Final Note 2017
Monday, 1 January 2018 12:30![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_bit_of_wit_2A final note…
“A long December,” the Counting Crows song begins, “and there’s reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last.” And unless you were a Republican or obscenely wealthy, I think it’s a safe bet to assume that for the rest of us, 2017 deserves to be taken out back and shot emphatically dead. Not only did it feel about seven hundred years long, but so many horrible things happened on a daily basis, many of them beyond our control, that often times I found myself going through the five stages of grief repeatedly. Too many times I found myself frequently alternating between intense outrage and soul-crushing despair, all the while feeling somewhat powerless. On the political front, all my elected representatives are Democrats, so calling their offices or writing letters seemed useless; I don’t like to be told what I already know, so why would they? The only thing I could do that seemed worthwhile was to donate to causes that help advance the common good: ACLU, Planned Parenthood, Black Lives Matter, various creative folk on Patreon (because, yes, damn it, art is absolutely helpful) and so on. But as is the case with these Final Notes, it’s a recap of personal highlights, so rather than write a diatribe that will likely bring myself and any readers to a sobbing wreck of a human, let’s head to the GOOD points of my year.
At 12 AM New Year’s Day, I was out of the country. For the very first time, I left the dumpster fire that is the U.S. of A. and spent it in Canada (Hamilton, Ontario, specifically) visiting Rosemary and Chris, playing Monopoly, as is my custom. However, Chris only acquiesced to play if we used an app to serve as the game’s bank, since he likes efficiency and didn’t want to faff about with the handling of paper money. April ultimately won the contest, and I spent a mostly-fun-filled New Year overall. While in Ontario, I got to explore a bit of Toronto, tried shawarma for the first time, and decided I need to return to explore more of the city. Back home, Januarymas, the annual winter parties that April and I hold, were always fun, and this year’s edition will probably be one of the most memorable: Marc proposed to Nicki in front of a bunch of us, and now I kind of hope that they get married at a future Januarymas, because I like when things come full circle.
In February, I took the first of two trips down to Sea Bright, NJ, to spend time with Jenn. It is rare when I take a trip out of state by myself, and after all the worldly bullshit that ALREADY HAPPENED by mid-month, that weekend was a welcome respite. She took me to Yestercades, an actual arcade filled with old arcade consoles, TV consoles, and copious amounts of pinball. Then we spent the rest of the weekend at her place just playing video games. I’ll never look at Voldo the same way again. It gave me a good reset. PAX East came around in late March this year, and once again, Ryan came along. The Nintendo Switch was just released a couple weeks prior (and for the first time EVER, I pre-ordered a console and got it on day 1), and since it was just he and I, I decided to take him around Boston a little bit. Up to now, all he’d ever seen of Boston was the convention center, so this time I took him into Chinatown and met up with Doug for a pre-PAX dinner at Jacob Wirth (a delicious German-style pub), and when the convention concluded, took him to the Green Dragon, located closer to the North End. We’d return to Boston a few months later, but this PAX will stick out in my memory as the one where I actually won a medal in a tournament. I finished as the runner-up in the Super Mario Kart (yes, the SNES original) competition, and it earned me a silver medal. I’m still stupidly proud of that.
In mid-May, April and I headed to Cape Cod specifically to spend time with my stepbrother, Rob. One of our favorite musicians growing up (and frankly, still), Mary Fahl, was doing a concert in a small little café/nightclub, Club Passim, in the Cambridge section of Boston. Normally, I go see her in Saratoga, which is less than half an hour away from me. This year, however, my cousin decided to have his wedding on the day of that concert. And I don’t need an excuse to go to Boston, so, off I went to my third Mary Fahl concert. I think Rob had something akin to a religious experience, for it had been many years since I’d seen him cry. Needless to say, he loved it so much, he went to see her again when she did a show in Plymouth in November. A week and a half later, April and I buggered out of the country again to spend Memorial Day weekend in Niagara Falls, Ontario. There I noticed just how stark the contrast was between it and Niagara Falls, NY. The NY side reminds me very much of the more run-down areas of Troy, with a casino slap-bang in the middle of it all, whereas the Canadian side lets you know on no uncertain terms that it is a gigantic tourist trap, with lights, buildings, casinos, and restaurants. Rosemary, April, and I explored the falls and a wonderful little town nearby—Niagara-on-the-Lake, on the shores of Lake Ontario.
As summer approached, it officially kicked off first with my first trip to the Capital District Renaissance Festival since the inaugural one four years ago. It's pretty cool having a Faire practically in your backyard, especially since a significant number of the performers also do the New York Renaissance Faire later on in the year, so this proves to be an enjoyable warm-up, a nice sampler for what comes six weeks later. However, a touching moment: in 2017, the Faire community lost Alexandra Hastings, best known to us as Calypso Bordeaux, the fearless, intrepid leader of the Vixens En Garde. The Queen gave a very moving speech honoring her and the CDRF's blacksmith (who also passed away), and a stage was renamed in Calypso's honor. The season truly began in earnest in mid-June with a couple of concerts at SPAC—the annual Dave Matthews shows. This time, though, the band took the year off. Dave and Tim Reynolds did a brief tour, so I got to see a more intimate show; just the two of them and their guitars. The first Dave Matthews album I was ever given, probably about 15 or so years ago now, was the Dave & Tim concert, Live at Luther College, so finally getting to see just them live was a thrilling experience. Alton was with me for the first of the two shows, and I went to the second alone. Great nights, both. I would've thought, given the toned-down nature of the show, that it'd be quieter amongst the sell-out crowd, but I was proven incredibly wrong; that second show especially, I don't know if I've been in a more energetic crowd. Whether it was directly because it was an acoustic show and the energy that is at a regular DMB show is not as noticeable due to how loud it gets and I was just feeling it more, or if it was really that rarefied for that night, I'll never know for certain. It was special.
Funny thing, though: every time I go to a Dave concert, I am reminded of my 6th grade D.A.R.E. education and how profoundly wrong it was: the way they taught it, people who offered you drugs and alcohol were the most loathsome, lascivious people you'd ever meet, forcing you to submit to crushing peer pressure to accept a joint or drink a beer. Every time I'm offered any of those, I always politely turn it down and they politely go about enjoying the show. Often by belting out with me whatever song happens to be playing. Whoever these agents of Lucifer are using these mafioso-like tactics to get me to smoke or drink...I've yet to meet one.
July was a busy month. I stepped foot in Maine for the very first time, completing my New England bingo card. Why? Because my cousin decided to have a destination wedding. Very nice of him to drag his family in New York and Las Vegas to the northeastern corner of the country to get married in a barn. I guess none of the barns in New York suited he and his wife. Despite it looking like it was ripped out of a Better Homes & Gardens magazine, I had fun, and it was a nice beginning to our vacation; after the wedding, April and I spent a whole week in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, disconnected from pretty much everything. This is not an exaggeration; we had to drive half an hour away from our campsite if we wanted a cell phone signal. I'm surprised I'm still married, though—the first full day of the trip, we went on a hike...which was far more challenging than I ever thought. It was a mile and a half one way, up one thousand feet of elevation to some very lovely waterfalls. For two fat people who hadn't hiked in many years, it was brutal. April did it, though, even if her body screamed in protest for the rest of the week. The rest of the vacation was spent doing far less strenuous activities, which was just as well, for the bugs ate us alive. Even so, a week off the internet and social media was very refreshing. It's something I might have to do again going into 2018. The month wrapped up when I went to see Jenn for the second time, just before the opening of the New York Renaissance Faire.
Faire had an important meaning for me this year. Twenty years ago, I visited the Shire of Sterling for the first time, and even now I still have this sort of cognitive dissonance. I know a good number of the cast personally in various degrees outside of Faire but yet when they don their costumes, they seemingly become someone else. Even now, a warm embrace by the Mayor (Don) like I'm family, or a wave of greeting by Her Majesty (Lena), or anything similar, and internally, my brain is screaming "SENPAI NOTICED ME!!!!!!!" Her Majesty spoke to me about how Faire has meant so many things to so many people over the years, and as I chewed on that during the drive home at the end of the opening weekend, it once again occurred to me why I love coming to the Shire so damn much. For some, it's an escape--a place to get away from the soul-crushing routine that is reality. For others, it's a place to get happily drunk, throw caution to the wind, and let go for a while. For me, it's a place of concentrated joy, something that is so apparent on nearly every face. Yes, there is a performance aspect to it, there has to be, but the eagerness to play those roles--from villager to Queen--is also there. The cast is having just as much of a blast being those characters as I am just to be present in the festival atmosphere that is the Shire, and I think that genuine aspect is what makes it such a pleasure to come back to again and again, but also makes it that much more heartbreaking when the season ends and we put the boots away until August. For certain, the highlight of my Faire season was when at Pub Sing, Longstocking of the Fiddle Tree (Mel), The Pride of Ireland (Matt), and one more lovely lady on pennywhistle played "Pure Imagination" and dedicated it to me. I love them all so dearly.
Ryan and I took one more trip to Boston toward late August. I bought him tickets to see the Yankees and Red Sox play at Fenway Park, and we spent the day largely at Quincy Market before we went to the game. I happened to get bleacher seats amongst a pocket of Yankee fans, making me feel like an enemy in my own home. To add insult to injury, the Yankees won—in fact, it was the only game they won in that three-game series that weekend, making my personal record at Fenway 1-3. I'm not superstitious, but I think I am a little stitious, since those three losses have all been with family. During the final weekend of NYRF, Rosemary gave birth and named her son Malcolm instead of Adrian. Missed opportunity there. Columbus Day weekend came around, and April and I weren't quite ready to put our Faire garb away, so we made a trip to King Richard's Faire in Carver, MA. It was the first time either of us had been to this Faire without my family, and we both felt that it was a much better experience, not being bound by my stepdad's wants. I think we may go there more often now. It's a small Faire, but worth a day. Less than a week later, but three weeks early, Heather shot her daughter out, and I became an uncle to my first niece.
Most of the fall was spent doing a considerable amount of unwinding after the eventful summer, and preparing for the upcoming move. In a few weeks (hopefully), we are moving to a new apartment (literally, brand new, all new construction, we'll be the first ones living in it) and I am very much looking forward to it. I can have a photo studio, finally. From an artistic standpoint, I created a lot of work in 2017, but I need to ramp up the whoring of myself to get my art out there and begin turning it into something that not only makes me happy, but also nets me some coin. I don't anticipate I will be making enough money on photography alone to live off on, at least not yet—I still need the medical insurance and pay from my day job—but I need to move in that general direction. Other things to think about with the close of 2017 and the start of 2018: maintaining good health. I remain in remission from Crohn's, but after the last couple of doctor appointments where I'm now getting nagged at about my weight, it's time to take charge. I'm not in the habit of making New Year's resolutions, it's just something I need to do with regard to my health.
I came to realize something I have to actively fight in 2018: becoming so cynical and jaded where life is no longer enjoyable in any aspect. Despite some obviously great highlights and good times I had in 2017, I've felt myself slipping in that direction in this year-which-has-felt-like-several-centuries. I'm slowly accepting that humanity is a lot shittier than I ever realized, but it doesn't mean I need to stoop to that level. But it is a struggle, because with all that has happened in the millennium of 2017, despair is the easy way out. Be mad, be outraged, but perhaps take more of an effort to relax and step away from the Eye of Sauron that is Twitter and social media more regularly. I'm no good to anyone or myself if I'm always angry or one second away from sobbing at the state of the world. That said, I need to quickly finish reading A Song of Ice and Fire and move on to other books (I started reading the series back in the fall of 2016 and haven't read any other book), other stories where liars, rapists, cheaters, and thieves don't constantly make out like bandits and honor always gets you dead. Westeros feels a little too close to reality. That said, I have hope; the last couple of weeks, I've been seeing a lot of posts on social media from people who, like me, have felt beaten and battered from all the bullshit 2017 inflicted, and are feeling a sense of resolve, a desire to punch back. Well, everyone, it's a new year. Time to get to work.
“A long December,” the Counting Crows song begins, “and there’s reason to believe maybe this year will be better than the last.” And unless you were a Republican or obscenely wealthy, I think it’s a safe bet to assume that for the rest of us, 2017 deserves to be taken out back and shot emphatically dead. Not only did it feel about seven hundred years long, but so many horrible things happened on a daily basis, many of them beyond our control, that often times I found myself going through the five stages of grief repeatedly. Too many times I found myself frequently alternating between intense outrage and soul-crushing despair, all the while feeling somewhat powerless. On the political front, all my elected representatives are Democrats, so calling their offices or writing letters seemed useless; I don’t like to be told what I already know, so why would they? The only thing I could do that seemed worthwhile was to donate to causes that help advance the common good: ACLU, Planned Parenthood, Black Lives Matter, various creative folk on Patreon (because, yes, damn it, art is absolutely helpful) and so on. But as is the case with these Final Notes, it’s a recap of personal highlights, so rather than write a diatribe that will likely bring myself and any readers to a sobbing wreck of a human, let’s head to the GOOD points of my year.
At 12 AM New Year’s Day, I was out of the country. For the very first time, I left the dumpster fire that is the U.S. of A. and spent it in Canada (Hamilton, Ontario, specifically) visiting Rosemary and Chris, playing Monopoly, as is my custom. However, Chris only acquiesced to play if we used an app to serve as the game’s bank, since he likes efficiency and didn’t want to faff about with the handling of paper money. April ultimately won the contest, and I spent a mostly-fun-filled New Year overall. While in Ontario, I got to explore a bit of Toronto, tried shawarma for the first time, and decided I need to return to explore more of the city. Back home, Januarymas, the annual winter parties that April and I hold, were always fun, and this year’s edition will probably be one of the most memorable: Marc proposed to Nicki in front of a bunch of us, and now I kind of hope that they get married at a future Januarymas, because I like when things come full circle.
In February, I took the first of two trips down to Sea Bright, NJ, to spend time with Jenn. It is rare when I take a trip out of state by myself, and after all the worldly bullshit that ALREADY HAPPENED by mid-month, that weekend was a welcome respite. She took me to Yestercades, an actual arcade filled with old arcade consoles, TV consoles, and copious amounts of pinball. Then we spent the rest of the weekend at her place just playing video games. I’ll never look at Voldo the same way again. It gave me a good reset. PAX East came around in late March this year, and once again, Ryan came along. The Nintendo Switch was just released a couple weeks prior (and for the first time EVER, I pre-ordered a console and got it on day 1), and since it was just he and I, I decided to take him around Boston a little bit. Up to now, all he’d ever seen of Boston was the convention center, so this time I took him into Chinatown and met up with Doug for a pre-PAX dinner at Jacob Wirth (a delicious German-style pub), and when the convention concluded, took him to the Green Dragon, located closer to the North End. We’d return to Boston a few months later, but this PAX will stick out in my memory as the one where I actually won a medal in a tournament. I finished as the runner-up in the Super Mario Kart (yes, the SNES original) competition, and it earned me a silver medal. I’m still stupidly proud of that.
In mid-May, April and I headed to Cape Cod specifically to spend time with my stepbrother, Rob. One of our favorite musicians growing up (and frankly, still), Mary Fahl, was doing a concert in a small little café/nightclub, Club Passim, in the Cambridge section of Boston. Normally, I go see her in Saratoga, which is less than half an hour away from me. This year, however, my cousin decided to have his wedding on the day of that concert. And I don’t need an excuse to go to Boston, so, off I went to my third Mary Fahl concert. I think Rob had something akin to a religious experience, for it had been many years since I’d seen him cry. Needless to say, he loved it so much, he went to see her again when she did a show in Plymouth in November. A week and a half later, April and I buggered out of the country again to spend Memorial Day weekend in Niagara Falls, Ontario. There I noticed just how stark the contrast was between it and Niagara Falls, NY. The NY side reminds me very much of the more run-down areas of Troy, with a casino slap-bang in the middle of it all, whereas the Canadian side lets you know on no uncertain terms that it is a gigantic tourist trap, with lights, buildings, casinos, and restaurants. Rosemary, April, and I explored the falls and a wonderful little town nearby—Niagara-on-the-Lake, on the shores of Lake Ontario.
As summer approached, it officially kicked off first with my first trip to the Capital District Renaissance Festival since the inaugural one four years ago. It's pretty cool having a Faire practically in your backyard, especially since a significant number of the performers also do the New York Renaissance Faire later on in the year, so this proves to be an enjoyable warm-up, a nice sampler for what comes six weeks later. However, a touching moment: in 2017, the Faire community lost Alexandra Hastings, best known to us as Calypso Bordeaux, the fearless, intrepid leader of the Vixens En Garde. The Queen gave a very moving speech honoring her and the CDRF's blacksmith (who also passed away), and a stage was renamed in Calypso's honor. The season truly began in earnest in mid-June with a couple of concerts at SPAC—the annual Dave Matthews shows. This time, though, the band took the year off. Dave and Tim Reynolds did a brief tour, so I got to see a more intimate show; just the two of them and their guitars. The first Dave Matthews album I was ever given, probably about 15 or so years ago now, was the Dave & Tim concert, Live at Luther College, so finally getting to see just them live was a thrilling experience. Alton was with me for the first of the two shows, and I went to the second alone. Great nights, both. I would've thought, given the toned-down nature of the show, that it'd be quieter amongst the sell-out crowd, but I was proven incredibly wrong; that second show especially, I don't know if I've been in a more energetic crowd. Whether it was directly because it was an acoustic show and the energy that is at a regular DMB show is not as noticeable due to how loud it gets and I was just feeling it more, or if it was really that rarefied for that night, I'll never know for certain. It was special.
Funny thing, though: every time I go to a Dave concert, I am reminded of my 6th grade D.A.R.E. education and how profoundly wrong it was: the way they taught it, people who offered you drugs and alcohol were the most loathsome, lascivious people you'd ever meet, forcing you to submit to crushing peer pressure to accept a joint or drink a beer. Every time I'm offered any of those, I always politely turn it down and they politely go about enjoying the show. Often by belting out with me whatever song happens to be playing. Whoever these agents of Lucifer are using these mafioso-like tactics to get me to smoke or drink...I've yet to meet one.
July was a busy month. I stepped foot in Maine for the very first time, completing my New England bingo card. Why? Because my cousin decided to have a destination wedding. Very nice of him to drag his family in New York and Las Vegas to the northeastern corner of the country to get married in a barn. I guess none of the barns in New York suited he and his wife. Despite it looking like it was ripped out of a Better Homes & Gardens magazine, I had fun, and it was a nice beginning to our vacation; after the wedding, April and I spent a whole week in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, disconnected from pretty much everything. This is not an exaggeration; we had to drive half an hour away from our campsite if we wanted a cell phone signal. I'm surprised I'm still married, though—the first full day of the trip, we went on a hike...which was far more challenging than I ever thought. It was a mile and a half one way, up one thousand feet of elevation to some very lovely waterfalls. For two fat people who hadn't hiked in many years, it was brutal. April did it, though, even if her body screamed in protest for the rest of the week. The rest of the vacation was spent doing far less strenuous activities, which was just as well, for the bugs ate us alive. Even so, a week off the internet and social media was very refreshing. It's something I might have to do again going into 2018. The month wrapped up when I went to see Jenn for the second time, just before the opening of the New York Renaissance Faire.
Faire had an important meaning for me this year. Twenty years ago, I visited the Shire of Sterling for the first time, and even now I still have this sort of cognitive dissonance. I know a good number of the cast personally in various degrees outside of Faire but yet when they don their costumes, they seemingly become someone else. Even now, a warm embrace by the Mayor (Don) like I'm family, or a wave of greeting by Her Majesty (Lena), or anything similar, and internally, my brain is screaming "SENPAI NOTICED ME!!!!!!!" Her Majesty spoke to me about how Faire has meant so many things to so many people over the years, and as I chewed on that during the drive home at the end of the opening weekend, it once again occurred to me why I love coming to the Shire so damn much. For some, it's an escape--a place to get away from the soul-crushing routine that is reality. For others, it's a place to get happily drunk, throw caution to the wind, and let go for a while. For me, it's a place of concentrated joy, something that is so apparent on nearly every face. Yes, there is a performance aspect to it, there has to be, but the eagerness to play those roles--from villager to Queen--is also there. The cast is having just as much of a blast being those characters as I am just to be present in the festival atmosphere that is the Shire, and I think that genuine aspect is what makes it such a pleasure to come back to again and again, but also makes it that much more heartbreaking when the season ends and we put the boots away until August. For certain, the highlight of my Faire season was when at Pub Sing, Longstocking of the Fiddle Tree (Mel), The Pride of Ireland (Matt), and one more lovely lady on pennywhistle played "Pure Imagination" and dedicated it to me. I love them all so dearly.
Ryan and I took one more trip to Boston toward late August. I bought him tickets to see the Yankees and Red Sox play at Fenway Park, and we spent the day largely at Quincy Market before we went to the game. I happened to get bleacher seats amongst a pocket of Yankee fans, making me feel like an enemy in my own home. To add insult to injury, the Yankees won—in fact, it was the only game they won in that three-game series that weekend, making my personal record at Fenway 1-3. I'm not superstitious, but I think I am a little stitious, since those three losses have all been with family. During the final weekend of NYRF, Rosemary gave birth and named her son Malcolm instead of Adrian. Missed opportunity there. Columbus Day weekend came around, and April and I weren't quite ready to put our Faire garb away, so we made a trip to King Richard's Faire in Carver, MA. It was the first time either of us had been to this Faire without my family, and we both felt that it was a much better experience, not being bound by my stepdad's wants. I think we may go there more often now. It's a small Faire, but worth a day. Less than a week later, but three weeks early, Heather shot her daughter out, and I became an uncle to my first niece.
Most of the fall was spent doing a considerable amount of unwinding after the eventful summer, and preparing for the upcoming move. In a few weeks (hopefully), we are moving to a new apartment (literally, brand new, all new construction, we'll be the first ones living in it) and I am very much looking forward to it. I can have a photo studio, finally. From an artistic standpoint, I created a lot of work in 2017, but I need to ramp up the whoring of myself to get my art out there and begin turning it into something that not only makes me happy, but also nets me some coin. I don't anticipate I will be making enough money on photography alone to live off on, at least not yet—I still need the medical insurance and pay from my day job—but I need to move in that general direction. Other things to think about with the close of 2017 and the start of 2018: maintaining good health. I remain in remission from Crohn's, but after the last couple of doctor appointments where I'm now getting nagged at about my weight, it's time to take charge. I'm not in the habit of making New Year's resolutions, it's just something I need to do with regard to my health.
I came to realize something I have to actively fight in 2018: becoming so cynical and jaded where life is no longer enjoyable in any aspect. Despite some obviously great highlights and good times I had in 2017, I've felt myself slipping in that direction in this year-which-has-felt-like-several-centuries. I'm slowly accepting that humanity is a lot shittier than I ever realized, but it doesn't mean I need to stoop to that level. But it is a struggle, because with all that has happened in the millennium of 2017, despair is the easy way out. Be mad, be outraged, but perhaps take more of an effort to relax and step away from the Eye of Sauron that is Twitter and social media more regularly. I'm no good to anyone or myself if I'm always angry or one second away from sobbing at the state of the world. That said, I need to quickly finish reading A Song of Ice and Fire and move on to other books (I started reading the series back in the fall of 2016 and haven't read any other book), other stories where liars, rapists, cheaters, and thieves don't constantly make out like bandits and honor always gets you dead. Westeros feels a little too close to reality. That said, I have hope; the last couple of weeks, I've been seeing a lot of posts on social media from people who, like me, have felt beaten and battered from all the bullshit 2017 inflicted, and are feeling a sense of resolve, a desire to punch back. Well, everyone, it's a new year. Time to get to work.
