January: Unapologetically Fierce

-Nothing like a 7-year-old’s birthday party at a sports bar!
-Missed New Year’s Eve skiing but I’ll get up there some evening.
-Liberty’s restaurant says anyone under 16 must be accompanied by an adult.
-FFFFUUUUUUUUUUU-
-Uh oh! Big snowfall at afternoon rush hour on untreated roads!
-Three hours to go ten miles.
-Come on, car! Don’t get stuck. Doing great…
-Okay, now it’s stuck… just outside my house. Okay, COULD be a lot worse!
-Dinner invite! How nice!

February: A Reclaimed Minuet

-Superbowl Sunday! To Brookside. To climbing gym. To get fried chicken. To bake cookies. And, well, watch the game!
-Hey, lots of free sheet music for classical music online. Public domain!
-Uh oh! Lots of changes and of course fighting over NYRA’s website redesign.
-Yay! #16tovote on the 16th is a year old!
-Helping out in NYRA office on weirdly warm day. And burrito with Dave from weird burrito truck guy.
-WES Auction! I won a big urn!

March: Armtrout Hastings

-Think I’ll play keyboard each day for Lent.
-Gaaahhh!!! Ants!
-Ack! These ants won’t go away!
-WTF?! Now Giant has an ageist policy? Fucking hell.
-Maybe I’ll go to Harris Teeter.
-Holy fucking shit, is that FIVE ALIVE?!
-Oh, good, Giant rescinded their policy.
-Yay! Strategic planning weekend for NYRA! It’s like a miniature annual meeting!
-I bring donuts on Saturday and bagels on Sunday.
-Got to FEED EVERYBODY!!!

April: Concrete Slip-n-Slide

-Hmm, nothing going on for National Youth Rights Day
-Oh, I know! A hashtag! #isupportyouthrights
-Hey, it’s going well.
-Oh no! I didn’t mean to insult Dave’s happy hour last year.
-I think I can walk across the little concrete stream leading into the fake lake
-Ahhh! I slipped and fell and can’t get out! I’m going to be swept all the way down into some logs!
-Okay, finally hoisted myself out. But my phone is all scratched and messed up!
-Phone is fine and working again the next day. Wow!
-Hmm. Wuthering Heights doesn’t thrill me.
-Damn Easter is late this year!
-Brookside on Easter Sunday! Yay!
-Okay, I’m watching the stupid royal wedding.
-Gahh! Two gross spiders in my room!

May: Yellow Swirly Thing

-Ha! Bin Laden is dead! The towers are avenged!
-Think I’ll have a birthday dinner. Invite some people.
-Hmm, only person available to come to my dinner is Kathleen O’Neal. Alright.
-Hey, a fun evening!
-Now to Adams Morgan.
-WTF? Alex broke up with his girlfriend, and Hal and Kathleen broke up, all within a week?!
-Think I’ll take a little day trip to Ocean City.
-Ah, the alma mater!
-Holy shit, new buildings!
-Ah, beach.
-Gah! Pulled over for speeding! Let off with warning.
-DC101 Chili Cookoff… Weezer! And, at long last… Keep Fishin’!!!
-To NYC with Kathleen!
-Gah, I have a cold!
-And just got pulled over for the second time within a week, in DC. Damn you, unmarked one-way streets!
-At long last, Ferrara cookies!!!
-Ooooh, the Met! Could enjoy it more without this damn cold!
-OMG FAO Schwarz!
-I played Ode to Joy on The Big Piano!!!!
-To NYRA office for Annual Meeting planning!

June: Test Reset

-Hmmm, weird NYRA stuff. Weird demands from Dave, so say Hal and Usi.
-That’s weird, my bathroom outlet stopped working.
-So it goes. So it goes. So it goes. Shut the fuck up, Vonnegut!
-Four and a half hour board meeting?! Hal, these minutes will be written with your BLOOD!
-Oh no! I lost all my old NYRA e-mails!
-Wait, no, I didn’t! I hacked back into the old server and retrieved them. Woo!
-I think I’ll try going into the office for #16tovote on the 16th.
-Alright, I couldn’t concentrate on event and help out in office at same time. Bad idea!
-Oh, outlet wasn’t working because test-reset button in garage was flipped somehow. Hm.
-We won Brown v EMA!!!!

July: The Immoral Cheeseburger

-Did Max really send that stupid e-mail to that woman? And now the board is all freaked out over it? Oh, Lord.
-Cab driver: “It’s not an Ethiopian restaurant. It’s Eritrean. They’re different countries, like Maryland and Virginia.”
-Patriotic ’splosions!
-Run! Run away from dark severe thunderstorm clouds!
-OMG WTF!!! Montgomery County is considering a curfew?! Kiss my ass, Leggett!
-I has a Nook!
-Let’s petition against curfew outside Harry Potter opening!
-Hey, WAMU guy talked to me!
-Oh. My quote never made it into his piece. :\
-Dude, I appreciate your enthusiasm for #16tovote on the 16th, but would you quit hijacking it and filling the feed with your bullshit?
-Oh, dear! When it’s suggested we change an old resolution so we’re not restricted to working with teens and twenty-somethings only, Alex doesn’t like the idea at all and says some things.
-No, Alex is not an ageist. Yes, yes, I saw what he said. But there’s no reason for harshness.
-Truffles: “Will you be my new daddy?”
-Curfew hearing!
-Chief Manger: “We need curfews as another tool against crime.”
-Councilman Andrews: “STFU.”
-I require boxes!
-Stuck in traffic… WTF? Silver Spring metro has parking meters? Who the hell carries change anymore?
-Finally! Got to the NYRA office… only for us to turn right around and go back to Silver Spring. Heh.
-Yay! Petitioning against curfew night before Annual Meeting!
-Eep! Some rabidly anti-youth woman yells at us for daring to think young people should have any dignity.
-Whoa! Annual meeting has breakout sessions. Breakout sessions! Moving up in the world.
-Ugh, someone shoot Hamrick.
-Red dot!
-Bowling!
-Sobriety checkpoint?!
-The legendary Dr. Epstein vs the incomparable Usi! Awesome!
-Hey, Usi and Kathleen seem to be getting along! That’s nice.

August: Mudkipz and Resignations

-Jason Spriggs accomplished what highly paid web designers can’t and finished off the website!
-Wow! Half the board seems to want Usi as president instead of Jeff. Really want it.
-Wolf Trap! Berlin and INXS! Good show.
-New site is almost up…
-Holy fucking dicks in hell, is THAT our new forum?! Ewwwww!!!!
-No, seriously, rest of the site looks wonderful, but I hope you don’t actually think you’re replacing our nice forum with this crap.
-Okay, you do actually think so. No! Bad idea! Bad idea!
-Oh, lovely, more “Usi said this, Usi said that” about the website.
-Though Usi is telling me something differently.
-Alex and Usi are telling me different stories!
-New site launched!
-And, as warned, the forums regulars are pitching a fit.
-Alex just wants a thanks and some praise, though.
-He doesn’t seem to be getting it.
-WTF? Is Barnes and Noble actually asking people what’s the most obnoxious thing they’ve heard a teenager say? Flood their wall!
-Dave’s having a little Nexus event. Foot behind head! My development director can do a neat trick!
-More criticism about website aimed at Alex.
-And Alex announces NYRA has a wonderful bright future!
-And that he’s stepping down as executive director.
-No. He can’t. He just… can’t.
-Great, now someone is wheeling something heavy down the hallway…
-Something REALLY heavy. Wait a minute…
-EARTHQUAKE!!!!
-Oh, and now we have to hire a new ED.
-And Kathleen seems, um, very interested in the process.
-Whoa! Did Hal just broadcast a private conversation with Samantha and call her a nutjob? Come on, Hal. You used to be cool. That’s not cool.
-Jeff: “I can’t do a board meeting next week. I have orientation activities every evening.”
-Samantha: “According to the UPenn website, there aren’t.”
-Jeff: “…”
-Oh, look, first an earthquake and now Hurricane Irene is coming!
-Wow, power was only out for three hours! Never thought I’d say this, but good job, Pepco!
-Next person who remarks that “frogs and locusts” are next is getting stabbed in the face.

September: Deadly Mechanical Zebras

-Kathleen has to live with me for four days until her new apartment opens up.
-Oh, fucking hell, why did I agree to keep Kathleen here?!
-I have to teach my house guest to sleep through the night. It’s 4am. I have work in the morning. She wants to go to 7-11!
-Now I can’t get her to wake up to go to class. At 8pm.
-Is it Friday yet?
-Thank God!
-Cousin’s wedding. Then to Middle Eastern Bazaar on same day. Both sides of the family!
-Uh oh. Dave and Kathleen are arguing a lot about the ED hiring process.
-And arguing and arguing. Frustrated. Miserable.
-Hey! Maybe they reached a compromise!
-Nope. Fell flat. Now there’s an anti-Dave resolution proposed. Fucking hell.
-Jeff for President! Usi for President! Jeff for President! Usi for President!
-I don’t know…
-Time for board meeting. I don’t know…
-Jeff: “Sorry to bring this up now, but it’s important…”
-Dave: “Funder was unhappy about Kathleen’s recent blog post. She needs to be removed from the board. So does Samantha for some reason.”
-Wait, WHAT?!
-Hell NO we aren’t removing a board member over a blog post!
-What do you mean Special Election?!
-WTF, Jeff? You were in on this little surprise beforehand and think it’s acceptable?!
-Usi it is!
-Oh, closed session went waaaay too long. My bad.
-Wow, Alex and Dave are totally trashing Usi for some reason. And it’s vague bullshit. WTF why?!
-Well, Jeff, I nominate you VP at least.
-Lovely. Dave, Alex, and Jeff are spreading it around that Kathleen is about to cost us $100,000 and now a lot of our org hates her without having met her.
-So I’ll tell them my own account of Kathleen to maybe save some face.
-Nope. Now I’m a traitor to the org because I’m daring to defend her. Fucking hell.
-Interesting. It seems the grant was on the line not because of the blog post, though was part of it, but because they learned there were internal issues over the ED search.
-Meanwhile, Alex has his last day and departs, barely even noticed anymore.
-Special meeting. Maybe a compromise? Maybe peace?
-Yay! Peace!
-Which was lost immediately after.
-Oh, dear, Usi and Dave yell at each other on the phone a lot.
-Keith will be our liaison! Yay Keith!

October: Tiny Bubbles

-Whoa! Why is the site down?!
-Taste of Bethesda! Cold and rainy. But tasty!
-Cafe Green with Usi, Samantha, Kathleen, and Alexander Cohen!
-And… Dave has resigned.
-Oh no! What the hell do we do now?
-Hey, Kathleen, it’d be a lot easier to defend you if you wouldn’t keep screaming at me over the phone every time I decline to take some sort of petty revenge on the people who were against you in this.
-And with Dave gone, so is the $100,000 grant. Sigh.
-Why is Kathleen happy about this?
-Much less her fault than first stated, but at least show some regret we lost it and some understanding of how hard this sort of thing has been for us.
-Alex: “Ugh. Looks like I’ll have to come back.”
-Usi and Kathleen: “No! Alex can’t come back after what he did!”
-I can’t deal with this right now. Phone off. Got a murder mystery dinner to go to!
-Kathleen: “Don’t let Alex come back! If you vote for him to come back, you’ll betray me and Usi.”
-Me: “NYRA isn’t about you and Usi.”
-Kathleen: “Well, fuck you, bitch! You’re dead to me!”
-Me: “Bye.”
-Hmmm. Unusually high turnout for a special board meeting. Where are these people when we’re having regular chats? Or ever?
-Sure are a lot of NYRA members who only come out of the woodwork when there’s drama and an excuse to hate people. That’s discouraging. Thought better of them than that.
-Another long meeting of nothing but people shouting at each other.
-Alex is voted back in 7-2 after lots of amending a compromise agreement.
-And now an unhappy returned executive director and no more word really from anyone. Just a wounded organization, fallen from grace.
-And weeks later another board meeting, going okay at first… until petty fights over procedure and special election specifics. Oy.
-Come on, guys, enough of this crap! Let’s just move past this internal stuff.
-No reply.
-I wanna be a devil!
-WTF? Is it snowing? In October?

November: Heartburn

-No, councilman, I don’t want a curfew in my county.
-That’s it, board. Sick of your shit. No more nice secretary.
-If I don’t start seeing you guys doing anything, I’m leaving that special election bylaw amendment out of the minutes.
-Oh. Seems everyone is just still hurt and discouraged over all that happened.
-Yay! Bill has come to help out and be our new campaign director!
-Another WES Auction: I won a scooter!
-Cafe Green with Alex, Bill, and Eric. I think that’s where I cheat on half the board.
-Ouch! My chest hurts.
-Samantha invited Jeff, Keith, Alex, and me into a small meeting to flesh out any remaining uncertainties. Actually went well!
-Chest still hurts. Is this serious?
-WTF is this?! Better get to doctor.
-Okay, doctor says everything is fine and it’s probably just heartburn. So she gives me Prevacid.
-It might be helping? Maybe?
-Mmmm, new spices!
-Holiday cards are here!
-Wait. Crap. Chest pain flaring up again. Been a week and a half! Heartburn, my ass!
-Back to doctor… given more antacids. *headdesk*

December: LOL U MAD?

-And the holiday cards are off!
-This refusal to allow non-prescription Plan B for underage girls is major youth rights violation!
-Don’t care if it’s an “allowed” issue for NYRA. I’m retweeting stuff about it from our account.
-Oh, wait. It’s okay. Alex and Bill posted about it to our Facebook. Cool.
-WES Winter Festival and Cookie Walk!
-Holiday cards are all sent! Now for some pizza.
-LOL corporal punishment arguments in comment thread on NYRA’s Facebook page.
-Ack! Office holiday lunch is on the 16th! Interrupts my voting age tweeting.
-Boss: “My son is 17 so he’s brain-dead.”
-Me: “You shouldn’t stereotype. It’s not nice.”
-Ugh. What Christmas presents can I get for family? They don’t need anything and this would just take up space!
-Alright, I’ll try this again. Alright, bought some stuff. Okay.
-Alright, bought them way too much stuff. Enough! LOL
-Wow. Winter Lights are amazing! Glad I finally made it this year.
-Wrapping, wrapping, wrapping.
-Do we want mezze, sushi, or shrimp for Christmas Eve?
-Can’t decide. Just get it all!
-And singing Silent Night at church at late night service, Santa hat on.
-And… Christmas Day!
-I’ll try to have a chat and tell the board about it.
-Kathleen replied with “Fuck you, you piece of trash!” LOL! Then replied to that shortly after with “Oh, that was sent in error!”
-Wii Sports!
-Just me and one coworker at work this week. Not much happening!
-BANG! Someone rear-ended me! WTF!
-Eh, just some tiny scratches and bumps, not worth worrying about.
-New Year’s Eve ski night?
-No, because the ski place doesn’t have enough snow yet.
-I’ll settle for dinner at Mamma Lucia.
-And now I’ve once again posted a Sure, Why Not? entry every day in December!

Certainly with more accomplishments and adventures and DRAMA than 2010! Tried some new things. Some successful, temporarily or no. With 2012 looming ever closer, sitting up there in Times Square, so much is to be seen. What will happen to NYRA? Will my family move away like they want to, leaving me here alone to spend the holidays alone?

I don’t know. All I know is with 2012 looming closer, with all this and other stuff, I’m on one of them theme park boat rides. Boat is going into a dark tunnel. Ahead I can hear rushing water and feel the current steadily speed up. I can’t see what’s ahead. All I know is it’s about to get rough. A big drop? Rapids? What is it? Don’t know yet. But some shit’s about to go down.

It’ll be here in just under an hour. Ready or not, here comes 2012…

My world is changing. I’m rearranging. Does that mean Christmas changes, too?
- “Where Are You, Christmas?”

The days leading up have kind of sucked. Christmas is about joy and hope. I see much ahead that is uncertain.

Today and yesterday have been okay. Even through it all…

Still with watching the Christmas Eve Christmas specials…

Baked cookies! Mmmm!

The Redskins lost… -_-

Wrapped presents.

Why did I buy my stupid family so much shit?

Mmmm, cookies.

Wrap more presents.

Mmmm, cookies.

You know what? I can finish this later.

Off to see stupid family.

They weren’t sure whether to get a platter of mezze or a big platter of sushi or a big ass bowl of shrimp. So they got all of it!

Christmas!

Brother wants me to watch YouTube videos. Mom wants me to watch British sitcoms.

Gah!

Reading “Visit from St. Nicholas” to brother before he goes to bed.

Trying to leave but Mom keeps asking pointless questions.

Yay, got to church sort of on time!

Running down aisle while they’re singing “Angels We Have Heard on High”.

Breathlessly singing “Gloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooria, in excelsis deeeeeeeo!”

Wearing Santa hat all through service. LOL U MAD?

Time for the peace. Wearing Santa hat. “Merry Christmas! Peace be with you!”

Here it is… the highlight of my Christmas time… and perhaps of my year…

Raising my lit candle, singing Silent Night!

Back home… to it being 1am and all my neighbors’ outside lights still on and shining, long after they’ve normally turned them off.

Last wrapping, more staring off into the divine night… and off to bed…

But so many questions remain. So many things are uncertain. What will things look like this time next year? How will such changes change Christmas itself for me? And the biggest question of all, what can I do about it? If anything?

Do I just wait and see? Am I sitting on the answer and just don’t notice it yet? Do I know what the answer is but have chosen not to do it?

Am I even asking any of the right questions?

But, at Christmas Eve night, trying to go to sleep, what can be done now?

Now? For now, yes, maybe just wait and see…

And in the morning, the bright sun shining… at last Christmas Day!

Let there be peace, love, joy, hope, and giving!

I got a Slinky!

I think I’ll do it again. This time with cars!

Namely, Hyundai Elantra. I have a 2007 Elantra. Last year, its alarm kept going off for no reason. Middle of the night. Neighbors surely wanted to murder me. And I didn’t know how to stop it. Searching online didn’t even help much. There was one night I was sitting up awake until really late waiting to shut it off if it went off again. I thought it stopped happening, that it was just one weird time, but my housemate told me it happened again. And again. :\

It’s a common Elantra problem actually. The alarm kept going off because there’s a sensor thingy under the hood that detects whether the hood is open, and if it thinks the hood is open when the car is locked, it sets off the alarm. When this happens, the sensor is always thinking the hood is open! I think the wind especially triggers it.

So I took it to the dealership and waited, wondering what they’d find and how much I was about to owe. Only to find they knew exactly what it was, replaced the sensor, and because my car was still under warranty, didn’t cost me a thing! Yay!

And I’m thinking about it again now because I have a neighbor who also has an Elantra and its alarm has been going off the past several nights! This neighbor probably also doesn’t know what to do, if he/she even knows about it. I’m going to go out and leave a note on the windshield telling them it’s the hood sensor and to take it to the dealership.

True, this might not quite be as helpful as the computer problem since my advice is still basically to go to the dealership and have them fix it, and could be costly if warranty is expired. Could be the neighbor knows this already but can’t afford the repair right now, and my note might come off as more obnoxious than helpful. But I guess I’ll still bet on helpful.

“Sweet days of summer, the jasmine’s in bloom. July is dressed up and playing her tune.” -Seals and Crofts, Summer Breeze

Now for the eleventh time and ten years exactly after the end of the first, here we are on this lovely…

DAY
100

The final day of this eleventh round of the 100 Days of Summer! A tradition dating back to 2001, finishing a round of each day occurring exactly ten years after the corresponding days of the original run. Began May 24 and ends today. Another summer has come by, and goodness, who’d have thought a round of the 100 Days of Summer that begins with me dancing on a giant piano could be so crazy?

Oh, yeah, I danced on a giant piano! Let’s get into the recap.

Day 1, horribly sleep deprived and feverish with an ill-timed late spring cold, I picked up Kathleen O’Neal in Georgetown and headed to Greenbelt, only to get pulled over by a DC cop for going the wrong way down a one-way street. Gah! Despite delay, got to Greenbelt and caught Bolt Bus and by noon we were in New York City! At long last, I got to Ferrara in Little Italy, where I’d wanted to go the last several times I went to the city but wasn’t able to. Then to a piercing place Kathleen wanted to see, then to the Met, then met Gella! Then to FAO Schwarz where I found the Big Piano and played Ode to Joy with my legs. Hehe. And by 7pm we just barely made the bus back to DC.

Day 2, still feverish. Sitting in a hot car fixes that right up!

Day 3, skipped work and went to NYRA office for annual meeting planning.

Day 5, laaaaate night of hanging out with Kathleen!

Day 6, still hanging out with Kathleen since previous day, saw 3am brawl in Adams Morgan, helped buy groceries at like 6am before finally getting home and sleeping! Also, poorly attended board meeting where some troublesome staffing changes were mentioned. And the summer NYRA drama begins!

Day 9, some reading at library and then some Thai food, where the restaurant’s hostess said to someone “we don’t have sushi here, this restaurant is Thai, not Chinese”. Sigh. *facepalm* And that night, by amazing coincidence, the new South Park episode involved people not being able to tell the difference between Chinese and Japanese people!

Day 12, to Baltimore for Orioles game with stupid family. Dad got mad at brother and wanted to cancel game, but brother and I walked toward stadium without parents regardless, forcing them to comply. Ha!

Day 13, gah! Fred Phelps wannabe trolls on NYRA! Banhammer! Oh and now they’re trolling me on Twitter. I can troll back!

Day 16, interesting new South Park… wait. What’s with that ending? Is the show over?!

Day 19, at library reading Slaughterhouse Five. Vonnegut, if you say “so it goes” one more goddamn time I’m going to find your grave, dig you up, and beat the shit out of your corpse! Also, bathroom electrical outlet seems to have stopped working for some reason.

Day 20, OMG WTF?! Four and a half hour long board meeting? Goddamn it, Hal, enough with the bylaw proposals. They all are terrible ideas anyway and I’m so writing these minutes in your BLOOD for this!

Day 22, think I’ll check my NYRA e-mail… what? Where’s all my messages? Were they lost in the server switch? Have I lost… all my NYRA correspondence since 2006?!

Day 23, oh, it’s okay! I managed to hack my way back into the inbox on the old server and forward everything over! I’m a genius!

Day 24, first of three runs of #16tovote on the 16th during the 100 Days of Summer! Decided to spend it skipping work and helping in NYRA office. Turned out to be lousy idea because I not only got there real late but had waaay too many things to do at once. NYRA overload!

Day 25, Thai food with Kathleen! After some road rage on Massachusetts Avenue. Oh, DC driving!

Day 27, finally a new watch strap! Having to carry about my watch since the old strap finally wasted away was annoying!

Day 31, hanging out with Kathleen again, this time at Popeye’s.

Day 34, rough morning! Then in afternoon, landlords came to fix electrical outlet though couldn’t find problem. Then found out housemates’ bathroom outlets weren’t working either, yet breaker was not tripped. Then landlord pushed a test-reset button on a garage outlet and that got it working again. Electricity is weird! And that night, saw Prop 8 documentary. With Kathleen.

Day 35, yay! We won the Brown v EMA video game Supreme Court case! Chat to celebrate!

Day 39, ah, more NYRA drama. A board candidate sent a nasty email to someone in a setting that has nothing to do with NYRA, nor was much worse than what other NYRA higher-ups have done. And this is our problem for some reason.

Day 40, Ethiopian food with Kathleen and Patrick. Or, no, that’s Eritrean food. As the cab driver pointed out, they are different countries, “like Maryland and Virginia”.

Day 42, Independence Day and watching ’splosions from nearby soccer field! And NYRA chat.

Day 49, think I’ll go to library after work, do some reading, come on back out… holy shit, dark clouds, severe thunderstorm coming!

Day 50, deep forum thoughts on Twitter, then purchased a Nook, then some pizza for the Fifty Fifty! Then Kathleen calls saying she wants to hang out. Then… learn Montgomery County, where I’ve lived my whole life, is proposing a fucking curfew! You’ve got to be shitting me!

Day 52, petitioning in Silver Spring with Alex and some anti-curfew group to stop this thing.

Day 54, the second of three #16tovote on the 16th runs in the 100 Days of Summer. And it’s being sort of hijacked. Bleh.

Day 55, board meeting! Samantha Godwin wants to change Resolution 00-L which specifies NYRA deals only with teens and twenty-somethings, that it shouldn’t specify an age group. Whole board agrees except for Alex. Fight ensues and Alex leaves meeting. Vote is delayed to give him chance to state case. Oh, dear!

Day 57, conference call board meeting to vote on 00-L. Alex did not show so changed resolution without him. Shame. Feel like he could have gone out of his long time on the board better than that!

Day 59, four years after first reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, went to see the movie of it in the theater! Pretty good!

Day 61, supposed to meet up with Kathleen but can’t get a hold of her! Oh, well, I’ll just get something to eat by myself in Bethesda.

Day 62, ah, she slept all day by mistake. So hanging out now. I get to her place at 6pm and she’s in candy cane pajamas and hugging a stuffed sheep named Truffles. Ha. Oh, and I was named Truffles’s “lady daddy”, a proposal I initially wondered was a really weird way of Kathleen coming on to me. LOL

Day 64, Montgomery County curfew hearing! Police chief defends curfew for hilariously fallacious reasons and gets owned by councilmembers who see right through it. Alex, Abigail, and Alan give great anti-curfew testimonies. Kathleen shows up late. She and I get food and hang out for a bit again!

Day 66, ordered some stuff at work that wasn’t totally needed yet, though would be soon, so I’d get the big boxes so I could smuggle food into the Annual Meeting!

Day 67, boxes arrived, left work early, grocery shopping, shower, stuck in traffic going to Silver Spring, have to dig up change because that metro’s parking lot has meters for some reason, get to NYRA office really late! Help assemble packets, argue a bit, then back to Silver Spring for curfew petitioning! And hanging out. And fighting with some pro-curfew woman who was all offended that we were campaigning against it. And lots of NYRA people around for Annual Meeting!

Day 68, ANNUAL MEETING!!!! Had to pick up Kathleen and Neethi first, off to College Park, really late start, deciding which breakout sessions to see, Mary Beth Tinker speaking, talking social media over lunch, SSDP chapter stuff, NYRA victories, and off to bowling alley for annual report and laser pointer and election stuff and awards and, well, bowling! Then dropped Kathleen and Neethi back at her place. Then avoided that damn sobriety check point on the way home before getting gas and passing out in bed. Long day!

Day 69, ANNUAL MEETING!!!! Even later start for some reason. Picked up Kathleen and Neethi then off to College Park again. Election results! I’m in for my seventh term! Lost Jackie, though. Then Hal’s presentation on, uh, Rebecca Black. Yeah. Then Alex and I hosted a youth rights theory discussion! My seventh annual meeting and I only now finally get to do something other than bring food! Yay! Then lunch in which some odd things happened, then UTEC’s presentation, and keynote speaker Robert Epstein himself! Who said a lot of things people took issue with and he and Usi got into this whole battle. I later found out it bothered some people but I thought it was awesome. And then it was all over! I invited some people for us to hang out that night, but plans sort of fell apart. Kathleen, Usi, and I went back to Georgetown before we were to meet Hal and Eric at a diner in Silver Spring. Then things got, um, interesting. We met up with Hal very late. Yeah, things got… interesting. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

Day 74, wow! New volunteer in NYRA office is finishing off new website for us! Doing better job than the idiotic developers we’d paid a crapload of money for. Not too certain about this new forum though.

Day 77, off to Wolf Trap to see Berlin and (what’s left of) INXS. Good show! Glad I have my Nook now, which alleviates the common boredom between sets!

Day 78, forums are shut down for transfer to new one. I have a baaaad feeling about this…

Day 79, chapter chat, though Kathleen wanted to see me. Hmmm. So I left AIM open and in the chatroom while I went out. It worked! Got home to find I’d caught the whole chat and was early enough to still take part at the very end!

Day 81, almost time to launch the new site! I’m fighting with Alex over all the forum sacrifices we’ve made for the nice-but-not-vital forum-blog integration. He’s fighting with Usi over proper launch time. The NYRA drama this summer is endless! And far from over…

Day 82, and we’re launched at 8pm EDT! New NYRA website is live! Yay! Oh, and Kathleen needs to stay with me beginning of September and is informing me of this because of some housing issues. So must get the okay from housemates.

Day 83, yup, as predicted, everyone hates the new forum. Buggy and in general major step down from what we had before. WTF?

Day 85, the 100 Days of Summer’s third and last #16tovote on the 16th! Went really well, delving more into youth rights theory behind the desire for a lower voting age. Probably because of all the youth rights philosophy I’d been recently reading and discussing.

Day 86, youth rights theory is very important for NYRA. Can’t have victories without theory, and theory without victories is just, well, theoretical.

Day 87, after trolling Barnes and Noble’s Facebook with complaints for their question of “what’s the most obnoxious thing a teen has said to you?” question, went to DC for some event Dave Moss was holding. Foot behind head and singing “Swinging on a Star”! Hmm. Alex wasn’t there. He had been expected. What’s going on?

Day 90, hmm, can’t get to my site or email for some reason.

Day 91, Alex… is… leaving us…

Day 92, no, why?! He can’t! He just can’t!… Also, EARTHQUAKE!

Day 93, he is, he’s so tired from doing this for so long, NYRA is doing well enough he feels it’s time, and hopefully all the nasty infighting of late won’t ruin that.

Day 94, car maintenance. Oh, and Hurricane Irene is heading this way and looking to fuck shit up, just days after an uncharacteristic east coast earthquake!

Day 96, Hurricane Irene! Up early to feed parents’ cat and put backyard stuff inside because they didn’t bother to do so before they left. And back home to watch the storm! Lost power at 11pm. Ick. Probably another long outage!

Day 97, oh, wait, it’s back on at 2am, even while the wind is still going at full force outside! For Pepco, pretty good! Hehe, look at all the leaves and sticks everywhere outside!

Day 98, have to figure out hiring new NYRA ED. Who could possibly replace Alex?!

Day 99, catered food at work to scavenge after company board meeting. Mmmm!

And finally…

Day 100, pretty ordinary day at work, followed by a yummy sushi dinner. I go there now and then for their dollar sushi happy hour and always take a box home yet this time, while still letting me do it, seemed to not like it. Hmm. Now watching South Park!

As these 100 Days of Summer draw to a close, I notice things have in general picked up pace, especially with NYRA, but where it all is headed is unknown, not a trace of a clue. What will become of NYRA, with the board at each others’ throats, with the young man on whose shoulders the whole operation has rested at long last taking his leave from it? Will the whole thing fall apart? Or will it soar to heights never before imagined? Maybe something is to be learned by the recent earthquake and hurricane. We don’t get earthquakes here, and suddenly we get one, and it was of course unexpected, but really everything was fine. Then came the hurricane, for which we all prepared and braced ourselves, and she came raging through, and while many places did get destroyed and there were deaths, for others, it was a long lasting windy rainstorm with a not very terrible power outage, though that again varies by location and just plain luck. So maybe what seems greatly altering and inconveniencing and perhaps scary and damaging is really just a storm to weather, a ground shaking through which to keep your balance until it stops. And, as I’ve repeatedly come to realize throughout life, the main question you must answer, regardless of fear or heartache or disappointment, is… what do we do now?

So while pondering this, we say farewell to this eleventh round of the 100 Days of Summer! Until May 24, 2012, beginning of Round 12, in whatever shape the world will be in then!

This has been Day 100 of the 100 Days of Summer, Round 11.

January: Check Engine

-I think I’ll make guacamole
-Wow, this guacamole is fucking gross. Ack! Is this earwax?!
-Oh, I got the wrong kind of avocados. Okay.
-Hey, think I’ll check out that “Purity Myth” book… good shit.
-I need to get NYRA’s blog restarted.
-Ugh, NYRA online community is pissing me off, seriously.
-I’ll try this guacamole again, with the right avocados this time…
-Yummy!
-WTF?! Why is my check engine light on?
-Oh, I left the gas cap loose. Lulz
-I think I’ve got an idea for a hashtag Twitter campaign for NYRA.
-Still awkward and uncomfortable, Alex? Well, fuck you too then!

Feburary: Whatever

-Wow, we have a lot of snow coming!
-Fuuuuuck, it knocked out our electricity!
-Now we’re freezing.
-I hope it comes back on soon so I don’t miss the Superbowl!
-Came back on Sunday morning after 30 hours. Yay!
-Good thing Giant is within walking distance so I could get some game food!
-Except the blizzard killed one of my fish. Because no heat in the house meant the tank got too cold. Fail.
-Ha! Saints win it!
-Another blizzard only three days later!
-Please, electricity, stay on!
-Oh, good, it did.
-Alright, NYRAnians, I has an idea. On the 16th, let’s tweet a lot about the voting age with the hashtag #16tovote. We’ll do it every month…
-Oh, wow, this #16tovote on the 16th thing has really taken off!
-You know what? Fuck the forums. I’m shutting them down.
-Forums users: Noooooo!
-Relax. Not gonna. Just want to see some changes.
-Yay, Winter Olympics!
-For Lent this year, I think I’ll… read!
-Oh, my Facebook postings offend you? Oh em gee. Oh, look, I don’t care.

March: Pelicans

-Ugh, an ageist ad. Alright, who’s the culprit?
-Hyundai?! FUUUUUUUU
-I feel like learning Spanish.
-Second #16tovote on the 16th… holy shit, lots of participation!
-Gah, NYRA board having a hell of a time getting meeting scheduled!
-Yay, invited to friend’s birthday party!

April: The Trouble with Trills

-Easter!
-Lovely Easter morning WES platform.
-Now another lovely Easter afternoon at Brookside. I think this is what heaven is like.
-And… bunny cake!
-Except now I’ve got a nasty cold. Ugh.
-Also, my stupid toe nail has been hurting and looking funny for a while…
-National Youth Rights Day!
-At a 21+ location for some reason.
-Been watching Destinos to get better at Spanish!
-This double R sound is annoying.
-Yay, Weezer concert!
-They again did not play Keep Fishin’. Gaaahhh!

May: Bury the Hatchet

-Birthday!
-Into DC late at night to pick up Lindsay to take her to Hal’s!
-Ten days later, to Hal’s to pick up Lindsay really early in morning to take her to BWI!
-Yay, DC101 chili cookoff.
-Despite Metro fail.
-Hey, I found a camera.
-Ah, here comes camera’s owner. He’s sure glad I found it for him. He gave me $20. Hehe.
-Yay, Stone Temple Pilots!
-Haha, I’m the idiot who brought an umbrella to a concert, yet I’m the only one not getting rained on.
-I need a new algae eater.
-Hey, that hatchet fish in that tank is dead.
-Time for letter writing campaigns against ageist advertising of Allstate and Hyundai!

June: Bacitracin

-Gahh, the AC is broken. And AC is in my room so have repair guys traipsing through. -_-
-Okay, my toe nail is still fucked up. I’d better get to the podiatrist.
-It’s a paronychia. A nasty one. Toe nail has to come off. FAIL!
-Well, at least I can still walk. It’s just bloody. And I need antibiotics. Ick.
-Spent weeks at work trying to order some stuff from a very unresponsive vendor.
-Wow, my anti-Father’s Day ranting sure pissed people off.
-I think I’d like my email account back. Been two years. So proposed at board meeting.
-Alex and Stefan refused.
-But rest of board said okay. Yay!
-Hey, this guy Larry has come to run NYRA-DC.
-Uh oh. Supervisor is having diabetic attack! Ambulance had to come.

July: Quality of Life

-Some idiot started a fire in the parking lot garden mulch with a cigarette! Had to put it out.
-Damn it, Toy Story 3! *cries*
-Awesome! Lots of fireworks displays visible from soccer field by my house!
-So I can’t order that stuff from work after all after weeks of delays. Grrr.
-AC is broken again! Repair guys traipsing through my room AGAIN!
-There was an earthquake?
-What do you mean Nigel still can’t move?!
-But… he has to…
-I don’t want to say goodbye.
-We’re off to the vet. It’s time to say goodbye.
-Fuck you, 2010, seriously!
-WTF?! Big severe storm knocked out electricity!
-Another 30 hour outage!
-I hate you, Pepco!
-This new NYRA-DC is rather chaotic. This Larry guy is a bit crazy.
-Annapolis!

August: Marvin

-Will the new bumper stickers I ordered arrive in time for the annual meeting?
-They did!
-Time to buy lots of food…
-NYRA Annual Meeting!!!!
-I’m live tweeting!
-Zac got the live Ustream set up! Win!
-Oh, no! Stefan wasn’t reelected.
-A-ha moment videos!
-The fucking AC is broken again!
-Well, at least he found the issue this time.
-STFU, smoke detector! I know you need a new battery but idiots who built the house put you way high up on the wall!
-Hal and I totally promoted NYRA at some Al Sharpton rally!
-Man, they’re taking forever to finish car maintenance.

September: Holding

-What the shit?! A Mosquito device in DC!
-Alright, Larry is batshit. GTFO my NYRA!
-Middle Eastern Bazaar! Yummy!
-Okay, Redskins, beat Dallas…
-Nooo, you let them get a touchdown at the last minute to get ahead!
-Wait, no, touchdown was nullified because they got called for holding. Redskins win!
-Think I’ll try to make #16tovote on the 16th bigger. Maybe a blog entry and a chat.
-Eh, those didn’t work out too well. Maybe just stick to tweeting.
-Hmmm, Teta isn’t doing so well. Having heart troubles.
-Now she’s really not doing so well…
-And now she’s gone.
-Fuuuuuuuuuuuck, that was my last grandparent!
-First my dog and now this?!

October: All Night Long

-Why the hell is my car alarm going off for no reason?
-Now I’m up all night with it!
-Okay, I’ve maybe fixed it?
-#16tovote on the 16th – Saturday Edition!
-Continuing with visiting state capitals, think I’ll go to Dover, DE.
-Why? Why the hell did I go to Dover, DE? *facepalm*
-Rally to Restore Sanity! Yay!
-Aww, Hal said my holiday card design was “too Christian”. But I like the holly!
-It’s okay. There’s a nice snowflake one I can use.
-Did the Redskins really just lose to the fucking Lions again?!
-Halloween! I had JUST enough candy!

November: Hummus and Tortilla Chips

-Time for NYRA’s Supreme Court RALLY!
-Holy crap, Usiel made an awesome speech!
-What… did my stupid web host screw up some maintenance and kill all site changes and info since August?!
-Well, seems they fixed it after a bit, but wow. Bad.
-Dave’s having a Face-Punch party! He got punched in the face, got compensation money, so he threw a party.
-Holiday cards arrived!
-Got stupid car alarm fixed. For free, too!
-Thanksgiving at aunt’s house, lots of food and people!
-Put Christmas lights on my window!

December: The One You Feed

-Time to send holiday cards!
-Oh, Jeff has gotten himself into a contest where he could win $5,000 with enough votes. Like Chase.
-Sent 570 holiday cards! Wow!
-Hey, neighbor company at work is having a little holiday gathering.
-Yay! WES Winter Festival! Cookies! Peace Spiral! Dona Nobis Pacem!
-I bought myself a keyboard!
-Now I’m getting a cold. Lovely.
-Holiday lunch with coworkers! Last workday before Christmas.
-Ack! Christmas shopping is hard with a runny nose!
-Christmas Eve… a magical night…
-And a lovely Christmas Day with morning flurries.
-Uneventful last week of work.
-Ugh, we’ve got to win this stupid contest somehow, got to bug lots of people for votes.
-Had to forego New Year’s Eve skiing for the stupid contest.
-Wow… the club house is still there. Look how big the trees are now!
-And once again, I’ve posted a Sure, Why Not? entry each day in December!

Yeah, make no mistake. This year was disappointing. I was expecting a WTF year, but in a cool way. Instead, I traveled nowhere, lost my dog and my grandmother, and a lot of other things did not happen. Feels like the year went along, I’m one year older than I was when I wrote the 2009 recap, yet don’t have much more to show for it. Well, here comes 2011. Need to do better. There are only so many of these years we get.

*looks up at Times Square 2011 sign, awaiting illumination*

“Just look at us now, part of it all. In spite of it all, we’re still around! So wake up the kids, put on some tea, let’s light up the tree. It’s Christmas Day!” -Neil Diamond, You Make It Feel Like Christmas

Here we are again. It is Christmas Day! Through another year since the last one, we have lasted. Yay!

As usual, yesterday was another run of Christmas Eve, the longest day of the year. The Christmas Eve runaround leading up to the relative lull that is Christmas Day. Started with waking up, running to work to change a temperature chart, back home, wrapping presents, watching specials, listening to Christmas music, etc. All the way until around 7pm when once again my family went to my mom’s Greek friend’s Christmas Eve party. Ate lots of delicious food as usual, then I went to the 11pm Christmas Eve service at church like always. Wearing my Santa hat.

And listened to the sermon, which was about It’s a Wonderful Life, which the priest admitted to only recently watching all the way through the first time (iknorite?!) even though the church had been doing some activity before then supposedly about the movie. So, in other words, the priest admitted to professing to know about something that he in fact knew little about. Bizarre!

Well, part of surviving a church service when one has ideologically pulled away from Christianity like I have is to look at the whole thing as just some story everyone there is making a celebration of. Pretend nobody actually takes this seriously but that this is all just for fun. Hey, for most of the people there, that may actually be the case!

Once more, after communion, we all held candles, turned out the lights, and sang Silent Night. With joy.

And once more, upon the choir walking back down the aisle, we all sang Hark the Herald Angels Sing. Which I felt tempted to finish with a loud cheerful “Hell yeah!” But I resisted. Sorry.

Then I talked to the priest, who’s known me for a while. I told him my realization about O Come All Ye Faithful.

Then I thanked him for not being Fred Phelps, and he took that as a compliment.

Went home and prepared last few gifts.

And the NYRA website, which had been down for several horrible days, had at last come back. Just in time for Christmas! Christmas miracle.

Then went upstairs to my living room, on which I had put my colored lights. I gazed out at the divine night sky, watching for Santa…

And off in the distance, under a tower with one of them blinking red lights…

I saw a star.

I think. A star there in the night sky on Christmas Eve…

Or, no, it was actually the big electric star that on a tower that some nearby company puts up every year.

Hmmm… what a time to first notice I’m able to see it from my house!

So I unplug the lights for the night and go to bed.

And in the morning…

It’s snowing.

Ever so lightly. No real accumulation. I wondered just what does and doesn’t qualify as a White Christmas. Do Christmas morning flurries count? Does it count if it’s leftover snow from several days ago? Does it count if it doesn’t snow until later in the day?

In any case, I drove to my family’s house with the tiny Christmas snowflakes whirling around me, and arrived at the house to my very excited little brother, who got a fancy new train set, and is right now running that train round and round and round and round…

And has been using the new saucer sled he got from Santa as a flying saucer full of aliens attacking the train!

And we had our feast, our feast of roast beast.

What does Christmas have in common with the United States?

They’re both crazy mixtures of stuff from a crapload of different cultures… yet white Christian conservatives seem to think they belong only to them.

And the Dallas Cowboys lost. Sweet.

Christmas.

Yeah.

Cedric, as you know, lived in my tank for an astounding four years and seven months, right up until about 23 months ago he swam off to fishy heaven. Nonetheless, his spirit lives on, that spectacular little fish who hung on to an admittedly boring life inside a little five-gallon aquarium, for such a long time. None of my other fish have done that!

Or, actually…

My serpae tetra Ash is about to beat that record! Cedric lived in my tank for 4 years and 214 days, the exact same amount of time it has been since my sister brought me Ash on my birthday in 2006, along with other serpae tetras Quigley and Templeton, plus sunset molly Pyro. Pyro died only a couple months later. Lost Quigley sometime last year (there’s a real testament to how badly I care for the tank, Quigley just sort of disappeared). Last February, when the big ass Superbowl weekend blizzard knocked out our electricity for 30 hours, this meant my house went that long without heat, and as such the fish tank got really cold, killing my algae eater Stripe, and nearly killing Ash and Templeton, though once the heat was back on, they were fine again after a bit. Except Templeton died a few weeks later. Ash was all alone until May when I got another algae eater, Aurelius. So now it’s just the two of them.

Congrats, Ash! For your resilience under the care of someone like me, who should probably never ever be in charge of any living thing.

That’s okay! I still had another grandmother who was REALLY supposed to live forever!

Er, no. We lost her last night to massive heart complications.

Widad Khalaf Sahouri
March 25, 1926 – September 26, 2010

Nice job so far, 2010. First Nigel and now… my last grandparent! What the FUCK?!

Oh, damn, that’s right. My last grandparent. When I was born, I only had the two grandmothers to begin with, their husbands having died in the 1970s, long before I came along. Now they’re both gone, off into whatever happens next. Along with my grandmother, I suppose a certain aspect of my youth was lost with her. Now my parents are the elders. Weeeeeird.

So, what am I to do about it? I realize my response here seems very different from losing Grandma. Certainly doesn’t mean I’m mourning any less now. Just acknowledging that I perhaps deal with this differently from before, and, despite being related to them both in the same way, they still held different roles in my life.

And anyone’s death, especially a grandparent I suppose, serves to remind that we’re all like a whole lot of twinkling stars. We come into existence and shine and shine for however long before we are extinguished. Stars of course go billions of years. We humans go a hell of a lot shorter than that. So we must make sure we shine as bright as we can, and in doing so inspire the other stars to shine bright. Like a shiny chain reaction. Of shininess.

Yeah, what do you want? I didn’t study astronomy and got a D in physics. Whatever.

Anyway, scientific inaccuracy of metaphor notwithstanding, what are we doing to shine bright? What am I doing? Well, I’m with NYRA and as such trying to make the world better by promoting youth rights! Quite proud of that.

Then another thought occurred to me. My newly lost grandmother is my mom’s mom, the Arab side of my family. So, yeah, I’m part-Arab and working on civil rights activism. Nice.

I wonder what other Arab-blooded American activists there are…

Oh, wait…

SHIT!

I have a lot of work to do. :\

(Lower the drinking age.)

DAY
100

So my friends, another hot sunny summer has gone by, yet another round of the infamous 100 Days of Summer, the tenth round in fact! Which means next year’s eleventh round, each day is the tenth anniversary of the days of the original! These days have a way of being crazy, mysterious, wonderful, and terrible. And today we celebrate completing another hundred of them! So let’s review!

Day 1, okay, got a new algae eater yesterday, a gold one. I’ll call him Aurelius!

Day 3, as usual, NYRA board is being annoyingly quiet about important stuff. Do I really want yet another year of this frustration and silence?

Day 7, we can’t let Hyundai and Allstate get away with running ageist ads, at least not without complaints! Get them! Also, saw Soul Asylum!

Day 8, okay, fine, I’ll run for another year on the damn board.

Day 9, wait, crap, I think our AC is broken.

Day 10, yeah, I’d say so. Outside unit isn’t even running!

Day 12, gaaahhh! AC unit is in my damn room and needs to be replaced, so got all these repairmen trampling through my room taking shit apart in the mech closet. Oh and they used an acetylene torch at one point to put some parts back together afterward, so we had to cover up the two nearby sprinklers with cups so they wouldn’t be set off. Crazy!

Day 15, alright, my toe has been infected and hurting like hell and soaking it hasn’t done shit, I guess I’d better see the podiatrist.

Day 17, podiatrist says toe nail has to come off and I need antibiotics. Sigh. Ouch!!! Stupid paronychia.

Day 18, at work, limping and with only nine and a half toes, got to order some special kind of bacitracin for coworker, found only one company with it, just got to set up account to buy it.

Day 21, board meeting, we have moved the Annual Meeting back to Washington, DC! Okay, that makes things easier. Oh, and I requested my e-mail account be returned to me, since it’d been nearly two years. Alex and Stefan refused, but Keith seconded my motion and it came to a vote. It passed! I got my NYRA e-mail account back. Alright.

Day 24, the first of three runs of #16tovote on the 16th during the 100 Days of Summer! Awesome as usual.

Day 28, gee wiz, people sure are offended that I dared to say Father’s Day is stupid.

Day 35, NYRA-DC meeting! Larry is here to run the chapter! Should be awesome.

Day 37, oh no! At work, supervisor is having nasty diabetic attack! Paramedics had to come. They got some sugar in her and she snapped back to normal.

Day 39, alright, forums are dying and people want to be able to vote in NYRA’s election, so for anyone who makes 50 posts before end of July, I’ll sponsor membership.

Day 40, let out of work early for holiday weekend… there’s some smoke over near that car… FIRE! Some idiot threw a cigarette butt into dry mulch and it ignited. Had to put it out.

Day 41, took little brother to see Toy Story 3. BAWWWWWW!

Day 42, time for patriotic ’splosions! From the middle of the soccer field by my house, can see like six different fireworks displays in the area. Sweet!

Day 44, I think the fucking AC is broken again.

Day 45, oh lovely, turns out after like a month and a half of stalling and bullcrap, only now finding out I can’t order that special bacitracin because we’re not a physician’s office. Fucking hell.

Day 47, repair guy returns, again traipsing through my damn room, but this time not so much ruckus, just refilled the freon. Poor ozone layer!

Day 48, youth-related council hearing in DC with NYRA! And on metro ride home, Alex discussing NYRA’s financial situation and getting me all panicked. Jerk did that on purpose!

Day 49, alright, I’m putting up some NYRA flyers again. Hooked up my printer, printed off a bunch, and late at night, put some up at local bus stops, mailboxes, and a condo complex.

Day 50, the Fifty-Fifty! More flyers, though it was raining. Also, got pizza.

Day 54, there was apparently an earthquake here I totally never felt. Also, the July #16tovote on the 16th! Going great… and got a call from mom that Nigel is still struggling with his severe arthritis and can’t really move anymore…

Day 55, and it’s time to make a fateful trip to the vet… and say goodbye.

Alright, Round 10, you just killed my dog. You owe a lot of awesome shit to even come close to balancing this back out.

Day 56, went to WES, and actually said something in the community response, something pro-youth rights! Also, last NYRA board meeting of the year!

Day 61, NYRA-DC has an online chat to finalize the chapter charter… and it devolves into unspeakable chaos and drama. Oy.

Day 63, wow, that is a huge mass of red heading our way on the radar… and the lights are out now. Lovely. But holy damn, what a storm! But storm long since finished and sun is back out… and still no electricity. Sigh. Not again.

Day 64, lights are still off, at least they’re back on at work, only to come home later to find they’re still off at home. I hate you, Pepco. I’ll go to the library. Back at 7pm, still no power at home. So back to work, use computer there, watch evil little triangles on Pepco website outage map. Home at 9pm to find lights had just come back on. Another 30-hour outage, just like February.

Day 65, day after ending of long outage, got $218 Pepco bill. I HATE YOU!

Day 69, been thinking to visit state capitals. I’ll start with my own. Annapolis! Saw State House, ate a crab cake, and got a hat. Fun little outing!

Day 71, okay, just ordered some new NYRA bumper stickers! Hope they arrive in time for the Annual Meeting! Want to debut them there!

Day 74, I’d better hurry up and decide who to vote for in this NYRA board election. So many great candidates! So hard to decide! I guess I’ll just flip a coin for that ninth place person. Not that ninth choice matters in Single Transferrable Vote.

Day 75, yes! Stickers arrived just in time! Also, buying lots and lots of meeting food.

Day 76, NYRA ANNUAL MEETING!!!! I live tweet, but better yet, Jeff and Zac got the live streaming working so our online friends who couldn’t attend in person could still watch! And I cut Alex a deal, sort of. I did not hit him with the laser pointer during the annual report… I did it right after it while he was saying something into the live-streaming camera. Hahaha. Also…. STEFAAAAAAAN! He wasn’t reelected.

Day 77, NYRA ANNUAL MEETING!!!! Live tweeting and streaming going again, onto the second day! Got lots of pizza, again from Bertucci’s, and had a sweet strategic planning session. And I made Dave do his trick, where he stands on one leg and puts his other leg behind his head. And when the meeting was over, Alex ran off to church, I hung out with Usi and David SJ, then Jeff and Zac rejoined us, and met back up with Alex at NYRA office. Hal showed up, and we discussed NYRA stuff more. Then we got pizza. And sat there having fun and talking youth rights until the place closed. Fucking win.

Day 82, supervisor had another diabetic attack! Eek! Also, first Redskins preaseason game: squashed the Buffalo Bills. Hahaha!

Day 84, Galen says fuck it and cancels Sniper chats, since Max and I are the only ones who ever go anymore. Oh, well.

Day 85, the third and final #16tovote on the 16th in the 100 Days of Summer! Lots of tweets but not a lot of participants. Oh, well.

Day 88, another NYRA-DC online chat, trying again to finalize charter, bracing self for another explosion… and it was actually rather pleasant and charter was finalized. Nice!

Day 90, meh, constant stereotypes and ignorance of Comedy Central and other stuff is getting on my nerves, think I’ll watch NatGeo Wild for a while. Change of pace.

Day 91, I have got to clean this damn room.

Day 92, what the shit?! The AC is broken AGAIN? You kidding me? Also, finally had first board meeting. With a board that is once again being unresponsive. Sigh. Why am I doing this shit again?

Day 93, and repair guy is back once more to fix the AC, and this time found the leak causing the freon to be running out in the first place. Oh, the poor poor ozone layer!

Day 94, and now the fucking smoke detector is chirping because it needs a new battery. Which one? There’s three… oh, lucky, the third floor one. As in the one that’s waaaay up high on the wall and impossible to reach, and even with the ladder can’t quite get it. So had to get neighbor to help.

Day 97, DC is having dueling rallies! Glenn Beck rally versus Al Sharpton rally! Hal and I went to recruit some NYRA supporters at the Sharpton one. Early morning and under a vicious sun, but lots of fun! And we totally marched holding the NYRA banner.

Day 98, visited family to get mail, spend time with little brother, and… feed them because they’re broke. Sigh.

Day 99, car maintenance! Which took forever and made me super late getting back to work. So when I did get back, almost everyone had already left for the day.

And, finally, at last…

Day 100, today! Pretty much an ordinary work day, not terribly eventful. Sitting here eating a yummy summer salad! It’s got spinach, avocado, assorted nuts, corn, and pepperoni. Yum.

And ten times of these 100 Days of Summer, that makes today the 1000th day total of the 100 Days of Summer with all rounds added together. Kind of neat.

This tenth round, well, majorly sucked. I lost my dog! And if before midnight I receive word that all 50 states have lowered their voting and drinking ages and ruled curfews illegal, that NYRA is given a million dollars, and that It’s Raining Men song comes true (giggity!)… yeah, I think this round might still be a little behind. Seriously, losing a dog sucks.

As these 100 Days of Summer draw to a close, as the final four months of 2010 loom ahead. What’s going on? What’s happening? Last year, I closed Round 9 with the realization that to make things awesome, they must be, well, made awesome, in spite of any out of control circumstances. But I’m not sure what the hell is happening now. If anything. Then again, maybe that’s part of the fun.

And with that, I bid farewell to Round 10 of the 100 Days of Summer! It shall return on May 24, 2011, for Round 11, and whatever crazy crap will be going on then.

This has been Day 100 of the 100 Days of Summer, Round 10.

Since this happened…

August 30, 2000 – 6:30pm

I was just outside the cafeteria, watching people go in and out. All of a sudden, I saw him. He looked about my age, a few inches taller. He had short dark brown hair and wore glasses. There was something about him. He stood with a woman I assumed was his mother. Then a grey-haired man came up, his father apparently. I could not stop staring at him. After a while, he and his father left, and the mother sat on a chair beside the cafeteria entrance, waiting for them to return.

I stood around her, still trying to figure out what had happened. Who was he? Why was I now feeling so weird? After a while, the guy and his father came back. Another guy came up and talked to them; he looked about my age, too. But he went away, and the first guy and his parents went into the cafeteria.

I didn’t want to lose sight of them. Remembering there was a second floor balcony in the rotunda that overlooked part of the cafeteria, I raced up the nearby stairway and down a corridor to the circular railing. After a few minutes, the three came out and sat at a table. The guy was eating pasta with marinara, some bread, and a banana. I paced around the balcony, my eyes fixated on them the whole time. Luckily, they didn’t notice me. Not then, at least.

I went back down to the entrance of the cafeteria to await the guy and his parents. Soon I saw them get in the tray return line. Then they exited the cafeteria, walked by me, and went down a nearby stairway. I then ran outside and down the steps to the building’s basement entrance. The three went straight down the hall towards the back entrance of the building. I walked down the hall, too. Suddenly, before they reached the doors, the guy’s father turned his head around and glared at me, frowning. At that point, I slowed down. He said something to his son, who then half-turned his head and looked at me, and I’d swear he was smiling! They went on out the doors to a blue car and got in. Upon driving away, both of the guy’s parents gazed at me, and they weren’t exactly friendly gazes!

“Where are they going?” I asked myself, seeing the blue car drive away. Wait! In front of the cafeteria building, there was a parking lot bustling with families of students moving to the two dorm buildings that were right there. I ran back down the hallway and back out of the building to that parking lot. After a while, they drove in! I saw them get out of the car and walk into one of the dorm buildings. Ah! That’s where he lives! A little later, the two parents left the building, got into their car, and drove out of their parking space. Upon leaving the lot, they spotted me walking back to the cafeteria. They once again stared at me ominously as they drove away. As I ate my dinner, I reflected on all that had happened with sudden regret. That wasn’t a nice thing to do!

The above is copied from a little notebook (that I was somehow able to locate rather quickly just a little while ago!) where I wrote all that down the evening after it happened, with only a few changes in wording.

At a glance, what is this story? What became of the narrating girl and this guy she is suddenly so fixated on? Is this the beginning of a sweet little love story? Would she follow him into the dorm in what would turn out to be a very bad porno? Or no, considering this girl was 17 at the time, that’d be a little Chris Hansen-y. Would this mysterious guy turn out to be a sparkling vampire? Certainly, this must be the beginning of something interesting!

Well, not really. I think I’m the only one who’d find the entire story all that interesting, seeing as I’m of course that girl. Really what followed was nearly two years of obsessive stalking, if we’re to be perfectly honest here, which ended with a story I’ve already told. So a little bittersweet to remember it, the beginning of something that for better or worse shaped my college years dramatically.

It’s also interesting because of two uncanny things that occurred. For one, my being so suddenly smitten with someone I’d never seen before in my life. Well, actually, I do know why that happened, and I can’t really explain it too well, but in a nutshell, let’s just say he was in the right place at the right time (or perhaps wrong place at the wrong time, on his end, since he had to put up with me for the following two years, hehe). The other uncanny thing was assuming they were heading back out to the parking lot in front of the cafeteria, and turning out to be absolutely right. In retrospect, how the hell did I know that? I had no real reason to believe they’d go there, and they could have gone a million and one other places, including any of the several other dorms on campus and their lots. For all I knew, maybe he wasn’t a student there at all. But somehow I knew exactly where they’d go. Pretty cool when that happens.

So, ten years later, what do I think? I of course lost any interest in the guy himself long ago. But it’s interesting to think how much I’ve done since that rather course-altering event. Since then graduated from that school, went through over a year of soul-crushing unemployment and stagnation, joined NYRA, finally got work and built up some money, got more involved with NYRA and on the board, attended annual meetings, made some great friends, got a permanent job, finally got my driver’s license and then a car, finally moved out of my grandmother’s house, and last year took an awesome trip to London. I’ve been doing quite well.

Of course, ten years later, how well do I deal with guys now? Is that any better? I must surely know what I should have done differently, right?

Okay, I just depressed myself.

This has been Day 99 of the 100 Days of Summer, Round 10.