2008 Ad Nauseum
[unproofread. bear with me]
It's time for my annual year-in-review meme. Which seems to become less of a meme and more of an entry in its own right every time I do it.
A few nights ago, Maddy and I were lying awake in bed after a long January First trying to figure out what actually happened in 2008. We shared a sense that it had been a rather busy year, but we couldn't put our finger on what had made it so. So I'm hoping to learn a few things myself as I go through this.
The original meme was "copy the first line of the first post from every month of the year." So I'll do something like that, but the first line is seldom the kicker, and I want the kicker! Instead I'll use the most apt line of the most apt post of the month. I will also add some kind of synopsis of what was going on in general during that month. Ready? Here we gooooo!!!
January
"Two nights ago my old suitemate from freshman year, Steve, came over for dinner."
We introduced him to Lost Girls and he sold us on Tropic of Cancer. College, indeed.
In January, Maddy and I went to the east coast, and I took the month off school. The shit hit the fan in Kenya and Mugabe was shot. The presidential primaries started. The economic wobbles that had started a month or so earlier got people worried, stocks went down, and Bush started pushing his economic stimulus package. I read an article that talked about how, irrelevant to global warming, the last thousand years have been unusually wet for the states west of the Mississippi, and that the droughts we've always dreaded have always been far more the norm, geologically speaking.
February
"So far I'm an 0-fer."
I voted in the primaries on Super Tuesday, and got nothing. I'd end up feeling vindicated 9 months later but that's another story.
February was a quiet month, by 2008 standards. But then again, it's short. Our government banned severe interrogation techniques, expanded wiretapping, and passed its first stimulus package of the year. I started school, Maddy continued to work, and life went on. I also started a political-news-addiction that would last until November.
March
"So, it's all settled. We have our reservations, ticket confirmations, and guidebooks."
We started talking about Hawaii at the end of February but we got our tickets in early March. Then we waited over 9 months.
In March, Bush vetoed the ban on severe interrogation techniques, aknowledged the 5-year anniversary of the Iraq War, and silently caved in to the fact that nobody gave a shit about him any more. Meanwhile, McCain became the de facto Republican Nominee, and Obama started getting a lot of attention. Eliot Spitzer made an ass of himself, and the Fed started throwing money at banks. I spent every saturday in March studying Thai Massage with an inspiring teacher who made the class worthwhile even if I didn't end up finishing the Asian Bodywork program.
April
"I recently was asked by an old friend if I'd like to submit some of my compositions to a podcast dedicated to showcasing young modern composers."
This conversation led me to reconsider my relationship with music. I'd always told myself I could write melodies, or words, but never both. This is one thing I started doing in 2008 I'd never done before, and I've really been enjoying it. I feel like a new musician, so to speak.
Meanwhile, our prez was continuing to lose face, and other prez's were also losing face (in Zimbabwe, remember all that?), and our government decided throwing money at banks wasn't working and started throwing money at housing. General Petraeus was put in charge of Iraq, and people who think there was a turnaround point probably point to this. Clinton tried to get Obama in hot water for his "Bitterness" remark and didn't gain much from it, if history is any judge. The olympic torch protests started. General concerns about the weather and the lack of rain in California started.
May
"Remember how I used to be a musician? And remember how I'm currently studying Chinese Medicine? "
My continuing reconsideration of music led me to do what people had always asked if I would do -- I started writing songs about Chinese Medicine.
Also, a big wildfire broke out, which turned vague concerns about the weather into somewhat more tangible fears. Wildfires in May? Really? At least we weren't in China where an earthquake had recently hit. On the plus side, Gays in California were given the right to get married. Also, my grandmother was admitted to the hospital, in what was the start of a pretty rapid decline on her part. Life for Maddy and me proved to be stable and fun in spite of the world being to chaotic. We started trying to get our garden ready for summer.
June
"Obama will get the popular vote, regardless of whether he wins the election."
This is what I told Maddy when she asked whether or not I thought he would win. We also talked about other stuff: me finishing another semester, her starting another summer reading program. We talked about moving. We talked about the weather; wildfires started again with a vengeance, with well over 2000 fires burning across the state, and we were officially in a drought after the driest spring in 88 years, while the midwest was under several feet of water and a lot of people were dying in the floods. We talked about politics: Obama was now the official Democratic Nominee. Bush was looking like the lamest sitting duck in history (a study found the he had repeatedly exaggerated evidence before the Iraq war. so what else is new?). Oh yeah and Mugabe was re-elected.
July
"We're thinking of moving. And soon."
The house was just too much upkeep. To much yard to keep weeded. Too much lawn to keep watered. Too many Ferrari dealerships within a one mile radius. Tired of an un-insulated livingroom that was 90 degrees in july and 40 degrees just a few months before.
Meanwhile, every other country decided to cut greenhouse emissions while we basically did the opposite. Bush, not wanting to be ignored entirely, also lifted a ban on offshore drilling. Bush then got even more attention from a judge who said Bush's staff would have to comply with subpoenas, and Ted Stevens was charged with 7 felonies. The government tried to come up with some new ways to throw money at houses. Schwarzenegger banned trans-fats in restaurants.
By the end of the month, after who knows how much craigslisting, and a couple of false starts, we'd secured a new place to live.
August
"You're going to crush us, huh? Well, put 8/100ths of a second in your pipe and smoke it!!"
We moved in. Thank God the previous tenant hadn't cancelled her cable yet cause we had to watch the olympics! The 2008 olympics were insane. 'Nough said.
Obama picked Biden. McCain picked who? Are you kidding me? We all met whatsername in August. I honestly can't think of her name. A fact which thrills me by the way. All I can think of is Tina Fey, and something tells me that's what history will remember as well. Obama gave an amazing speech. McCain talked to a handful of supporters in front of a green screen and thus prompted an excellent run of amateur political satirists making him into an action star.
Oh yeah, and we were used to violence in the news -- the unending stream of suicide bombers, natural disasters, and everything else had become so much a part of the status quo that most of us ceased to pay attention -- but pirates? Really? Pirates?
I turned 26 and stopped counting the grey hairs.
September
"I've got a fairly intense semester ahead."
This may be why I thought 2008 was so busy. It was an intense semester. More units than I'd ever attempted, and working concurrently with school for essentially the first time. Plus knowing I'd have to be gone during finals week. I also got to start needling real patients for the first time, which feels like a sort of turning point when the name of your profession, "Acupuncture" literally means "needle puncture".
Meanwhile, the debates had started, the economy was going down the tubes, and the political mood would have been hysterically bizarre if it hadn't been for the fact that there was a sense that for once, it actually mattered. Weather patterns around the world were wreaking havoc, our government was responding to its diminishing stature as a world power with increasing ineptitude and rash measures. The 700 billion bailout didn't pass, and the Dow Jones responded by dropping more than it ever has.
October
"'Nine in the fifth place means: The great man changes like a tiger. Even before he questions the oracle, he is believed.'"
A line form the I Ching, which we took a reading of to determine what would result from an Obama presidency. That political-news-addiction that had started in february had reached a fever pitch. The only thing that distracted me from the debates (if you can call them that) was the economy, and the only thing that distracted me from the economy was school. And the only thing that distracted me from school was Disneyland.
November
"The outlook was quite positive as the first reports came in..."
I don't need to remind anyone what happened on November 4th. But apart from this jubilant ending to the painfully tedious election cycle, the rest of November was a lot like the painfully tedious ending to a rather difficult year. People kept on losing jobs, losing homes, losing credit. Bush kept on losing credibility.
For our part, Maddy and I were basically biding our time until December.
December
"when we first stepped off the plane into the thick hot air and the sunshine, we were all a bit relieved."
Before we could go to Hawaii, Maddy had her Messiah Concert which she'd been going to rehearsals for for months, and I had to finish my last four weeks of school in three weeks. But somehow, we were there. And so was Obama, as it would turn out, though he was on a different island. Turns out there was yet more weather to be talked about, but vacation is vacation, and we certainly felt like we'd earned it. The rest of the world, our government hurling billions of dollars at that hole in the ground known as the American Automovite Industry, that governor from Illinois behaving very badly, and all the other crises around the world that were either coming to a head or still unfolding, all seemed thousands of miles away.
And they were -- Hawaii is after all the most isolated landmass on Earth, over 2,000 miles from anything in any direction.
I remember feeling (and this was in the midst of very atypical and somewhat disappointing weather for Hawaii), that this was my Christmas present this year, and I'd be perfectly happy not to get anything else. My one wish for 2008 (as stated in last year's year-in-review-meme, was "a sea change in politics." So there may have been a change in the weather in Hawaii, but in some sense it was the change I'd wished for.
It's time for my annual year-in-review meme. Which seems to become less of a meme and more of an entry in its own right every time I do it.
A few nights ago, Maddy and I were lying awake in bed after a long January First trying to figure out what actually happened in 2008. We shared a sense that it had been a rather busy year, but we couldn't put our finger on what had made it so. So I'm hoping to learn a few things myself as I go through this.
The original meme was "copy the first line of the first post from every month of the year." So I'll do something like that, but the first line is seldom the kicker, and I want the kicker! Instead I'll use the most apt line of the most apt post of the month. I will also add some kind of synopsis of what was going on in general during that month. Ready? Here we gooooo!!!
January
"Two nights ago my old suitemate from freshman year, Steve, came over for dinner."
We introduced him to Lost Girls and he sold us on Tropic of Cancer. College, indeed.
In January, Maddy and I went to the east coast, and I took the month off school. The shit hit the fan in Kenya and Mugabe was shot. The presidential primaries started. The economic wobbles that had started a month or so earlier got people worried, stocks went down, and Bush started pushing his economic stimulus package. I read an article that talked about how, irrelevant to global warming, the last thousand years have been unusually wet for the states west of the Mississippi, and that the droughts we've always dreaded have always been far more the norm, geologically speaking.
February
"So far I'm an 0-fer."
I voted in the primaries on Super Tuesday, and got nothing. I'd end up feeling vindicated 9 months later but that's another story.
February was a quiet month, by 2008 standards. But then again, it's short. Our government banned severe interrogation techniques, expanded wiretapping, and passed its first stimulus package of the year. I started school, Maddy continued to work, and life went on. I also started a political-news-addiction that would last until November.
March
"So, it's all settled. We have our reservations, ticket confirmations, and guidebooks."
We started talking about Hawaii at the end of February but we got our tickets in early March. Then we waited over 9 months.
In March, Bush vetoed the ban on severe interrogation techniques, aknowledged the 5-year anniversary of the Iraq War, and silently caved in to the fact that nobody gave a shit about him any more. Meanwhile, McCain became the de facto Republican Nominee, and Obama started getting a lot of attention. Eliot Spitzer made an ass of himself, and the Fed started throwing money at banks. I spent every saturday in March studying Thai Massage with an inspiring teacher who made the class worthwhile even if I didn't end up finishing the Asian Bodywork program.
April
"I recently was asked by an old friend if I'd like to submit some of my compositions to a podcast dedicated to showcasing young modern composers."
This conversation led me to reconsider my relationship with music. I'd always told myself I could write melodies, or words, but never both. This is one thing I started doing in 2008 I'd never done before, and I've really been enjoying it. I feel like a new musician, so to speak.
Meanwhile, our prez was continuing to lose face, and other prez's were also losing face (in Zimbabwe, remember all that?), and our government decided throwing money at banks wasn't working and started throwing money at housing. General Petraeus was put in charge of Iraq, and people who think there was a turnaround point probably point to this. Clinton tried to get Obama in hot water for his "Bitterness" remark and didn't gain much from it, if history is any judge. The olympic torch protests started. General concerns about the weather and the lack of rain in California started.
May
"Remember how I used to be a musician? And remember how I'm currently studying Chinese Medicine? "
My continuing reconsideration of music led me to do what people had always asked if I would do -- I started writing songs about Chinese Medicine.
Also, a big wildfire broke out, which turned vague concerns about the weather into somewhat more tangible fears. Wildfires in May? Really? At least we weren't in China where an earthquake had recently hit. On the plus side, Gays in California were given the right to get married. Also, my grandmother was admitted to the hospital, in what was the start of a pretty rapid decline on her part. Life for Maddy and me proved to be stable and fun in spite of the world being to chaotic. We started trying to get our garden ready for summer.
June
"Obama will get the popular vote, regardless of whether he wins the election."
This is what I told Maddy when she asked whether or not I thought he would win. We also talked about other stuff: me finishing another semester, her starting another summer reading program. We talked about moving. We talked about the weather; wildfires started again with a vengeance, with well over 2000 fires burning across the state, and we were officially in a drought after the driest spring in 88 years, while the midwest was under several feet of water and a lot of people were dying in the floods. We talked about politics: Obama was now the official Democratic Nominee. Bush was looking like the lamest sitting duck in history (a study found the he had repeatedly exaggerated evidence before the Iraq war. so what else is new?). Oh yeah and Mugabe was re-elected.
July
"We're thinking of moving. And soon."
The house was just too much upkeep. To much yard to keep weeded. Too much lawn to keep watered. Too many Ferrari dealerships within a one mile radius. Tired of an un-insulated livingroom that was 90 degrees in july and 40 degrees just a few months before.
Meanwhile, every other country decided to cut greenhouse emissions while we basically did the opposite. Bush, not wanting to be ignored entirely, also lifted a ban on offshore drilling. Bush then got even more attention from a judge who said Bush's staff would have to comply with subpoenas, and Ted Stevens was charged with 7 felonies. The government tried to come up with some new ways to throw money at houses. Schwarzenegger banned trans-fats in restaurants.
By the end of the month, after who knows how much craigslisting, and a couple of false starts, we'd secured a new place to live.
August
"You're going to crush us, huh? Well, put 8/100ths of a second in your pipe and smoke it!!"
We moved in. Thank God the previous tenant hadn't cancelled her cable yet cause we had to watch the olympics! The 2008 olympics were insane. 'Nough said.
Obama picked Biden. McCain picked who? Are you kidding me? We all met whatsername in August. I honestly can't think of her name. A fact which thrills me by the way. All I can think of is Tina Fey, and something tells me that's what history will remember as well. Obama gave an amazing speech. McCain talked to a handful of supporters in front of a green screen and thus prompted an excellent run of amateur political satirists making him into an action star.
Oh yeah, and we were used to violence in the news -- the unending stream of suicide bombers, natural disasters, and everything else had become so much a part of the status quo that most of us ceased to pay attention -- but pirates? Really? Pirates?
I turned 26 and stopped counting the grey hairs.
September
"I've got a fairly intense semester ahead."
This may be why I thought 2008 was so busy. It was an intense semester. More units than I'd ever attempted, and working concurrently with school for essentially the first time. Plus knowing I'd have to be gone during finals week. I also got to start needling real patients for the first time, which feels like a sort of turning point when the name of your profession, "Acupuncture" literally means "needle puncture".
Meanwhile, the debates had started, the economy was going down the tubes, and the political mood would have been hysterically bizarre if it hadn't been for the fact that there was a sense that for once, it actually mattered. Weather patterns around the world were wreaking havoc, our government was responding to its diminishing stature as a world power with increasing ineptitude and rash measures. The 700 billion bailout didn't pass, and the Dow Jones responded by dropping more than it ever has.
October
"'Nine in the fifth place means: The great man changes like a tiger. Even before he questions the oracle, he is believed.'"
A line form the I Ching, which we took a reading of to determine what would result from an Obama presidency. That political-news-addiction that had started in february had reached a fever pitch. The only thing that distracted me from the debates (if you can call them that) was the economy, and the only thing that distracted me from the economy was school. And the only thing that distracted me from school was Disneyland.
November
"The outlook was quite positive as the first reports came in..."
I don't need to remind anyone what happened on November 4th. But apart from this jubilant ending to the painfully tedious election cycle, the rest of November was a lot like the painfully tedious ending to a rather difficult year. People kept on losing jobs, losing homes, losing credit. Bush kept on losing credibility.
For our part, Maddy and I were basically biding our time until December.
December
"when we first stepped off the plane into the thick hot air and the sunshine, we were all a bit relieved."
Before we could go to Hawaii, Maddy had her Messiah Concert which she'd been going to rehearsals for for months, and I had to finish my last four weeks of school in three weeks. But somehow, we were there. And so was Obama, as it would turn out, though he was on a different island. Turns out there was yet more weather to be talked about, but vacation is vacation, and we certainly felt like we'd earned it. The rest of the world, our government hurling billions of dollars at that hole in the ground known as the American Automovite Industry, that governor from Illinois behaving very badly, and all the other crises around the world that were either coming to a head or still unfolding, all seemed thousands of miles away.
And they were -- Hawaii is after all the most isolated landmass on Earth, over 2,000 miles from anything in any direction.
I remember feeling (and this was in the midst of very atypical and somewhat disappointing weather for Hawaii), that this was my Christmas present this year, and I'd be perfectly happy not to get anything else. My one wish for 2008 (as stated in last year's year-in-review-meme, was "a sea change in politics." So there may have been a change in the weather in Hawaii, but in some sense it was the change I'd wished for.