2009 In Review
1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before? Even though I’ve done a lot this year, I didn’t really do anything new. That needs to change for 2010.
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I don’t make resolutions, I set achievable goals.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth? My younger sister had Brandon Grant in August. He might wake up long enough to meet us by the time he’s three or so. He's cute though:
4. Did anyone close to you die? 2009 seemed to be the year that tried to pick off as many friends and family members as possible. My granny, my cousin Micah, Krista, Trisha...way too many. Didn’t get Joe, didn’t get Craig, but I made sure to look both ways before I crossed the street!
5. What countries did you visit? This was a stay-at-home year.
6. Summary list!
Books read: My 2009 tag at LibraryThing (55 books total, plus a re-listening of the Harry Potter series)
Movies seen: My 2009 tag at dvdaf.com (13 movies total, it’s not as if I have time for movies…)
Music concerts attended: Innerpartysystem (Basement), Airborne Toxic Event (Basement), Morrissey (Palace), Britney Spears (Schottenstein), Jane’s Addiction (LC), Ida Maria (Basement), Snow Patrol (LC), Pete Yorn (Newport) and Company of Thieves (Basement)
This year’s races: Arnold 5K (30:38), St. Patrick’s Day 4-miler (38:23), Columbus 10K (58:00), Kings Island 10K (1:00:49), Spirit of Columbus Half Marathon (2:07:35), Circleville Classic 5-miler (46:47), Dead Celebrity 3-miler (27:07), Buckeye Classic 10K (1:03:20) and Flying Feather 4-miler (36:59)
7. What events from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? All the death notices, for sure. The Iranian election and the political unrest there. My Bernie dog dying.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? I don’t know that I achieved much of note. This was a year of stasis, but a good stasis.
9. What was your biggest failure? Not doing a million new!and!exciting! things this year, I guess?
10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Everything was pretty minor. This year I will ease back into my mileage rather than try to go from 12 miles to 30 in the space of like 3 days. :-P
11. What was the best thing you bought? All those race bibs.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration? (Columbus) Mayor Coleman has shown a surprising amount of backbone this year, in the right arenas, for once. Incumbency suits him. My friends who’ve decided to get more active this year. My friends in general are the best.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? The Iranian government's. Obama hasn’t shown as much backbone as I thought he might, but the American public needs a LOT of bitchslapping right now and I think his hand is tired. People who claim to believe in the faith shown by the loaves and fishes parable, but aren’t as willing to hold the faith when they’re holding the basket.
14. Where did most of your money go? Student loans and the IRS. If you’re getting a refund, STFU and GTFO.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? I get really, really, really excited about many things! It was great to go to the Sparkpeople Convention in Cincinnati this September and meet some of the great people I’ve come to know on the site.
16. What song will always remind you of 2009? “Oscar Wilde” by Company of Thieves.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you: (a) happier or sadder? (b) thinner or fatter? (c) richer or poorer? I think I am the same on all counts.
18. What do you wish you’d done more of? I wish I’d have gone to Azkatraz and done more fandom-y things.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Surfing the internet and hobbling around with a bum hamstring.
20. How did you spend Christmas? At my sister’s house with the kiddos and various family and the only non-sociopathic neighbors they have.
21. Did you fall in love in 2009? God, no.
22. What was your favorite TV program? Glee!
23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? I don’t hate anyone. I’ve lost a bit of respect for quite a few people, though.
24. What was the best book you read? The BEST? Hm. Probably The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker.
25. What was your greatest musical discovery? Lady Gaga? I don’t know. :P
26. What did you want and get? I got faster at running. Who knew that following a training regimen works?!
27. What did you want and not get? I don’t like to dwell on the negative.
28. What was your favorite film of this year? Inglourious Basterds, hands down.
29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 34, and my birthday month was fabulous - movies, music, dancing and food. J
30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Not having to look back and have so little to check off on the bucket list!
31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009? I have no concept of fashion…I wear what I like.
32. What kept you sane? Long runs.
33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Somehow, when I wasn’t looking (and I now regret not looking when I had the chance!) Dan Radcliffe became this sexy bitch. Tom Felton, too. Okay, so most of the young HP actors have grown up well. Too well.
34. What political issue stirred you the most? What political issue *didn’t* stir me this year? I had to quit listening to NPR and reading the news for days at a time, and take people off my friends’ lists.
35. Who did you miss? The usual suspects.
36. Who was the best new person you met? I meet new people all the time, and usually like them.
37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009. How people treat you is much more a function of how they feel about themselves than how they truly feel about you. Once you accept this in others AND in yourself, not as a means of condescension or judgment but as a truism, it is so much easier to let the slights go and not take impersonal things personally.
38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. Although I could probably speak in song lyrics, there really is no one lyric that I could quote to sum up a whole year.
39. What are your plans for 2010? I just did my calendar. Phew. So far:
January: I hit the River Run downtown this morning. After telling madlori she'd be a wuss for ducking a race because of the weather, it seemed hypocritical to skip out, no matter how blasted cold it was (race time 21* with a wind chill of 3*, fucking cold). $100 spent on winter running gear, with chemical hand warmers, and it was okay. The worst part is always the wait to warmup and start. My nose and eyes ran like spigots and it was icy enough on the path that I spent a lot of time in the rough. But it did it in 34:00, give or take. Winter hike in the Hocking Hills January 16th.
March: Arnold 5K. Krista and Steph’s wedding!
April: Race season starts, with plans to travel to Pittsburgh and run an event with fellow Sparkers John and Bill and as many folks as we can get together. Possibly the Athens half-marathon, if I feel up to the hills.
May: Cap City half-marathon. Have I ever mentioned that I *hate* middle distances? Not as much I dislike 5Ks. Well, I guess I can be talked into doing things I don’t like to do easily.
June: Columbus 10K. I really liked this one!
July: Infinitus!!!!!!! americonedream will be here, too! :D
August: Bike the Cbus.
October: Possibly the Army 10-miler. Dead Celebrity 3-miler.
November: Buckeye 10K and Flying Feather 4-miler.
40. What would you like to see happen in 2010, based on what happened in 2009? I’d like to have the sense to train without injuring myself and to save even more money than I did in 2009. I’d like Gitmo to be closed permanently. A push through Afghanistan a la 2001-3, ousting the Taliban for good. Democracy in Iran. INS paperwork for friends and family (several of whom are working and paying taxes, unlike some of our fellow countrymen) and the current health care bill to be scrapped for a real public plan that cuts the insurance companies out completely.