I'm off to Boston. . .

There’s musician
sitting contemplatively
on my front steps –

And I must say,
I agree with him.

The whole fucking world has gone mad.

His name is Ian,
and he’s from Liverpool.

The strange thing is,
he looks like Lennon did
in the late ‘70s -

Thin
and worn
and wise
and calmer than he should be
given the raging chaos of the world.

And I wonder -

Had Lennon just resigned himself
to the hopelessness of inertia?

The Vikings just signed Brock Lesner. Is that a perfect match or what?

For several weeks, I've been thinking about doing a WMT Retrospective - sharing my favorite posts from Words Mean Things. The thing I've been wrestling with most is trying to narrow down my list of favorites. And finally I've decided that I refuse. To narrow them down, I mean. Instead I'm going to share them with you in small chronological chunks. Starting today.

Reading back through Adam's entries triggered as many vivid memories as flipping through a photo album. Mental snapshots of where I've been, the phases of life, of growth. . . it made me realize how irreplaceable time spent with good friends is and how casual silly conversation can counterbalance the darker, rockier patches of life.

As I started reading through posts from 2000, the first months of WMT, it struck me what a lifetime ago that was. When 2000 began, I was 22 years old, and I think I aged ten years that year.

I had to sit back a moment and come up for breath from beneath the tidal wave of memories that came crashing back.

For me, 2000 opened with the return from a ski trip to Colorado financed by the return of an engagement ring turned down a year earlier and finally taken back by the sadistic-jeweler-from-hell who made me beg and plead in tears to refund the purchase.

Not a good way to start a year by any means, but wait. It gets worse before it gets better.

On the heels of that ski trip, I returned immediately to Madison and proceeded to go to a New Year's party at a nearby hotel which I attended with some dear friends, the cousins of a member of the band playing the party. The member of the band of course being the person who was and is, as Adam affectionately nicknamed, The Love Object.

Mere days after that event, one of my best friends got married which, aside from having just taken a trip on a refunded engagement ring of my own, was jarring because I've known her since kindergarten and I knew she would be moving away to start her new life - hundreds of miles away - two weeks later.

On the heels of that event, I resigned from my first real job and a few weeks after that, started a brand new job with much more responsibility. By that point the breakup of my six-year relationship was finally complete.

By May I'd turned 23, by June hosted a major week-long event for 300 high school students and about 100 business volunteers. (And met Chad.) By July, I hosted my second major program and arrived safely and successfully on the other side. And somewhere in there I think I attended my first SummerFest. Twice actually, once with Sharif and once with Chad.

That summer is when WMT was born. It coincides with a giant turning point in my life, and I truly believe that both are cause for celebration.

Four of my five favorite WMT posts of the year 2000:

July 7 - Rich.

July 27 - Doomed.

July 28 - Charleton Heston.

July 31 - Andy Rooney.

It is the levity and wit of observations like these that put a silver lining around thunderclouds looming on the horizon.

July also marked the beginning of a misadventure in dating - Bryan - a Milwaukee cop I met during a bachelorette party. He said he noticed me walking down the street when I was two blocks away. (Could it be because I was dressed in multi-colored sequins accompanied by half a dozen other girls in bad prom dresses singing drunkenly at the top of our lungs?!?) My dear friend Andrea, the bride-to-be, promptly asked if he wanted to come to the reception with me. Uhh... I think I turned 8 shades of red.

I do have to admit that I had to catch my breath when he walked into the reception wearing a black on black suit with a silver tie and holding flowers. A few months of sporadic dating and that was done. He turned out to be a smoking-like-a-chimney pothead. The thing that sticks in my head perhaps most is the "Screaming Semen" sticker on the back of his car. Classy, very classy.

Obviously, there was another trauma in that my friends Andrea & Sharif got married.

By the end of August, I had co-hosted our five year high school reunion which was a tangle to say the least. Those of you that were there know what happened. I had also applied for a passport and put myself on a plane to Australia with a guy I had only known for six months to stay with a guy I had never met. (P & B, I'm glad you guys turned out to be such a blast.) And thanks for the introduction to Vege-mite.

Flew back from Australia alone, as I had to get back to work, and literally came straight off the plane from Denver with a gay man from Seattle with whom I was a co-facilitator of a week-long leadership program for university students at a convent in Madison. (You just can't make up stuff that's zanier than the truth.)

In September, the guy who had become one of my best friends moved thousands of miles away. That took some getting used to. I filled part of the time with Bryan, and several weeks with Dave, an accountant that I met randomly at a birthday party in Platteville of all places. Remember that one, girls?

Classic memory: It was Jessica's b-day and we went to K-Mart to buy black hair dye for Carrie's hair. While checking out, J realized she had lost her car keys. So we started searching and headed out to the parking lot only to find that the keys were locked in the car - and it was running! Even bigger shock, I had forgotten to lock my door, so the car was actually unlocked and running in the parking lot at the Platteville K-Mart. Oh, the good times we've had.

In October, I spent a week in Pennsylvania. It was cool - a good way to wrap up a summer of Macy Gray and personal transition.

November 27 - Snowballs.

Which finally brings us to December during which a bunch of us gathered in St. Paul and went to the Bare Naked Ladies/Guster concert. After having a few too many Miller Lites, Jessica and I stood in line with screaming teenie-boppers to get our own autographs from the fabulous guys of Guster. . . in Sharpie marker. . . in unidentified bodily locations. I seem to also remember a group photo of a gang-hug of a random Snoopy sculpture.

2000 = Lots of Trauma. (Scratch that...LOTS OF TRAUMA.) But more importantly, LOTS of Good Times.

Now that I think about it, I do have one exciting piece of news.

As of yesterday, there are less than 300 days left until graduation! Thank God. I'm tired of being a student. And even more so, I'm sick of living in NYC. (perhaps more thoughts on that later)

For now, just happily looking forward to a change.

I haven't had much to say. . . but maybe today.

Just discovered that I missed a gallery showing of Wassily Kandinsky's work last week. I'm bummed. He's one of my all-time favorite painters.

What I really want to know is. . .

was John Denver under-appreciated?

(At the request of my little brother, I downloaded much, much John Denver tonight. Would they actually put me in jail for that? I mean, it is John Denver, and he is dead afterall.)

Well, I'm once again back in NYC. Spent the long holiday weekend soaking in the vast expanses of the Midwest. Everything was beautiful and we had a great family gathering at my aunt and uncle's yesterday for the 4th.

It was nice to catch up with everyone, especially for a reason other than a funeral. One of my grandmothers isn't doing so well though, and I expect she may pass on soon.

On a much happier note, I found out that several of my friends are expecting their first/second children.

Wow. Babies.

I can barely remember to buy milk, let alone be responsible for another human being.

Speaking of other humans, as of today my roommate is finally living here.

Now, more and more I wonder where you are -
Do I ever cross your mind, anytime?
Do you ever wake up reaching out for me?
Do I ever cross your mind, anytime?
- Brian McKnight, Anytime

Well I fall,
I fall at your feet –
and I am undone.
Erin McKeown