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So, what do you even say to a year that pretty much everyone maligned? It started out all glossy and hopeful and we were going to save the world, sort of. But we're right back in the dystopian future we started out in, only now we're even more aware of it. Funtimes, eh?
But despite the global bitterness, I owe 2009 at least some small bit of respect. Compared to the last two years, it was actually leaps and bounds better. I can say without reservation that it is firmly in the middle ground between "awful" and "actually pretty okay" (obviously I am using my sarcastic voice here but I still mean it). I imagine a good bit of this optimism about 2009 is just because I grew up a bit this year and learned to accept that some things are just going to suck until proper opportunities present themselves (ie: everything in this tag). So I backed off on my teeth-bared, full-speed-ahead, desperate efforts to find another job and found other things to do. I wasn't always successful with my attempts, but I'm at least not sitting down at the computer crying and writing entries about how I'm a failure (I found some of those. Old entries that are that embarrassing should be a minimum of three years old, not from just a bit over a year ago).
So, in a short-standing tradition...
Most WTF Work Moment Discovering that my bosses weren't being ironic about not making any money in 2008. Someone in our office actually didn't bill something not unlike half a million dollars worth of work.
Runner-up: "We do not have the septic tank secured anymore! The borrower moved with money we loaned him! DO NOT SET THE SALE!!!"
Best Phonecall from a Defendant in a Mortgage Foreclosure Case An old woman from Georgia, whose ex-husband had died. She was served in the case because you have to serve spouses, especially ones that might have some kind of "interest in the property" (which basically means they might want to keep it/collect on some kind of debt they're owed through it. Though collecting that debt also requires paying the mortgage off in most cases). I explained this to her, she let out a sigh of relief that she wasn't going to be sued, and then launched off into a rant about how her husband owed her thousands of dollars already and how "He's haunting me now, even, from beyond the grave!"
Fakest Foreclosure Moratorium Every moratorium Citi has ever instituted. All three of them this year. Bollocks. This may be eclipse, though, by Citi's apparent non-observation or cluelessness about the Illinois-wide moratorium and changing-of-rules last April, if they did what I think they did (expect a caps-lock post and me flouncing out of my office if that's the case).
Reason Number 180,000 that I Hate The CTA Sometimes Finding out that it is indeed faster to walk the half-mile up to my old bus stop than it is to wait for the freaking 55 (which is supposed to run every 7 minutes in the morning), which stops basically 100 feet outside my door. (I actually checked Google's walking directions to confirm the distance, and afterwards asked it for walking directions to my house in Ohio. It'd apparently take me 5 days and 7 hours to walk home from here.)
Most Amazing CTA Factoid for the Year I have no super-creepy CTA stories to tell this year!
Best Music Festival of 2009 I'm cheating. This is a tie no matter what. Pitchfork took care of many of the bands I'd already heard of that I wanted to see (and some I didn't know I needed to see), and Hillside introduced me to a lot of bands I never would've heard of otherwise and improved my love of several others.
Best Violin Performance in the Pouring Rain With High Risk of Electrocution This, hands down. If someone somehow tops it, I want to be there.
Best Non-Festival Concert I shouldn't even bother with this (at least I'm saving albums and songs for another post). I should mention the Andrew Bird concert first, since in a near-criminal oversight I forgot to write an entry about it. It was at the Fourth Presbyterian Church, which, for those of you not here, is on Michigan Avenue right across from the Hancock building and is beautiful. One of the things I admire most about Andrew Bird is that he's there to make pretty sounds, not please people who are there only to hear things they've heard Pitchfork or NPR recommend or however it is that people hear of Andrew Bird. He played an almost entirely instrumental show and did I mention it was beautiful? The simple fact that this isn't necessarily my top concert for the year should give you an idea of what awesome shows there were this year. I saw Sufjan Stevens (amazing and, possibly, per![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
euthymic's theory, actually an angel)! I saw John Darnielle (and he gave me a hug)! I saw Sunset Rubdown (and they MADE HIPSTERS DANCE)!
Most Embarrassing Moment No One Else Witnessed so I Went and Told Everyone On the Internets Freaking cockroach in my bathtub, guys
Grossest Thing I Found in the Kitchen Five Minutes Ago Ancient spilled milk congealed onto things in a drawer I never use. I didn't think my counter leaked. Apparently it does.
Worst Compound Rejection Getting rejected by Amity and then trying to catch a NYC publishing company on the rebound, only to be rejected from that as well. Eight months later, after I'd forgotten I'd even applied there. That's like... you're dating someone and one of you moves away and you just don't talk anymore and then months later they call up just to dump you.
Brief Statistics:
Kitchen appliances purchased: 3
Confessions of Love: 0
Pairs of Converses worn out: 1
Proper winter foot attire worn: 0
Books I was on the cover of: 1
Times iTunes has misplaced my entire music library: 2
Buses I have missed: Countless
Job interviews: 1
Job applications: Countless
New Instruments learned: 1
Instruments I am any good at (total): 0.5 (I haven't played my flute in years, I don't think I'd be too good at it anymore, but I used to be so I'm giving it .5 of a good)
Times I have accidentally told a new hire that the file room is very flammable: 1
Number of holiday e-mails from my boss that people thought I faked by hacking his e-mail: 1
Number of holiday e-mails from my boss that I did not fake: 1 (it's still up in the air as to whether it was ghostwritten. It was a highly suspicious e-mail, in that it was full of praise and the offer of free dinner.)
Number of expensive dinners that were actually delicious: 1 (This is about my yearly average. The number of expensive dinners was probably around 3. Darn you, pretentious Chicago restaurants. Or my unrefined tastebuds. Whichever.)
Number of restaurants at which I had to resort to the vegan option because everything else was way too expensive and even the vegan stuff was kind of insane: 1 (At least it was good vegan food. Just not... great.)
Number of hours it has taken me to compose this entry: (At the moment) 2 hours, counting the time I've been cleaning my kitchen and making food.
Number of mushroom tartlettes I will have by midnight: 24
But despite the global bitterness, I owe 2009 at least some small bit of respect. Compared to the last two years, it was actually leaps and bounds better. I can say without reservation that it is firmly in the middle ground between "awful" and "actually pretty okay" (obviously I am using my sarcastic voice here but I still mean it). I imagine a good bit of this optimism about 2009 is just because I grew up a bit this year and learned to accept that some things are just going to suck until proper opportunities present themselves (ie: everything in this tag). So I backed off on my teeth-bared, full-speed-ahead, desperate efforts to find another job and found other things to do. I wasn't always successful with my attempts, but I'm at least not sitting down at the computer crying and writing entries about how I'm a failure (I found some of those. Old entries that are that embarrassing should be a minimum of three years old, not from just a bit over a year ago).
So, in a short-standing tradition...
Most WTF Work Moment Discovering that my bosses weren't being ironic about not making any money in 2008. Someone in our office actually didn't bill something not unlike half a million dollars worth of work.
Runner-up: "We do not have the septic tank secured anymore! The borrower moved with money we loaned him! DO NOT SET THE SALE!!!"
Best Phonecall from a Defendant in a Mortgage Foreclosure Case An old woman from Georgia, whose ex-husband had died. She was served in the case because you have to serve spouses, especially ones that might have some kind of "interest in the property" (which basically means they might want to keep it/collect on some kind of debt they're owed through it. Though collecting that debt also requires paying the mortgage off in most cases). I explained this to her, she let out a sigh of relief that she wasn't going to be sued, and then launched off into a rant about how her husband owed her thousands of dollars already and how "He's haunting me now, even, from beyond the grave!"
Fakest Foreclosure Moratorium Every moratorium Citi has ever instituted. All three of them this year. Bollocks. This may be eclipse, though, by Citi's apparent non-observation or cluelessness about the Illinois-wide moratorium and changing-of-rules last April, if they did what I think they did (expect a caps-lock post and me flouncing out of my office if that's the case).
Reason Number 180,000 that I Hate The CTA Sometimes Finding out that it is indeed faster to walk the half-mile up to my old bus stop than it is to wait for the freaking 55 (which is supposed to run every 7 minutes in the morning), which stops basically 100 feet outside my door. (I actually checked Google's walking directions to confirm the distance, and afterwards asked it for walking directions to my house in Ohio. It'd apparently take me 5 days and 7 hours to walk home from here.)
Most Amazing CTA Factoid for the Year I have no super-creepy CTA stories to tell this year!
Best Music Festival of 2009 I'm cheating. This is a tie no matter what. Pitchfork took care of many of the bands I'd already heard of that I wanted to see (and some I didn't know I needed to see), and Hillside introduced me to a lot of bands I never would've heard of otherwise and improved my love of several others.
Best Violin Performance in the Pouring Rain With High Risk of Electrocution This, hands down. If someone somehow tops it, I want to be there.
Best Non-Festival Concert I shouldn't even bother with this (at least I'm saving albums and songs for another post). I should mention the Andrew Bird concert first, since in a near-criminal oversight I forgot to write an entry about it. It was at the Fourth Presbyterian Church, which, for those of you not here, is on Michigan Avenue right across from the Hancock building and is beautiful. One of the things I admire most about Andrew Bird is that he's there to make pretty sounds, not please people who are there only to hear things they've heard Pitchfork or NPR recommend or however it is that people hear of Andrew Bird. He played an almost entirely instrumental show and did I mention it was beautiful? The simple fact that this isn't necessarily my top concert for the year should give you an idea of what awesome shows there were this year. I saw Sufjan Stevens (amazing and, possibly, per
euthymic's theory, actually an angel)! I saw John Darnielle (and he gave me a hug)! I saw Sunset Rubdown (and they MADE HIPSTERS DANCE)! Most Embarrassing Moment No One Else Witnessed so I Went and Told Everyone On the Internets Freaking cockroach in my bathtub, guys
Grossest Thing I Found in the Kitchen Five Minutes Ago Ancient spilled milk congealed onto things in a drawer I never use. I didn't think my counter leaked. Apparently it does.
Worst Compound Rejection Getting rejected by Amity and then trying to catch a NYC publishing company on the rebound, only to be rejected from that as well. Eight months later, after I'd forgotten I'd even applied there. That's like... you're dating someone and one of you moves away and you just don't talk anymore and then months later they call up just to dump you.
Brief Statistics:
Kitchen appliances purchased: 3
Confessions of Love: 0
Pairs of Converses worn out: 1
Proper winter foot attire worn: 0
Books I was on the cover of: 1
Times iTunes has misplaced my entire music library: 2
Buses I have missed: Countless
Job interviews: 1
Job applications: Countless
New Instruments learned: 1
Instruments I am any good at (total): 0.5 (I haven't played my flute in years, I don't think I'd be too good at it anymore, but I used to be so I'm giving it .5 of a good)
Times I have accidentally told a new hire that the file room is very flammable: 1
Number of holiday e-mails from my boss that people thought I faked by hacking his e-mail: 1
Number of holiday e-mails from my boss that I did not fake: 1 (it's still up in the air as to whether it was ghostwritten. It was a highly suspicious e-mail, in that it was full of praise and the offer of free dinner.)
Number of expensive dinners that were actually delicious: 1 (This is about my yearly average. The number of expensive dinners was probably around 3. Darn you, pretentious Chicago restaurants. Or my unrefined tastebuds. Whichever.)
Number of restaurants at which I had to resort to the vegan option because everything else was way too expensive and even the vegan stuff was kind of insane: 1 (At least it was good vegan food. Just not... great.)
Number of hours it has taken me to compose this entry: (At the moment) 2 hours, counting the time I've been cleaning my kitchen and making food.
Number of mushroom tartlettes I will have by midnight: 24
