32
I'm 32 now - it felt like a bit of a non-event after the last week. I got a card from my wife's family that started "It's been an incredible year..." which led me to wonder whether they'd been living through the same year I had. The earliest shock I remember in 2016 was Alan Rickman's death and before I could even get close to grasping that there would be no more films with him as the British villain in them, tons of other people died and Britain and America started themselves on the path to collapse.
But some good things did happen this year, and I want to remember those.
kjorteo and I finished The Poison Skies - it's the first album I've ever fully recorded and physically released, an incredible milestone. We can now both say that we have music on iTunes, an entry on Metal Archives... and that we were picked up by someone who does reviews of independent metal for an Australian magazine who thought it was all right. It had been in progress for such a long time and was interrupted by other things multiple times, but I'm so proud of both our efforts.
I put on a show at Furpocalypse with a month's time to cobble it together - it was obviously "Would I Lie To You" under a different name, but organizing six people into a panel game and have it actually work was a wonderful feeling. I had no experience promoting anything like this, was just relying on luck and the crowd-drawing power of some of my panellists, and I was amazed at the turnout, with people queueing out the door to get in and a panel room filled. The reaction was amazing and now Anthro New England are very excited for Furry Little Liars to be put on there as well.
Whitney got pregnant, after a long time trying, and we're going to have our beautiful mutant mouse-rabbit very soon - just over a month to go. I went through a lot of time thinking I wasn't ready, but now it somehow feels... right, to move on to the next stage of life. I hope for our child to be one small addition to the number of decent people in the world.
And as a result, we moved into a new house, out of the tyranny of the condo association! We have so much space now it's incredible, and we've been putting the freedom to good use, converting a dingy room in the basement and a weird room on the top floor into my space and a space for our new arrival. I could have asked for it to have been in a better country, but... we have a haven.
And the team I manage at work brought out a cheesecake to celebrate my birthday yesterday! That helped me a lot, to remember that no matter what awfulness is happening in the world, I'm among good people.