Losing my job was both good and bad. The financial situation is a wee bit scary, but I've also learned a lot through the experience. The latter half of 2004 seems to have been setting me up for some big changes in 2005.

slutty mcslut slut?

ETA: Darn, Anne got 25. I had something witty or maybe just silly lined up to say here, but all my wit has migrated south for the winter.

I've just realized--this thread is an electronic version of the Xeroxed holiday newsletter. But at least no trees died for it. So did anyone's darling Pugsley win the Nobel Peace Prize or did precious Muffy get voted class president or anything?

This year started off looking hopeful - I had a last minute call on x-mas eve for a job interview on New Year's Eve day. It was the first nibble in quite a while, and the first in the specific location I'd been hoping for.

(New Year's Eve itself was a Bataan Death March of a holiday, but we won't talk about that. Blood, sweat, and tears figured prominently. I'm hoping for better this go 'round, possibly by barricading myself in my home.)

And I got the job, and the rest all kind of stems from there. Out of the sinkhole I'd gotten myself into, both financial and emotional. I don't know that I'm all the way back yet, but lord knows I'm better than I was a year ago. And I got to go visit my brother, which I'd been hoping to do and not managing for so very long.

Other things of note: my parents' dog died, but it was really almost a mercy at that point. The house was sold (I have to go help move shit this weekend) which also was a wrench but long overdue.Very little happening on the personal front, but maybe I'll try to make that my project for the coming year.

Funny thing, when we were shooting around thread names, I was all set for a good "good riddance" thread until Hec pointed out that for him, at least, there were actually a lot of highlights. I didn't think about it until then, but for once, I've actually got a lot more to be thankful or pleased with this year than I have to bitch about.

The latter half of 2004 seems to have been setting me up for some big changes in 2005.

Does this read to anyone else like a prediction for the second half of a show season? I just hope Tim isn't writing your scripts, Anne.

I spent most of 2004 treading water. I live in a great town with some awesome friends, but I didn't really move forward in the journey of my life at all. I started the year at one crap job, and moved to another, less crappy, job halfway through the year, but even the new job doesn't really hold much of a future for me, I think. My goal for 2005 is to save up enough money to head back out into the world and try something new: travelling somewhere new, or even moving to another country for a while; maybe going to grad school to study library science; maybe joining the Peace Corps or another international organization; maybe even just moving to a city where I could actually try to find a job in publishing. Also, a boyfriend would be nice. Ta ever so.

Does this read to anyone else like a prediction for the second half of a show season? I just hope Tim isn't writing your scripts, Anne.

Eep! I hope not, either!

My wishes for the next year are a job (duh), and some idea of where I want to be going over the next ten years. I feel like my life has been on hold for several years and that it's time to get moving again. Now I just have to figure out how to keep from beating myself up over "wasted" time.

Now I just have to figure out how to keep from beating myself up over "wasted" time.

Anne, I spent almost an entire decade wasted in a Denny's back in Michigan. I used to beat myself up for the supposed wasted time until I realized I'd be just as old regardless of how I spent the time, and there are no guarantees I'd be any better off. Time is what it is, yo.

I have almost all of my seekrit santa gift done, except I'm waiting for something to be mailed to me.

I also need to send Xmas cards.

I also need to send Xmas cards.

Yes. This. Also, I have fruitcakes to get in the mail. (Good fruitcakes, not doorstops)

Secret Santee: I may be a little late. My shopping and shipping time got foreshortened considerably. Sorry about that.

Ah, 2004. You were a pretty good year to me, but not a kind one to my friends. I could have done without the politics, the drama, and the life-threatening and cheekbone-fracturing accident. However, the positive outweighed the negative, as proven by this chronological list:

stepped back onstage for the first time
moved in (again) with Z
got good reviews for my second acting venture of the year
got married to Z
reconnected with beloved aunt & uncle
got great reviews for my one directing gig
went to Seattle for Hallowe'en, and hung out with truly cool people
managed to get the cats to emulate some semblance of co-existing peacefully
survived a fall that by all rights should have killed me
still managed to have friends over for Thanksgiving, 2 days after surgery

Not too shabby, I think.