LJ: too oh oh too ree vyoo

I'm having a small bit of difficulty trying to summarize 2002 in my head. There was no major, overarching theme, I don't think, to the year.

One of the themes from the year, I suppose, was the development of friendships through the course of the year with people I've met since I moved down here. Michelle, Ian, Monique and Justin have all become rather important parts of my life in the past twelve months, while people from the past have faded substantially. The only folks I'm still in regular contact with from my pre-DC days are Hanson and Trish (who moved out of the area in August), Craig, Mel, Liz & Paul (who I got to see just before Thanksgiving when they were in town for a day), Nicole, and Guthrie. I spent a few hours with Stacey back in August as well, but for some reason I can't seem to maintain a stable line of communication with her. I'm not lamenting any of this - the folks who have fallen away were destined to do so because of a lack of commonality - people change and all that. Those that remain are more or less stable forces in my life, and will probably remain that way into the future.

Chris and Trish are in the throes of moving their lives to Boston. A marriage proposal is imminent there (delayed only by the fact that the ring was stolen from Chris while he was on the train coming back from visiting her in NJ over Thanksgiving). Craig and Lisa have postponed their wedding plans for the moment, as they have been having serious issues of late. Craig is moving to LA this month to more actively pursue a writing career (he's been making some serious in-roads in getting the attention of Rick Berman). Lisa is likely moving to LA later in the year (June is the target at the moment), as she's trying to get a position with Cedar-Sinai out there. Mel is happier than I've seen her in a long time. I called her for her birthday over a month ago, and we talked for a good while about life. Emma's 2nd birthday is less than a week away, and I can't imagine Mel being happier than she is right now. She's doing really well at Skychefs dealing with personnel management issues, plus doing that whole domestic thing. Liz & Paul are doing better than they have been in a while. Liz finally got a full-time teaching position, and she loves her kids and the work she's doing with them. I hate that they're so far away, because it was almost like 2.5 years hadn't passed since we last saw each other.

Nicole has straightened her life out to some degree, though she is still frustrated to some extent in not being able to find a stable circuit of friends. But, as far as I can tell, she no longer gets to the depths she was at a couple of years ago. I saw her for the first time in many months at the end of my Christmas break, and it was fine. I had something of a revelation about her impact on my life in the first half of last year, when I realized (with help from Michelle) that Nicole was very much like a narcotic to me, an assessment I relayed to her later in the year, and one she very much agreed with. As long as we continue to remember that fact, that short amounts of time are okay, but longer visits are potentially and likely explosive, we should be fine.

At the beginning of the year, I was still kind of getting over Michelle. I was still somewhat attached to her, still a little upset over the way things went, still missing her slightly, but I was definitely well on the way to where I'm at now. We're not as close as we used to be, and I see her differently now than I did a year ago. There definitely was something superficial about those two months, and while I can't definitively pin a reason on all of that happening, it probably was just as simple as she needed an outlet, a valve from whatever was going on with Bill at the time. She broke up with Bill mid way through the summer, promptly put herself back on the market and promptly got snatched up again. She seems to be happy now, and now that her personal life is no longer in a constant state of flux and turmoil, she's been leaning on me less and less.

When we lost Metro as a venue for the shows over the summer, we moved into the old Rupperts restaurant on 7th street, right across to where the new convention center is going up. The Cherry Red regulars (including Monique, newly appointed as the Associate Producer (as Michelle's job was redefined as Producing Director)) spent a week renovating the space to get it ready for Spamlet. It was the first time I'd worked with any of them outside of a show, and Ian was somewhat surprised, to a degree anyway, of the kind of person I am. While we were hanging lights, he was regularly brought to fits of giggles by stuff I was saying. At one point, he said something to the effect of, "When we're not in a show, you're really laid back - it's good to see that." Ian counts me among one of his closer friends here, and I have certainly made myself a very valuable part of his team. Cherry Red has become, most likely, the most important thing in my life, surpassing even ACG. I remarked not too long ago that I didn't really consider Cherry Red a job as such. It's where I socialize with friends, and in that regard its fairly remarkable, especially as fully-functional theater companies go. Wherever my life takes me after DC, Cherry Red is likely to be the most positive memory I have of this place. Ian is largely responsible for that.

I met Monique just over a year ago, when rehearsals for Angel Shit started up. It wasn't really until the beginning of this season, well into Spamlet's run, that we started having conversations just between us, without Ian, or Jenn, or anyone else around. I've always viewed her as operating on a level just a bit higher than me, which probably intimidated me to a small degree. From September through November, we worked together on Spamlet, Thumbsucker and started the process for Dingleberries, then there was that one day where something clicked in my head (November 9 or 10), and I started to see what an incredible artist & woman she is. Despite my protestations to the contrary a couple of weeks ago, I still haven't been able to entirely dismiss this crush I have on her. We went out to Eat First during our break this past Saturday between rehearsal and performance - we spent two hours eating and talking - she told me a good deal about her film career, such as it is - and were astonished when I looked at the clock on my phone and noticed that it was 6:27. I really like the fact that we're communicating so well. I just hate that the good communication seems to be coming at the price of my sanity. I know, rationally, that I simply cannot date Monique, but that doesn't seem to make a whit of difference when I'm sitting across the table having dinner with her and just watching those amazing blue eyes of hers. And I wish beyond wishing that this were just something sexual, some lust thing, because then I'd know it would go away sooner rather than later. But when the dreams I have about her involve me waking up next to her, burying my face in that hair of hers and kissing the back of her neck, when that's the most ambitious thing I can think of in my dream because anything more would just be too damn good, I can't imagine what else besides a flat-out rejection can snap me out of this.

Outside of my little world, I remember 2002 as being largely uneventful. But then I remember October. The sniper attacks down here were grueling to endure, if only because of their randomness. It became an unnerving thing to have to go out and get gas and do all the banal things that suddenly became life-threatening. My brother was incredulous when I told him, about two weeks into the ordeal, that I hadn't filled up my gas tank in a while simply because I didn't want to be standing still outside for that long a period of time. Why, he couldn't fathom, would anyone let this nutcase affect their own behavior, wasn't that giving in to the fear. But as it was with 9/11, it's a much different thing when you're in the middle of the headline instead of just watching it play out on the news. The sniper attacks were nowhere near as traumatizing as 9/11 was, but it was just another example of how vulnerable we are at every second, every corner. And as with 9/11, things around here have gone back to normal, after a brief(er than last year) period of everyone being really nice to each other and glad to be alive.

So what of 2003? Well, for some reason, I don't have very good feelings about this year. First of all, I just don't like the overall shape of the numbers of the year. Ok, that deserves a little explanation. I have this theory that some words are better to use than others simply because of the overall shape of words made by the shapes and combinations of the letters in them, regardless of their meaning. For instance, ephemera is a lovely word aesthetically - not for what it means or how it's used, but just for the way the word looks. Unattractive words - of which I can think of no clear examples at the moment - might include thyroid, deer, trump... I can't think of a simple way to describe this effect, just that I know it when I see it.

So, yeah, the same idea applies to numbers. Regardless of what happened in it, 2002 is a pleasing year to the eye, as is 2000. But for some reason, 2003 is a little disturbing. So there's that aspect of it for me.

But beyond that psychosis (there's an unattractive word for you), I'm afraid of what's going to happen in the world this year. It's almost a surefire bet that we're going into another major conflict with Iraq this year, probably even this month. Last time, it was scary because it was the first time I really noticed war for what it was. This time, it's potentially even scarier, because we're not the invincible power we once were, and even the people who are responsible for protecting us say that another terrorist attack at least as large as 9/11, and there's a pretty decent chance that the next one would involve some sort of weapon of mass destruction, and the attacks would likely come here and in New York, just like last time. Considering that bin Laden's whole crusade against the US can be traced back to the housing of "infidel" US troops on "sacred" Saudi soil during the first Gulf War, the prospect of creating another bin Laden in the upcoming war is none too reassuring. I guess the idea here is to keep the eye on the prize. Everyone wants Saddam out, but no one wants to actually be the one to do it. So I guess if we win, and Saddam's killed or overthrown or whatever, then we've succeeded, and it will likely have been worth it. But from where I'm sitting right now, before the guns have started firing, the getting there looks really hard.

Personally, I have little notion of what could change in the coming year. I resolved last year to be kissing someone when 2002 ended. That didn't come even remotely close to happening, so I'm not going to make anything even resembling that kind of sweeping resolution. I resolve to fix the things I can fix, affect the things I can affect, make those immediately around me glad they know me, and deal with everything else with as much grace and effectiveness as I have at my command.