Reflections on 2011 Part 2: July - November

July

The place: Andersonville, Georgia
The peeps: me, mostly. :-) But also Amy, Jaime, Tiffany
The pics: https://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/?set=a.10150228490286630.318398.654896629&type=1

July was a rather interesting month. It had a bunch of ups: it was this month that I met new friends Jaime and Chris through a renewed friendship with dear Amy. I'd see them all much more in the next half of the year, something I didn't know would ever happen at that time as we laughingly dodged raindrops on the front porch of a Fourth of July party, chanting: "we've got the food!" "but we've got the beer!"

But I also did a lot on my own this month. I love history, read anything I can get my hands on about the American Civil War, love my country and its military, and finally went back down to Andersonville to take photos I never had the previous two times I've been. There is something about this place that's always been incredibly powerful to me. It has an amazing POW-MIA museum and you're free to walk the grounds that was once a POW camp during the war.

On the way home, I also got to visit with my friend Tiffany for an evening ("you can wait for me at this bar I'm afraid to go into, okay?") and go to "church" (aka, the pool) the next day with her friends. It made me realize: between her and Amy, I was very blessed this month. Friends were introducing me to their friends, too. I finally felt, after so many years away from "the city," that I was not only having to go out and meet folks on my own; others were including me in their groups again. And it was a month full of joy.

August

The place: Atlanta and Gainesville, Georgia
The peeps: Jennifer, Hilary, Tiffany, Penny, Brandy, Mary, Amy, Jaime, Dan, Craig, Carla (and oh so many others!)
The pics: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150266487581630.329637.654896629&type=1&l=b472db1d20

My Big 4-0!

I was so incredibly humbled and touched with my girlfriend Jennifer (she who rescued me back in Part 1: April) asked me what I was doing for my birthday this year, knowing it was one of the "Big 'Uns." I really had no plans, but she wasn't having that: she planned a party for me up at her house where my friends I met when I lived up there were easily able to attend. Miss Tiffany came up from Macon and I carried her (lookit me being Southern) and Hilary up from the city (yo) to celebrate with the best girlfriends a girl could have that Friday night late in August. I have no idea how blessed I am to have Jennifer in my life, but I surely am not going to question it. She's one of them angels on earth, folks.

The night before was my actual birthday and on that day my "city" friends came over to help me celebrate after work (yes, I was smart enough to take a PTO day from work the next day). Long-time friends and new ones all came by to share some drinks and laughs and gifts and surprise pizza-orders and the best birthday dessert ever: Phish food ice cream with candles in it. Oh, and a talking bacon.

September

The place: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
The peeps: family! and dear friends Carrie, Kimmay, Zippy, Kevin
The pics: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150275824916630.332163.654896629&type=1&l=8950f4456a
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150285085766630.334143.654896629&type=1&l=3804b23d7d

My company holds three trade shows a year: at the end of August, there was one in Chicago and I worked my butt off (oh, I wish literally) at it. Thankfully, my colleagues actually realized that I did, because it's always nice to be appreciated at your job. When the conference ended, I took some vacation time, shuttled to the airport and hopped on a bus out of O'Hare to head up to Milwaukee to visit my family and friends.

The first blessing was being able to meet my new nephew Ethan, born not but 3 weeks before. I also got to see my other niece and nephew I hadn't seen in a couple years and a new nephew I had never met. Oh, joy!

The second was being able to spend time with other friends: high school and college ones who all came together to enjoy a night together. The best part? Now *they're* friends too! Oh, yes. Sometimes I'm envious (but happy) about that... wish I could see them all more often. But there's something so incredibly sweet about introducing folks who love each other, too, even when you're not there. September was an amazing month! And if you had told me then that I'd even see one of them again the very next month, you would have knocked me over with a feather. 900+ miles is a big distance to think you could see friends that often. And yet? It will happen!

I also got a chance to go to a Clemson game with Jennifer (of the Birthday Party hero last month) - my first ACC live game ever! The fact that I'm a huge football fan and got to witness one of the biggest college traditions (The most exciting 25 seconds in college football: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Stadium,_Clemson) but also to touch the rock and lay on the field afterward? awww yeah. Nothing could top September. Right?

And, yet? October rocked my socks off.

October

The places: Atlanta, Helen, and Babyland General, Georgia
The peeps: Carrie, Nick, Amy, Jaime, Chris, Sherri, Sue!
The pics: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150327352191630.342412.654896629&type=1&l=ef9203eccf
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150320191711630.341093.654896629&type=1&l=81237f6f0e
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150320157351630.341089.654896629&type=1&l=3f66fc45eb
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150320126426630.341084.654896629&type=1&l=04b32086fd

I don't know how to sum up October except to point y'all to the pictures above. This month, I had the three most amazing back-to-back weekends all year. First, dear Carrie and her boyfriend Nick stopped in the first weekend for a visit on their drive back to Wisconsin from Florida. I still feel bad keeping her up until 3am the night before she had to drive another 11 hours home. (okay, not really) :-)

The second weekend, one of my oldest (errr.. long-time; we're so not old) friends in the world came to visit me. We had tried to do this visit a few times in the past 15 years and it didn't work out. This time, it did! Sue is nothing less than awesome: I picked her up at the airport and we drank wine and talked for hours that same night. Then, we headed to see creepy Cabbage Patch ceremonies, went to a night-before Packer tailgate party, introduced her to Team Trivia (her now new part-time job back home!), celebrated at the Gay Pride Parade here in Atlanta and wandered down to the Dome to watch the Packers beat up on the Falcons. All in 2-1/2 days! If I had my way, I'd bring her back down every weekend.

The third weekend was Oktoberfest in Helen, Georgia with Amy and the gang. I'd been to Helen a couple of times before but never during Oktoberfest celebrations. Amy found us a cute little cabin up on the mountain to rent and between board games, hot-tubbing, tarot card readings, hiking to see beautiful waterfalls, and heading into town to hang at the beer garden, arm wrestle, dance and sing? Woah. My cheeks still hurt now, writing about all this and smiling again as much as I did then.

October, my friends? Rocked.

November

The place: Midtown, Atlanta
The peeps: Amy, Jaime, their mamas
The pics: None

It's no surprise to folks who really know me that I don't particularly like the holiday season. I've gotten better over the years, but it was 15 years ago this year that my Mom and sister drove my Dad up to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota to try to find help for his cancer. We had Thanksgiving dinner in the little diner across the street from the hospital that year while he was up in his hospital bed getting tests done; and, gosh, the food was awful (and I'll usually eat anything!). That same weekend, we called my other siblings up to join us too and we all learned the news that Dad had "weeks to months to live, if even." He ended up passing away halfway between Thanksgiving and Christmas: December 12, 1996.

So sometimes I'm okay this time of year; sometimes I'm a little bit down. And I had some friends offer invitations to come over, but I never really know until I wake up that day how I'll feel or if I want to join, so I never want to commit. This year, Amy and Jaime made me want to.

Both their mamas were in town and if I couldn't be with my own? Holy cheese on a cracker - these two are amazing! Which is really not surprising, knowing their daughters. But I didn't feel lonely, or like a 5th wheel (literally) or sad; it felt like family. It was just the 5 of us at Jaime's place, where she cooked a turkey for the very first time in her life. (It was delish!) We had foods and drinks and football games and board games. I even tried to wrestle Amy (yeah, she could kick my butt into next Tuesday!). and I didn't for one moment feel sad. November was such a month of peace.

See? Didn't I tell you in Part 1 that we had already been over the worst? We really had.

And now....

December

The places: to come
The peeps: to come
The pics: to come

Oh! You didn't expect December by the title, right? Well, you're right. Already this month has been wonderful. The holiday spirit instilled in me by Amy and Jaime in November is continuing strong! I've seen puppet shows and live Christmas performances with friends already. But it's only the11th as I sit and write this now. And though I already have amazing things to say about all that,I think I'm going to hold off because there are so many more coming up, too. I don't want to reflect on this month just yet. I can't do it justice just yet because as I'm looking at the weekends ahead on my calendar and the friends and family I'll see and the things I'll do? It all needs to be included too. Just to be fair.

So. 2011... yeah. With all the ups and downs and heartaches and joys, I would not change a thing about this year for the world. Again, I am so happy I did this. I don't think I fully realized how great a year it's been until I sat down and put pen to paper. So to speak, anyway.

I hope your 2011 has been as amazing as mine. And if not? We're on the verge of a new year that can change all that around. God bless, my friends!

Reflections on 2011 Part 1: January - June

In the month of Thanksgiving, a meme was running around Facebook that I unfortunately didn't pick up until halfway through. I wish I had sooner, as I would have done it too. The meme was this: every day of this month of Thanksgiving, name something for which you're thankful. A brilliant idea, especially if you're committed to it: it helps you to wake up even on your crappiest of days and try to find something positive to focus on instead. Because even one, tiny positive thought could change your day and attitude around, right?

So now it's December and I've decided to take a task on myself similar to that. It's the last month of the year and a bittersweet crazy season for me. I'm not going to do a daily thing now (saving the 12 Days of Christmas for that, yo!), but I am going to count off the monthly *people* I've been thankful this year, 2011. There are many more each month than I can mention here, but I'm just going to choose one each month for the sake of not writing a 10,000 page blog entry.

This is for you, my peeps.

January

The place: Phoenix, Arizona
The peeps: my brother Steve and my mama
The pics: https://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/?set=a.491123041629.269206.654896629&type=1

There had never been a time where just my mom, my younger brother and I had just the three of us together and no one else. Mom and I both flew out to Phoenix to visit Steve in his gorgeous new home. We cooked together, watched some movies, did tourist sites, shopped for his home. We kicked back on the couch and drank rum and cokes, talked until all hours of the night and gave each other crap like only family members who love each other can. What an amazing way to start the year. I should have realized then it was a sign of more amazing things to come.

Even if I had to get through some bad stuff first. It's a-comin'.

February

The place: Marietta, Georgia
The peeps: Aron, Jacki, Scott
The pics: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.502099911629.274916.654896629&type=1

You know how you always talk to old friends and say you should reconnect and do something now and again? Yeah. These are the folks who walk the talk. February reconnected me with some old friends and and a constant one: just a simple day out on the town, doing dinner and a play. I don't know if they knew it, but it had been ages since I did something like that and it was soooo good for my psyche. The bad stuff was building. So it was not only to have a "day out," but to do it with friends I hadn't been able to do it with for *years.* It also helped me to realize what I had already known: I had to make some changes in my life. To reconnect with folks, yes. But also to change some things about my own life, my relationships, my living situation, to make sure I could walk the talk, too.

And it happens soon. It does!

March

The place: Tybee Island, Georgia
The peeps: Dianne, Gina, Hilary, Tim, Lisa, Darrell, other hasher folks
The pics: https://www.facebook.com/media/albums/?id=654896629#!/media/set/?set=a.10150114771441630.283974.654896629&type=1

People come into your life for a reason. I think my friend Dianne dated my friend Jay not only because they truly care about each other, but because I was meant to meet her precious soul somehow. I had met her the year before but this year we got to spend more time together: for her big 4-0 and her dear friend Gina's big 3-o... a dual birthday celebration down in Tybee Island.

This tickles me because when I think about it now? I realize I didn't even KNOW her in March of 2010. But yet in 2011, I was there to celebrate, live, laugh, love, drink, eat, shop, swim, bar-crawl and just overall be merry with her. How can I NOT be thankful for this month? :-)

Then came April.

April

The place: Gainesville and Atlanta, Georgia
The peeps: Anne and Jennifer
The pics: none

This was a tough month, for real. I had to get out of my living situation quicker than I thought because of an ugly situation and I really had no idea what to do. I thought I would couch-surf for a while. Maybe rent a hotel for a week or two (most likely on borrowed money, fo sho)? But these two ladies stepped up tenfold for me. This month, as ugly as it started, ended in such joy because the two women mentioned above took me and my Oy kitty in when I had nowhere else to go and they really had no obligation to do it. It restored my faith in the fact that people actually DO things for others, not expecting anything in return. Looking back, this should be the toughest month I had this year. Because of them, I not only survived it, but I can look back on it now and actually think: for your worst month, Stae? It wasn't so bad afteall.

May

The place: Midtown! Finally!
The peeps: Penny, Chris, Scott, Jennifer, Chris2, Aron, Hilary, Leigh Ann, Nancy, others....
The pics: none

The folks mentioned above are nothing less than angels on earth. They stored my belongings when I had nowhere to go. They borrowed and gassed-up trucks and trailers, helped me pack and move boxes and bins and furniture into my new beloved place (with singing radiators!) without asking a thing in return. They welcomed me with gifts of champagne and candles and blessings for my new home, expressing happiness that I was now a new neighbor even if we hadn't spoken in years. April was a mess; May was a joy. Solely because of these folks.

June

The place: Atlanta and Tybee, Georgia (again!)
The peep: Mark, aka Roland
The pics: https://www.facebook.com/media/albums/?id=654896629#!/media/set/?set=a.10150206650046630.313388.654896629&type=1

I was fortunate enough to reconnect in person with someone I had dated briefly in college. We didn't work out then because we were very different people. But we got a chance to visit again this month, 20 years after we had seen each other previously. We're still very different people now (though more similar than we were then, ironically) and his visit ended up as a blessing that I now have a new, actual friend in my life again: the kind of friend that you know you both want the best for each other always. A surprise blessing, June brought me. You could've knocked me over with a feather had you told me in January that would have happened.

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So... that's the first half of the year (and the first half of this blog), and we've already been through the worst, I promise! July to December is coming next, full of ridiculously good people: a new nephew, other reconnections not only with the woman who I consider my little sister (who I hadn't spoken to in years), but also a gingered-haired angel and the first real friend I ever had from way back in childhood.

Wow. I'm so glad I'm doing this. I started writing this thinking I might have a few things to feel so happy about. Now I'm a little overwhelmed at how amazing it's really been.

I don't think I even knew it until now.

Gosh, I guess that's why I like writing.

Onto part 2!

Radiator Lullibies

I live in a cute little old building in Atlanta that was built in the early 1920s from what my research tells me. I'm not sure what it was in its previously lives, but surely it was not always an 8-apartment walk-up, as the strange doors-that-go-to-nowhere and ancient painted-over doorbell ringers tell me. Sometimes I wish I knew, just because I am a history freak and I'd love to know. Other times I'm glad I don't, as I think my imagination may do it more justice.

The other night I snuggled down into my bed with my book, as usual. It was the first night that was really cold in Atlanta this season; I finally had to not only take the screens out of my windows and close them, but turn on the heat. Radiator heat, that is.

Another reason I know my darling little brick building must have had many lives before now: there's only one heat source in the building - from down the basement. Not regulated per unit, it heats the whole building as one and, in my case, by three separate white-painted, randomly-chipped ancient radiator grills that wouldn't surprise me a bit if they were the originals. Oh, the stories those almost century-old coils could probably tell!

Which is exactly what occurred to me as I lay in bed that night: oh, if only they could talk! And then, in the silence of my room? I realized they did. They were! Right there, right then, even. I put my book down and listened.

The one who lives in the bedroom was, naturally, the loudest, considering I was right there. Or perhaps it was just happy to have a chance to speak again, having had to live silently under the loud spitting purple air conditioner in the window above her all summer long. She clanked and hissed contentedly, alternating periodically with a soft, warm hum as the other two in my home answered back. The one that lives in the room now reborn as my living room space answered back periodically; a conversation only they understood and rejoiced in, having not spoken for nearly a year. The one who lives in my bathroom must have always been the calming force: she just mostly silently gave off her warm heat and let the others chatter as she contentedly listened.

And whereas most folks might have found it an annoyance or hindrance to sleep? It was a lullaby to me. It was old friends, meeting up and catching up again, happy to be used and loved and alive again. Oh, the things these ancient beings could tell if only we could understand.

It made me wonder: how many other folks before me adjusted those same dials; turning them up, turning them down, allowing them the purpose they were created to do? What hands have been in the same place as mine? Were they old, young, black, white? Since they were born in the 20s, did they see a roaring good time then, only to feel the hurt of the next couple of decades? Did they warmly comfort folks who were missing family members off to Europe or the Pacific in war? Did they see professionals or freedom riders or free-lovers sitting crossed-legged with cherry smoke scented hookahs in front of them that they happily took in, re-warmed and shared back? Or did they ever sit lonely for any extended period of time, just hoping day after day for that little touch that would wake them up once again?

I'll never know. I wish I spoke radiator so they could tell me so.

The nice thing is that they don't know I don't. So the warmth they're giving me this season is not only the heat off their little bodies, but the stories they'll be sharing with me every night as I fall asleep. The knocking, hisses, purrs? Are their lullaby story gifts to me.