2016 Year in Review, Part One

20 Questions About My Year

1. What did you do this year that you'd never done before?

Visited Scotland, got a doctor fired from our local hospital, marched with Cuddles in NC Pride, and pissed off my friend, Daniel.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

“Do a new comic book review each week [and] write a couple of adventures for a new game system my friend John is developing.”  Nope.

Resolution for 2017:  I’d love to try a do-over on those resolutions… But really, I want to try this project whereby, in 2016, I revisit some of my favorite/most influential books and documentaries more or less in order of how I encountered them from roughly 1993 to 2003.  So I’m going to re-read Dune, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Jung’s Man and His Symbols, etc., and re-watch The Power of Myth and the Day the Universe Changed…etc.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

No.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Sir Alan.  We also lost a lot of celebrities this year, from Alan Rickman to Leonard Cohen.

5. Did anyone close to you get married?

Andy.

6. What places did you visit?

Scotland!  And a fun weekend in DC with Hunter and Loki.

7. What would you like to have next year that you lacked this year?

Well, I didn’t lack a motorcycle this year, but I would love to have a newer one next year.

8. What day from this year will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

All seven days in Scotland (good), and the night they kicked us out of the ER then rushed Kitten into emergency surgery the next morning (bad).

9. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I was a helpful puppy for my Owner and for Poet.  I got the asshole doctor who almost killed Kitten fired from that hospital.  I’ve helped Poet clean and fix up his house to sell.  I tried to be a good tour guide puppy in Scotland.  Helpful puppy was helpful.

10. What was your biggest failure?

Maybe not as helpful to one of my best friends whom I inadvertently pissed off and then there was an unfortunate period of months where he wasn’t really speaking to me.  That was sad

11. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I think I did okay – everyone else was in and out of the hospital!

12. What was the best thing you bought?

Ma’am’s awesome sweater-coat, “Shadow Roses.”

13. Whose behavior merited a celebration?

I’m very proud of my lovely Owner. She began this year after a brush w/ death feeling very afraid and unsure of herself… by the end of the year I had seen her really conquer her fear: refusing to hide in the closet, bite her tongue or “roll over and take it.”

14. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Max’s (now ex-)boyfriend who turned out to be a nasty piece of human garbage. …Oh, wait, that’s the same thing I wrote last year.  How about a certain asshole ER doctor who sent my Owner home to die?  Those are two men I wouldn’t mind seeing bad shit happen to.

15. Where did most of your money go?

Scotland.

16. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Scotland!  Also, we got to see Labyrinth on the big screen, and that was really cool; and I’m also going to add teaching pup classes and doing the mosh and Puppy Olympics at Frolicon.  And I'll add that the CAPEX Pig Pick'n was extra-cool this year: we had our own private island! 

17. What song will always remind you of this year?

I really liked the song “Lost Boy” by Ruth B, “Let’s Hear it for the Dogs” by the Proclaimers, “You Want it Darker” by Leonard Cohen, “Dairy Queen” by Power Bottom, and “Speak When You’re Spoken to” by Spook School.  I think the one that will remind me most of this year will be “You Want it Darker” because I feel like 2016 has been taunting us all with that question since January.

18. Compared to this time last year, you are:

More afraid for the world… and also more of a whisky drinker.

19. What do you wish you'd done more of?

More time in Scotland.  If we had one more day I would have loved to see Loch Lomund and Castle Dumbarton.

20. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Trying to keep the lives of my loved ones from either ending or just going off the rails.