple decades.