grendelkhan (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} grendelkhan) wrote,@ 2007-09-13 23:34:00 |
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| Entry tags: | photography |
another year.
In general, I hope to in any given year look back and think of how far I've come since the last; I hope to stand higher and feel wiser, to have acquired skills, qualifications and valuable experience, to be healthier, happier and measurably closer to various goals that I've set for myself.
From that perspective, I have succeeded this year. I've read at least one Big Idea Book (The Ancestor's Tale), and I'm three-fourths of the way to finishing that library science degree that I started on a lark. I have teeth which are not actively decaying for the first time since... well, I don't know, as I wasn't getting regular dental care, but almost certainly before high school. My cooking has improved greatly, as have my Java skills. I may not like my job, but I'm certainly better at it than I was a year ago.
On a more personal level, Carin and I are doing much better than we were a year prior. It's not that we don't get into situations that would have in the past led to us fighting; it's just that we're both dealing with them like mature adults. As is my birthday traditions, if I met the me of a year ago, I'd smack 'im. We made it through a rough patch when we hardly saw each other for a few months. (It's not that we were fighting or anything; it was a rough patch because working, sleeping, working, sleeping is a draining cycle when you don't get to do any of the good stuff in between.)
We've carved out some regular slices of time for ourselves, where I cook for her, or we read to each other before bed, or just flop on the couch and act silly--when I poke her nose, she wrinkles it up in the cutest way possible, and bats at my hands like a cat. It's pure distilled adorableness.
Adulthood has been a challenge in a number of ways for me; principally, I've been disappointed at the weight of obligations--by which I mean constantly being at work or preparing to go right back to work--and if I didn't have someone with whom I could pack a ton of what I refer to as the good stuff into the little time we have available to us, well, life in general would suck pretty hard.
Thanks, Carin.
This year's birthday festivities have been pretty much entirely organized by Carin. She's been fantastic in this specific context as well as the general one outlined above. Last Saturday, she rallied the troops up at the Cat's place, where along with him and Katie, we saw Eric (who had been traipsing all over Europe during the summer, lucky fellow he), Cubes and Erica, who I don't remember when I saw last. The boys watched UFC and ate nachos while the ladies went out for girly drinks (and other mysterious girly things), then we reconvened for singing and presents.
I don't think it was terribly meaningful to have a room full of people sing "Happy Birthday" to me in the past, but it certainly is now. I couldn't say exactly why it makes me warmly happy, but it does. The swag (a stack of books--they know me!) was just delicious gravy; the best present I can get from my friends is simply to get to see them.
As for today, Carin set up some things in the apartment such that when we got home, I sort of waltzed around the apartment to find the things she'd acquired over the last (I don't know how long she'd been planning it)--a bottle of delicious tawny port, a new DDR pad, a box of Jelly Bellies, dinner that had been marinating since last night, a coffee-table anatomy book that's very nearly the size of our coffee table as well as a huge book of da Vinci's paintings, and, most impressively, scads of artwork including a wall display made of nine little watercolors of cats. (I do so enjoy her cat drawings.) I think she's started to take as much joy in stashing clever things around the apartment as I do when her birthday rolls around.
Since it's still my birthday, I'm going to put off writing about the things I alluded to in the last paragraph of my previous post. Yes, they're interesting, but I'll dork about them later. (That, and having finally gotten 'round to watching "Art School Confidential" tonight.) There's time to be spent with my sweetie; I believe I'll be reading to her about Hox genes this particular evening.
