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It's December 31, and that means it's time for the 2004 Year in Review. (2003 here.) Well, this will be a short review, I am sorry to say, because I hate to drivel on and on about depressing things, and I am finding it difficult to remember the more pleasant events of 2004, since it was, undoubtedly, the worst year of my 24-year-old life. Some of the shitty things come to mind quickly: Girlfriend of six years broke up with me. Two family members went crazy. Cat died. I lost my job. I totaled my car. Spent Xmas with cops and paramedics. Will spend New Year's Eve and New Year's Day in two separate hospitals. As for my so-called Enlightenment a few weeks ago, that has since been crushed and destroyed by the situations around me. A lot of these things and others I just can't talk about in this medium, so you'll just have to take my word that it was a crappy year all in all ... although, for the record, I'm really not one to categorize and group events of my life as such. I'm more of a day-to-day person, but for the purposes of this Year in Review ... it was a pretty crappy year. Some good things that happened: my sister gave birth to a girl, my first niece. I finally moved into my own place (albeit for only 4-5 months). I gave up Hot Pockets and, to a certain extent, television. I started a new novel, though I haven't touched it in about two months. Also, I'm banking on next year being a much better year. Assuming I find no jobs in the next three weeks, I will be moving, as planned, to Milwaukee, where I can slowly work my way into a career that I like, in an environment more suitable for the scatterbrain that I am. I should probably also note my disappointment in the 2004 Philadelphia Phillies, and in the presidential election, both of which pale in comparison to more immediate events of my life this year. But, since a large part of my spring and summer was spent supporting the team with this, and since W. was supposed to be gone, these are things that I would be amiss not to mention as low points of 2004. Anyway, I think that's about it for now. For the past month I've been sitting on the floor as I write these posts, which is somewhat my excuse for the lack of good content and photographic images recently. For now, Happy New Year!  
For whatever reason, I realized early this morning that the way I go about reading a new book is very similar to the way I react to meeting new people or starting new jobs ... and basically this all relates rather simply, I think, to my excessive worrying. For the first 30 pages or so, I generally don't trust my ability to know what's going on. "This will never work," I think. I won't like this. I won't understand it; it won't understand me. I'll pay attention to what's happening, what's being said, but in the end it will just end up on the shelf of life, to be forgotten. But, usually when I'm paying the least attention, being the least conscious of what I am doing, I adjust. I become acquainted and comfortable and, generally, happy ... That is, until the book is over, the friend is gone, or the job is finished ... and it is then that I can determine what it has meant to me, how it has affected me. In most cases, it goes back on the shelf, never to be touched again, but not forgotten either. Even if, years later, the only memorable thing about that book is the title or the cover or the vague impression it left ... it's never completely forgotten. See, that wasn't so bad, I say to myself when it's over, thinking of those first 30 pages which then seem like another book altogether. There was somewhat of an awkward moment a couple months ago when some Savannah acquaintances and I were getting into a friend's car. I paused for friend to clean off the passenger seat, which was cluttered with the usual CDs, school binders, and also a long, shiny tube-like object. Remarked friend as he picked up the object and put it in his glove compartment: "Don't worry ... it's not a dildo. It's a cigar holder." Acquaintances in the back, who never saw the object, let out a brief confused snicker, but then we all just sat in silence as friend started the car and drove us home. I have visited quite a few websites for beer companies and other alcoholic beverages recently. You may be asking: Why, Michael, are you visiting web sites for beer companies and other alcoholic beverages? Well, it's certainly not to drink the alcohol straight through the computer monitor ... but this is apparently what the companies believe you will try to do. Perhaps this is why you must first enter your date of birth before entering most of these sites. After all, if people are going to try to download drunkenness, they had better be of legal drinking age! But seriously, what's really to stop little Timmy from entering a birthdate that is not his own and attempting to imbibe through the USB port? No, I have not been trying to drink beer through the computer monitor, but it sure would be awesome if we could. --------------- I'm really glad to see, year after year, that Folgers is willing to resurrect Peter, sporting his 80s attire, so that he can wake the family with a hot cup of coffee on Christmas Eve. If you have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, then you don't deserve to celebrate any holiday -- or drink coffee -- or reminisce about the 80s. But thank goodness you don't have to be 21 to drink coffee, because I just visited the Folgers website and now I'm hyper as shit. There was a moment a few weeks ago when I was prepared for Christmas. The temperature had gone up to 85 degrees in Savannah, but the malls were packed and holiday decorations were already adorning lightposts and residents' front windows. I had plans to finish all my shopping early ... perhaps a toy instrument for the niece ... maybe some baseball apparel for the nephew. I even had plans to sell many of my older possessions on eBay, thinking they might make great gifts for the silly bastards who bought them. But now Christmas is a little over a week away, and I'm less in the Yuletide spirit than I was when I running on the beach a month ago. Blame unemployment. Blame a cold that won't go away. Blame poor Dick Clark and the 100-year-old elves in his heart. But presents have yet to be bought, and eggnog has yet to be drunk. And down comes old Saint Nicholas, the jolly north pole punk. Anyway, now I'm just being nonsensical. Enough of this drivel, I say! Man, I wish I had Mr. Wizard episodes on DVD. That guy was great. And how about Today's Special? A classic! You Can't Do That on Television: a masterpiece in television history. For a while, I've also been thinking about buying this Thundercats neon bar sign. Isn't that rad?! The End. (FYI: Words that Blogger's spellcheck didn't recognize: Yuletide, drivel, eggnog, rad, Thundercats) The other night, in a dream, I received a message, very loud but garbled, from God: "Pass out. They are willing to save you." In a pile of mud, while a friend, balancing himself on a rickety wooden bridge, tried to write the message down on a piece of paper, I shouted back, "What? 'Pass out, they are willing to save you?' Is that what you said?" And God replied, "No." And then the dream was over. --- I learned this weekend that a cat that has supposedly been named after me in Oneonta, NY, is not simply "Mike," as I had thought all along, but instead my full name, and with the suffix "III." Most often, though, he is referred to simply as "MiMar." He shall be my enemy for life. Just kidding, that's awesome. Freshman year, college. Multivariable Calculus, 8:30 - 10:20 a.m., Fridays. There was a bulldozer outside the classroom. Someone shouted, "It's a dinosaur!" I laughed. Hysterically. Weeks later, I bought a pack of small plastic dinosaurs at Toys'R'Us. For the rest of the semester, before every class, I placed one dinosaur on the professor's podium. The professor laughed, and played, and collected each of the dinosaurs, never knowing how they got there. I tell this story now only because someone reminded me of it last night. Don't mess with the Boston meter maids. This morning I received my third -- or was it the fourth -- parking ticket from an expired meter in Beantown. Packing up my car for the drive home, I was about to put in some more quarters when I noticed a woman writing my ticket. But there are no exceptions with these people, as I have learned in the past. Once they've started, there's no stopping. Seriously, once they start writing down the information, they just get so overwhelmed with bliss that their hands turn to little machines -- machines without abort buttons, and those are, after all, the worst kind of machines. In a way, I suppose it's kind of like going to the bathroom. Once the stream has started, there's no turning off the hose unless it's an absolute emergency. My minutes-late attempt to put more quarters in the meter, however, was not an emergency for this woman. Neither was the rain pouring on her head. Beware of these Boston meter maids, people. They're robots. They know exactly when your meter has expired and when that happens, there's no room for abortion. We need to stop these people, people. Abort your meter maids today! Well, they finally got me. Germs, disease, whatever you want to call those nasty entities that force fluid down your nasal passages, scratch at your throat, clog your brain, and generally make you feel like you're going to die at any second. It's been about three years since I've been this sick. I remember the last one well. With only days left in the first semester of my junior year, I was forced to make daily trips to the library with a box of tissues and my own trachcan as I watched what must have been more than 100 Charlie Chaplin videos in order to write a final paper. I had barely the energy to get out of bed, but I didn't have a choice. As soon as I had finished the last video, I had to start my paper. And when that paper was done, I had to start another. That weekend I wrote 50 pages of essays in three days. By the end of it I was 90 percent dead. After that incident, I made a pact with my body that I would do everything possible to avoid such a sickness again. Mainly this just involved washing my hands compulsively and opening doors with the sleeves of my shirt. Real smooth, and until a few days ago, it had worked. But now I'm a trainwreck again, only without 50 pages of papers to write, thankfully. Nonetheless, I'm freezing, sneezing, going into hysterics, trying to apply to jobs but hoping I don't get a call about any of them because the words that come out of my mouth don't make any sense. And to make matters worse, The Beatles are breaking up in the book I'm reading, and the world is coming to an end. God save the queen. Some recent text messages sent to my cell phone. (DISCLAIMER: Not all are real.) Jess: Come to New Zealand. Mara: Come to Milwaukee. Devil: Come to Hell. Mr. Rodgers: Come to my neighborhood. Pat Morita: Come to Okinawa. Your mom: Come to bed. Enlightenment: Come to your senses. Zombie: Come to life. Curiosity: (How did it) Come to this? Understanding: Come to terms. Anonymous: Come to that place. Death: Come to an end. Hot girl: Come to my window. Reawakening: Come to. Aspiration: Come to be. Yuppie: Come to the rescue. Sensibility: Come to grips. Push: Come to shove. My Brain: (Wel)Come to the jungle. A brief note about Savannah, and then we'll never speak of it again. Savannah, as a place to live, really isn't so bad. I have spoken negatively about it here, but it was never my full intention to give a bad impression of the place. The crime, for example, never really bothered me all that much, despite how much I have written about it. On the contrary, people being shot and stabbed around my home was damn good entertainment. I lost interest in television while in Savannah (except for maybe Survivor), and for that I am thankful. It was more the experiences there that killed me. Plenty of awkward ... unfavorable things that all started when I totaled my car on my third day there. The job itself was the best I've ever had, but it was, by far, the most stressful. Anyway ... long story short, the bad experience has resulted now in what I have deemed my own personal elightenment. Ah, the clarity ... ideas ... understanding. Indescribable, really, but I feel great. Enough said. (I only hope this will translate into better Munchies posts, instead of the crap you're reading now.) For now, though, it's back to robot-mode -- resume sending, cover letter writing, becoming a machine to find a job. Thank goodness for cheesesteaks. More later. -The human ego is an amazing thing. -"Amazing things" are: amazing things. -Egos will not believe in The Enlightenment if any of its parts are defined as "amazing things." -That's too bad. Who took all the ketchup? -I don't really need any ketchup. Just filling up space to make you think this is a real post. -Which it was, at one point. But The Enlightenment continues, regardless of most of this ridiculousness. |
Late night snacks. Bite-sized ramblings. Old-fashioned eats, served fresh daily. Open 24-7.  Other blogs Fireballs and Tsunami JeffreyDavis.net Mismatched Parentheses NimbleSixpence One Tortured Soul Palpably Inadequate Picnic, Lightning Pony Legs, Temporarily Supernouveau Wander Lust In my DVD player Archives June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 December 2003 January 2004 February 2004 March 2004 April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 January 2008 February 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 Other stuff Homestarrunner One Slime DeepDiscountDVD Olde English Sketch Comedy Live Music Archive Copy Army Copywriting Service Love & Radio This One Time Email me mmjunior / at / hotmail   
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