2016. Goodbye and good riddance!

I can't say that 2016 was the worst year of my life, since it's the year our daughter was born, but it was definitely the hardest and most stressful year of my life.

I don't think I'm alone in looking forward to seeing 2016 in the rearview mirror.

 

But you got Trump!

 

Didn't make up for everything else -- though I know it's part of the reason that many are disgusted by 2016.

 

I know, you really miss old_tony.

 

Our daughter was born this year, too. I love her more than anything. And my son really blossomed into a great and smart kid. And our family is stronger and closer for it.

But I also lost my dad, and it was a pretty long, grueling ordeal for all of us, most of all him.

After that, celebrity deaths don't even register.

My family didn't crack under the pressure or the deluge of suck, though, so I'll count my blessings and keep moving.

 

Similar year, and take, for us.

 

I was having a very good year until mid-October, when I had a falling out with a really good friend over something I thought was very minor.

It's pretty much sucked since then.

 

Moved several steps closer toward bringing a full-service boutique hotel to our downtown.

Everything else was minutiae in the mashed potatoes of life.

 

2016 can fuck off.

 

It's been an ordinary year for me. Some nice moments; nothing that has really sucked. But there's still another 17 days remaining to this year, which is plenty of time to something to happen to fuck it all up.

 

From an exterior standpoint, 2016 was bad to meh. I am a huge Olympics dork and all of the problems with Rio made it difficult to enjoy without guilt. None of my favorite sports teams accomplished much of anything major. I have always had a high engagement level with politics and current affairs, but I think this time out it was too high, and not just because I have spent the last few weeks trying to rationalize why the Trump administration doesn't constitute an existential crisis for American democracy.

But enough about that, since this isn't the place for such discussions.

From a personal standpoint, it hasn't changed dramatically, but that's not necessarily a good thing. I've been in a new city since August of 2015. I had hoped the change of scenery would open up avenues socially and maybe romantically, and that really hasn't happened at all. Working five nights a week, including Friday and Saturday, doesn't help, but I also think it may be a built-in crutch, too. I've tried to extend a hand of friendship to other local media people in hopes of knowing folks that work similar schedules and have similar struggles, but that hasn't gone much of anywhere either, primarily since I work copy desk now so it's not like I'm sharing a sideline with them. Mostly just light Twitter jokes that don't go anywhere. The only people in my apartment building who know me by name are moving out this weekend. My younger sister had her second kid this summer and I'm the only unmarried guy in my fantasy league, all of which I remember on Saturday nights after my weekly pint or two (but never more than that, since I have to drive myself home). Sorry for the downer, just spitting that out.

There have been a few recent highlights. I'm active in a church where I can really express my talent for music but yet I'm not buried in activities like I used to be. (I'm a choral tenor, so that's not going to improve anything in the previous paragraph.) I decided walking and golf while walking weren't getting it done, so I've been hitting the local Y 3-5 times a week since the weather turned. I have run a mile without stopping twice in the last week (Monday was in 10:08?!), have a strength program with Nautilus machines that I follow, and though I'm concerned that I may lose more weight this week by getting a haircut than I have achieved thus far at the Y, I do feel like I have accomplished something.

As far as work, today was a big relief to find that our copy desk's hub integration process will not keep me from occasionally doing the paper I moved here to do, nor does the final plan appear to be as brazen a plan to ratfuck the Guild as the one we were floated last week. We'll see if any of them work, but it's nice to know that, at least if I'm in a clusterfuck, it's not an intentional one? (That probably doesn't make any sense.)

So, in short, 2016. Not very good, but not particularly bad.