2009. Period.

Oh, I know, who wants to read yet another meandering reflection on the year gone, the year coming?

Suckers. You're still reading.

Honestly? I don't remember much of 2008. I think that's just because, as usual, New Year's hits during the busiest time of my work season and I tend to be in a cluster. Also, as some of you know, I've been living with 99.9% of everything I own in a storage unit in Vegas for three months now, which has turned me into a cluster as well. I'm a nester. I mean, sure, I move a lot. but I move with my stuff. I miss my stuff. Camping is only fun for limited amounts of time. I have worn the same four pairs of jeans so many times that I named them. Today, Lucy is hugging my ass.

But the reality is that I just re-read my section of the holiday letter, and 2008 was pretty much all I could have hoped for. I traveled to lots of places, I got a great new job, I got to relocate, which we all know I love to do every five or so years. I spent a lot of time with my family and friends. I have memories beyond memories. I'm sure when I have a quiet time in mid-February to really sit on my couch and reflect, it will go down as a banner year.

I guess if I could improve two things, they would be:
a. It wasn't a creatively productive year. I didn't write or paint or sew all that much. Of course, I spent 3 months with none of my stuff, and that kills your expressive urge. And I feel like I lost my writing mojo. Words are harder right now. I'm hoping that resolves. I'm also hoping it's not a side effect of winter, which tends to depress me.

b. I dated a lot, but I also wasted way too much energy on a boy who I probably could have figured out was way wrong for me as early as March. I need to return to the good old days of cut and run, or as Hott Scott would say, "David Koreshing it at the first moment." That's funny if you were around for the original conversation.

I think what I'm really left with at the end of the year is an affirmation of my belief that the only thing that will create positive change in your life is YOU creating positive change (cue Oprah theme music). The only thing that got me out of a ciruclar and ultimately unsatisfiying set up in Vegas (though you know I miss a lot of things and people A LOT, but it was time to grow out), was jumping off a cliff and quitting my high-paying job with no net beneath me. When I did that, the universe gave me everything I wanted to replace it with. And I think of people I know who did similar things, and the same is true. Sure, it's hard. I've cried a ton in the last three months. But staying in a situation that's leaving you feeling unfulfilled is not the way to get fulfilled.

Jump in the pool. It's better than watching the rest of the world swim, even if the shock is cold.

Anyway, so. 2009.

There are already a ton of things I'm looking forward to, and that's in addition to some possible travel plans. In September, I'm officiating a wedding. I got new dining room chairs, which will make me happy. I'm seeing Yo-Yo Ma. A few sweet mamas are having babies. I've been promised a watershed of houseguests this summer. Good times.

It's going to make for a less exciting holiday letter, but I'm determined to travel a little less (just for one year) and instead pay off some of my massive relocation bills, (Hi Mom!). On the other hand, I get a pay raise in the spring, so that idea may go right out of the door.

I am absolutely, without a doubt, finally hit my run-distance-time target. I don't know anybody here yet, there's no reason not to focus on that.

I'm going to try lesbianism again. No, joking. But I thought the entry was getting boring. Then again, you never know.

There are certain years in your life where you just have to accept that you're in transition and the normal pace of the party is interuppted. I think this will be one of those years. I'm okay with that. I guess.

Feel free to refer to this post if it doesn't end up that way.

Catch you on the flip!

 

Even Better!

My replacement Social Security card was lost in the great "Wrong mailbox, Mr. New Postman" debacle of last week.

I'll be repeating step two of the process below.

Sigh.

 

Here's My Advice to You: Do NOT Ever Lose Your ID

Here is the short version of the story. Upon returning from Mongolia, I was tired and jet-lagged for days. In this state, I somehow got it in my head that a delightful idea would be to meet up with my cousin Di and my Aunt Linda and Uncle Dan in Ohio so we could all go out to dinner. This involved a four hour road trip, during which I didn't sleep and instead talked to my mom. Followed by no nap time before dinner because I was so excited to see everybody. At dinner, again, tired and jet-lagged. I accidentally got up and left my purse on the back of the chair. And when I returned, it wasn't there. Now, by the way, this is not at a divey restaurant. It's at a Bravo Italiano Cucina. It's like an upper-middle class chain Italian place where one would expect one's server to put ones purse in lost and found if it was discovered hanging on the back of the chair unattended for any period of time. I'm just saying. I'm also saying, since I canceled the cards immediately and filled out all the necessary paper work to avoid identity theft on my id, what the thief actually netted was:

- $18 in cash
- One BEAUTIFUL tube of Coco by Courtney Cox lipstick
- One cool looking Puma purse

I hope it was a girl thief.

Anyway, the point of the story is this. Also in my purse at that time, since I was traveling just before going to dinner, were all of the following:

- My Amex
- My ATM card
- My passport
- My driver's license
- My social security card

I'm sure, if you are American, you see the conundrum here. You need a social security card to replace almost any form of photo id. However, you need photo id to replace your social security card. Ta da! Welcome to the next two weeks of my life. And here are three reasons not to lose your purse with ALL of your ID in it, and one reason that you should.

1. Reason #1: You may end up having to obtain a copy of your birth certificate.
Oh, it's possible, I'm sure, that some of you are organized enough that you have a copy of your birth certificate with your "important papers" for events just like this. Not so if you are me, and you have lost no less than three copies of your birth certificate during your adult life. You can order a copy of your birth certificate online. Here's the catch. You can ONLY order it using a credit card registered to YOUR name. You may note above that both of my credit cards were in my stolen purse. Now, I did happen to dig up a Party Planning Girlz credit card with my name on it. However, they will then only mail it to the billing address of that credit card. Which is not my address. It's ToniK's. And so I have to have the birth certificate FedExed to Toni's house. Except that Toni just bought a new house and hasn't changed the card over yet, so it gets FedExed to a house she doesn't even live in anymore and she has to drive out to pick up the slip. And then I have to take the slip to the UPS pick up where -- I know you see this coming -- I need photo ID in order to retrieve the document that I need in order to replace my photo ID. I will tell you that if the UPS counter worker were not a man and I were not a girl adept at looking lost, this story would come to a screeching halt right here, but fortunately I walk out with my birth certificate.

Reason #2: You're going to have to go so the Social Security Administration
Not once, mind you, but you're going to have to go in there twice. You're going to have to go in to get a piece of paper that is NOT your social security card but operates EXACTLY like a social security card, and then you will have to take that piece of paper to the DMV to get a new photo ID, and then you will have to come back to the Social Security Administration in order to actually ask for your replacement social security card. And in this entire process, mind you, the birth certificate that you had to struggle to get will be looked at, barely, exactly twice.

But really, let's talk about all of the beliefs that you will have to question as you spend near seven hours in the Social Security Administration.

You will need to question your belief in your federal government's ability to budget, if ever you had a faith in your federal government's ability to budget. We are a government who, apparently, can find money to fund the most elaborate warfare machines ever. We are not, however, a federal government who can find it in the budget to provide the Social Security Administration, a place where you must fill out paperwork by default if you enter the door, a supply of ballpoint pens. I've bought ballpoint pens for swag before. They cost about 14 cents. On a government contract, probably less. Come on now. If the post office is smart enough to figure out that if you tie them to the desk, not as many get stolen, isn't the Social Security Administration?

You will need to question your belief in selective breeding, that is if your belief was not in selective breeding or licenses to reproduce or forced sterilization. If you thought that all of that was a good idea to begin with, then you will only have those thoughts confirmed. Now, when first I said that, Franki told me to stop being a jerk and that not everybody was as fortunate as I am. But it's not about that. If you cannot afford to have children, then you shouldn't keep having them. If having five children means that none of them get to shower and wear shoes, you should go to the free clinic. If you are such a bad parent that you will feed a three year old a SUPER SIZED portion of Coke and then glare at anybody who finds the child's sugar intoxicated shoeless running through the Social Security Administration distasteful rather than cute, you should not be allowed to, at a minimum, select the food for your own children. If you are going to reprimand your child BECAUSE they spoke English, then that's a problem, because that's the language we use in schools in America. And if you're going to call me a skinny, white bitch in Spanish because I got up and moved away from your smelly, shoeless, sugar-intoxicated child because he was grabbing at my phone and you refused to even tell him not to and then assume that I don't speak enough Spanish to know what you mean, then you need to wonder where your kid is learning his manners from. And probably take a parenting class. And put down your own super sized Coke and get a bottle of water. That's all. And that comment about the use of Spanish does not limit this attitude to anybody of any particular race, because I've had that same reaction to white folk sitting around my mom's dining room table at various holidays.

You will question your belief that there is a God. You will. This will happen around hour five when your phone battery is starting to die and the man sitting next to you cannot healthily fit into one seat and is uncomfortably mushed up against your bare thigh (though in future visits you will know that you want to be fully covered in all possible capacities to visit the Social Security Administration) and they are on number 284 and you are number 336 even though you got there at 8:30am and there are THREE people working behind the TWENTY possible counters and you think that this must be a cruel joke or one of those MTV reality shows where they try to make you crazy and time how long it takes you to break down, except that FIVE HOURS of watching somebody slowly fall apart in the Social Security Administration isn't compelling TV. And finally, you will get to the window, where your transaction will take five minutes and you will leave knowing that you're going to have to come back and do ALL OF THIS over again the next day after you get your photo ID.

Reason #3: If you have to replace your license in a hurry, you may not look like you were hoping to look in it.
The first thing that I did when I became unemployed was dye my hair pink because there are very, very few times in your adult life when you can get away with having pink hair. It's since faded to a strange combination of orange, brown and blonde, but at this time, it was at the height of pink. And so, for the next five years until my driver's license expires, I'll have pink hair every time I get ID'd.

And let's not even get into my passport.

But you know what? Here's a reason, and a good one, to actually lose all of your ID.

Reason #1: You will blow through airport security lines in record time.
I'm not joking, and I didn't even have my birth certificate. I had NOTHING. No proof of anything except my word that I was who I said I was. I repeat, NOTHING. I called the airline, who said, "Oh, that's no problem. Just so up a little early for some extra security."

Wanna know what extra security is? It's not opening and checking my bags! They went right through like nothing was amiss. It's taking me DIRECTLY to the front of the security line, where some guy tells me I have on a cool t-shirt and then proceeds to call some federal database and ask me the three following questions: What city was I born in? What's my social security number? What type of vehicle is registered to me.

WANNA KNOW THREE PIECES OF INFORMATION I COULD FIND IN TWO SECONDS IF I HAD STOLEN SOMEBODY'S IDENTITY?

Exactly. Perhaps my concerns should extend beyond no ball point pens at the Social Security Administration.

Everything is replaced. The world returns to normal. But my belief system? In question.