40 questions about my year (Part Two, 21-40):
21. How did you spend Christmas?
Mostly alone. LOL. My Owner went to a dinner I wasn’t invited
to, and I stayed home and watched James Bond movies. But it’s not as bad as that – because a few
days later we had our Treehouse Yule celebration which was awesome! We had Ma’am’s parents, a couple of my
packmates, Ma’am’s girlfriend and boyfriend, some other wonderful friends of
ours, and my old buddy Randolph
flew in from Japan
for a visit. Then, Sunday a bunch of us
went to the Biltmore Estate (and neither Ma’am nor Sir killed anyone out of
frustration).
22. Did you fall in love?
I fall more and more in love w/ my fantastic Owner every
year!!! *licks*
23. Have any one-night stands?
I had a few “stands” but they’ve all been more on-going than
one night.
24. What was your favorite TV program?
My favorite TV I watched this year was the first two seasons of Teen Wolf. I also mostly enjoyed the first season of Game of Thrones and Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD.
On DVD, Ma’am and I have been re-watching my all-time favorite show: Northern Exposure.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time
last year?
There’s a couple of assholes in Virginia
Beach I wouldn’t mind backing over w/ my car once or
twice. Is that hate?
26. What was the best book you read?
I never pick one. Lonesome Rangers by John Leonard, Arguably by Chris Hitchens, The Trial of Socrates by I.F. Stone, and
In Defense of Sanity by GK
Chesterton, to name a few.
27. What was your favorite new music of 2013?
Mumford & Sons, Lindsey Sterling,
Imagine Dragons, Atoms for Peace…
28. Best podcast?
This is a new question I added this year to recognize the
damnable march of soul-crushing technology.
I received an iPad this year and stared following several podcasts. Favorites right now are The Partially Examined Life, Pop Culture Happy Hour, James Bonding,
and No Safe Word.
29. What did you want
and get?
A working hot tub (thank you, Max!), a sexy new motorcycle
sportbike jacket, and a sexy PVC body suit (which unfortunately, although I
custom ordered the size, its still too short in the arms… but it fits better
than my last one which I donated to Dominion’s Lost N Found Youth fundraiser).
30. What did you want and not get?
A rubber puppy hood and rubber pup suit. It would have to be custom tailored given my
Wolfhound stature (6’3”, 160 lbs., and long limbs). One day…
31. What was your favorite film of this year?
Best A-list film: It’s
either The Hollow Crown series
(Richard II, Henry IV 1 & 2, and Henry V) or Saving Mr. Banks (overtly sentimental, but very enjoyable) or Before Midnight (not my favorite of the
trilogy, but still great dialogue and fantastic acting). No, wait. My favorite was the Joss Whedon Much Ado About Nothing.
Best B-movie: Ender’s Game.
32. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
There’s a progression here…
2011:
“Thirty-six. Went to Frolicon,
and I got a great pup tail for my birthday!!!
Then I got beat by Loki.”
2012: Thirty-seven.
Went to Frolicon and got a great leather puppy hood, and then got
accepted into Loki’s pack!!!
2013: Thirty-eight.
Went to Frolicon and was gifted a fantastic leather-pup vest from Sir and
Ma’am!!!
33. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably
more satisfying?
I will not say “immeasurably” more satisfying, but… the book
project Max and I are working on is about 4 or 5 months behind schedule; that’s
a bit dissatisfying. Oh, and more sexy
fun time w/ the Kitten would always be more satisfying! *Makes puppy dog eyes at Shdwkitten*
34. How would you describe your personal fashion concept
this year?
I found a website that has dozens of different Irish
wolfhound t-shirts. Slowly, I’ve been
collecting them. :)
35. What kept you sane?
My Owner. Every so often she would say something like:
“I know I haven’t always made this an easy year for you, so thank you for being
so awesome,” and that little bit of acknowledgement & encouragement means absolutely
the world to me. *wags*
36. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Oh, watching Miley Cyrus twerk really does it for me. *maintains a straight face*
37. What political issue stirred you the most?
What Raleigh has
done to public education in NC: massive budget cuts, more and more teacher
lay-offs, pay-cuts, eliminating tenure and benefits, eliminating bonus pay for
teachers w/ a Master’s degree, and shifting money into for-profit schools to
line the pockets of Wall Street investors and big technology companies –
generally at the expense of the poorest school districts. *Growls*
38. Who did you miss?
Well I reconnected w/ my old friend Jay. My ex-girlfriend and her husband came down
for a weekend visit. Randolph
flew-in from Japan
to spend Christmas w/ us. We even
briefly saw Cheryl… and Hunter moved back to Atlanta. It was actually a very good year for
re-connecting w/ folks.
39. Who was the best new person you got to know?
Got to better know a few great people this year: notably
Gareth and new pack-mates Hunter, Gwynn, and Bishop. All cool people I hope to spend more time w/
in 2014.
40. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013:
Well… I’m 38 and a half.
Assuming I make it to the expected 77 (the average in North
Carolina – the top state is Hawaii
at 81 and the bottom is Mississippi
at 71, by the way) then exactly half my life is already gone. I don’t feel bad about that – but ambivalent,
I guess. We just finished watching Before Midnight, and one of the themes
of that film (which is about a couple in mid-life crises) is the transitory
nature of everything. The setting sun is
a dominant image in that movie, and there’s one bit of dialogue I wish I could
just quote at length here. This older
lady talking about her late husband observes the paradox that someone can be
the center of the universe for another person, they can be so important, and
yet in the march of time and history they are totally forgotten and
irrelevant. Meaning (if you find it) comes
mostly from being important to other individuals. Friends and family. I’m 38 and have a list of things I haven’t
(yet) done or places I haven’t seen, but…
Happiness isn’t found in having things or accomplishing things but mostly
in being a part of things. But another
side of this impermanence is the idea that how we relate to people changes. In an interview, Richard Linklater, the
director of Before Midnight, says that
this is still a romance movie, but love and romance at age 41 after living w/
someone for 9 years isn’t the same as what love and romance was at 32 or 23
(the ages of the characters in the previous two films in the trilogy). But maybe the point is that at a certain
stage of life (mid-life), love becomes about stability w/in impermanence, love
becomes ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
There’s an odd paradox in that which I can’t fully tease out just now… But it’s something worth thinking about…
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