And… here we are! 2011 has run its course. Let’s review!
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-Oh, good, Giant rescinded their policy.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.
-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. Alright.
-Hey, a fun evening!
-Now to Adams Morgan.
-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.
-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 he 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?
-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.
-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
-Cousin’s wedding. Then to Middle Eastern Bazaar on same day. Both sides of the family!
-Uh oh. Lots of 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, 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.
-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!
-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…
