ornoth

I know it’s tedious to read about everyone’s end-of-year natterings, so I’ll keep mine brief.

Having just gone through a very difficult period, I’m naturally inclined to write 2005 off as just a series of very painful events. However, when I went to make a list of the good and the bad, I discovered a very surprising and substantial imbalance toward the good. This year in particular this list seems to really help keep things in perspective.

So here’s my lists:

The Bad		The Good
Puggle’s sudden death Inna’s hospitalization Abandoning my graphic design certificate program The damage done to my ceilings by leaks in the building’s A/C system Having to send back my new Dell laptop as defective The brouhaha with my bike shop over replacing my headset Early-season difficulties on the bike due to my back and seat I never had the time to get started in sea kayaking this year		Got a new job and began making money again DargonZine went back into circulation, printing the first half of the long-awaited Black Idol story arc, our most ambitious collaboration ever Those included “Liberated Hope”, a two-chapter story of my own Made a ton of positive progress in incorporating Buddhist philosophy into my life Bought a very nice brand new road bike Realized a longstanding dream by taking the train up to Portland, Maine and biking from there to Augusta Had three pieces of artwork displayed publicly at my art school’s senior show Met several prominent personalities, including Benoit Mandelbrot, Greg Hawkes, Ajahn Brahm, and Terry Pratchett Had a tremendously enjoyable and successful Pan-Mass Challenge charity ride Attended a pleasant Dargon Writers’ Summit in Traverse City, Michigan Learned how to do my own artistic bookbinding Went for a schooner ride in Camden, Maine with my brother Began attending friendly scotch nights and picked up a rare bottle of Port Ellen at a local tasting Got back into the swing of playing Diplomacy and learned how to play the excellent game Settlers of Catan Got back into and put in a good showing at some friendly poker games, then had a very profitable blackjack outing at Foxwoods Got the bloaty-ohs attending my first Scooper Bowl: an all-you-can-eat ice cream charity event Bought an iPod Nano Joined the ACLU in response to the US government’s unabashed assault on human rights both domestically and abroad Had a fun time showing my friend Tasia around Boston

So that’s the scoop. As you can see, the positives far outweigh the negatives, even if there were a couple really, really terrible things that happened this year.

Funny that just as I’m putting so much time and energy into being someone else’s pillar of strength, so many bad things are happening to me.

Yesterday it was the bike. I took my bike to the shop for an unrelated fix, and they say they need to replace the headset, which they installed brand new just five weeks earlier.

As if that wasn’t enough gross incompetence, they don’t have the parts, and the guy who took my bike apart isn’t capable of putting it back together again using the old parts, so I have to survive the next ten or more days without my primary mode of transportation to my job or to the hospital to support my best friend in her time of need, and without any ability to continue training for my charity ride.

On top of the existing issues with the ceiling leak, falling behind in class, and being behind schedule in the fundraising for the charity ride, this is really getting discouraging. June (and perhaps now July?) seems to have been officially declared “National Kick Orny in the Teeth Month”. What crisis am I gonna have to endure next?

I am in the process of seeing how truly amazing life can be.

Today, which is only the third evening in the past sixteen days that I haven't spent at the hospital, I came home after class to find water pouring out of my ceiling. Apparently a pipe carrying water from my A/C unit had backed up and overflowed a reservoir for condensation.

The leak has been stopped temporarily, but I'll have no A/C until it's fixed.

And I just took yesterday off work as a "sanity/recoup day"! Argh! Or, as I just told

awfief, "When it shits, it pours!"

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