This is a very old website, with very old links, converted from Google Classic to the new Google Sites. Little of it will be updated.
Post date: Jan 8, 2011 3:36:42 PM
Astounding: I haven't updated this blog in an entire year. That surprises even me. I thought I would've touched this at some point, I mean, I come here often enough (if only to read my collected online comic sites).
Well, a lot has happened in the past year. Rebecca and I went to Las Vegas last January: it wasn't our honeymoon or anything (that was Iceland), we just wanted to go. That is, she did--I had an aversion to Vegas because of how it's been represented in the media. All those slimy douchebags in velvet jackets getting helplessly drunk and yelling, "Vegas, baby!" like it's a mantra that can confer coolness upon the speaker. Why are so many people so eager to live up to a stereotype? Anyway, I ended up having a great time. It turned out to be not at all like it's been represented, very clean and orderly and everyone had all their clothes on. There were a great many places to eat, one of my favorite pastimes, so I had a blast.
In February I finally cured myself of the virulent skin condition plaguing me for years previous. The cure was nothing more than to stop using herbal soaps and shampoos. We attended CERT training toward the end of the month, though our friends' reactions to emergency preparedness ranged from amusement to contempt. Yeah, well, now they're buried in snow and the convenience stores routinely run out of bread and water, a matter they could've circumvented with a 72-hour bag and gallons of water in storage.
April, I got my commemorative tattoo for my 40th birthday: the logo for SPOGG. We celebrated our second wedding anniversary, and we began training to teach English as a second language. May saw me putzing around Minneapolis during my unemployment before getting a proofreading job with a company that really didn't need a proofreader as much as a rubber stamp for approval. I also (belatedly) got a custom-made mouthguard to protect my teeth from grinding. I started training to drive a 102-year-old trolley in June, and a hipster-douche told me to fuck myself from the stage at Sauce Soundbar. Also I started an amazing copyeding job at Carmichael Lynch. During July I met Marc Maron, my grandfather died, and my wife and I bought one-way tickets to Bali, Indonesia.
I didn't do much in August.
September, we started packing all our possessions, donating or trashing what we could. We went to Chicago in October to apply for a visa through the Indonesian Consulate. I got my teeth fixed one last time and we flew to Bali, where we secured a place to live and a roommate to share it with. November was dedicated to TESOL certification through IALF Bali, and throughout December we toured Indonesia and Thailand, celebrating the New Year in Chiang Mai.
There, now everyone can feel like they've caught up with me... except no one reads this blog and I rarely even write in it. Well, no one reads my other blogs either. In fact, once I got married my friends stopped calling me to hang out, and now that I'm out of the country they don't even speak to me online. It's a weird psychological response, I guess, or else a uniquely Minnesotan trait. Who knows. I'm glad I'm getting along with my wife, being cooped up with her in hotel rooms and having no other recourse than her in foreign cities and countryside, or else I'd feel completely unmoored.