Rather cliche year-end survey

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?

Quite a bit... It's been an eventful year, if not in too many positive ways. For the first time I did an actual hospitalization treatment program for my ED, got hooked on the Simpsons (albeit twenty years late, really), busked, got a ferret, got on welfare.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don't remember making any, actually. This year my new year's res's are: money and a book draft.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Doesn't quite count as someone close to me, but Linda, a blogger I've been following for quite a while now, had her second and he is just absolutely cute. Also my... I'm not sure how she'd be 'related' to me... My partner's mom's cousin's granddaughter had a kid. Hee. Also, my close friends Marque and Dylan had their first beautiful baby girl, Emma Rose. Seriously, I love babies and kids in general but this little baby is gorgeous beyond cute.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

A good friend of mine from back East was murdered. It sucked. And I still keep thinking about him and wondering what the hell is wrong with people.

5. What countries did you visit?

"Can we list counties instead? Because not so much with the exotic travel in 2008." I like and am yoinking Linda's answer here. Aside from no money to travel I had no car to travel with for the latter half of the year...

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?

Hahaha money. I know, I know, money won't buy me love and it won't make me happy and all that crap... But people who say money is worthless have never scrounged for pennies to buy something, anything to eat. I will not hesitate to say that poverty can be a severe damper to recovering from an eating disorder.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

January 24th, the day I started inpatient; September 20th, my four year anniversary!; October 31st, my first night on the floor at Nordstrom's. There are other dates which, for their trauma, ought to be seared in there but for better or worse I seem to have blocked them out. Quite literally...

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Not getting evicted, arrested, or sent to debtor's prison. Also, getting a good job that I love, being 'wife' and mama to a beautiful lady and our three baby cats and one baby ferret.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Eh. We'll leave it short, sweet, and vague with "car fiasco".

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Aside from the relapse which put me inpatient at the beginning of the year it's been remarkably healthy! Thank jeebus for that one, at least, given all the rest.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

My Blackberry makes me happy every single day it's not got its service suspended. I'm also loving the apartment, the ferret, several super cheap seasons of Futurama, and the blanket I bought/made when I graduated PHP.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Everyone in this country who voted for OBAMAAAA!!! Everyone who voted NO on Prop 8 (seriously, even though the...achem, conservatives, beat us, it still means a lot that we tried). The state of Colorado for going blue as a New Hampshire aristocrat despite all the religious cluster bombs in the Springs! Tina Fey for rocking my world and saving the election. (Uh, in imagination and theoretical application, not literal... Though the offer stands, Ms Fey!)

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Freakin Sarah Palin... Casey Anthony. Blagojevich. Marylin Musgrave and that whoreish chick responsible for Prop 48. Those responsible for Prop 8, too, for that matter. Mugabe, Putin, BUSH (can't forget that bitch, neh?), Israel... Many who deserve to be drenched in kerosene and tossed in a bug zapper this year.

14. Where did most of your money go?

You know, it's seemed that every time I had five bucks there were at least ten people demanding it. Seems you truly can't get a drink of water for free anymore.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

God, I've gotten super excited about many things this year. The election and all things related would pretty much dominate...

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?

Haha, the Obama song. Also Swing Life Away and that one song by Lilly Allen, something something something the way the cookie crumbles something. Both will always remind me of poverty and romance and attempts to romanticize poverty.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:


a) happier or sadder? Happier, undoubtedly - at this time last year I was relapsing hardcore and facing more hospitalization.
b) thinner or fatter? Haha a good ----- 'fatter'.
c) richer or poorer? Poorer...

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Fun, luxurious, relaxing things. You know, massages and cotillions and money baths and other rich things like that.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Worrying... I'm pretty sure I've shaved a good forty years off my life with all the worry this year. Damn, hopefully somehow I'll still be in the black with the years gained from a stint inpatient...

20. How did you spend Christmas?

With cousins and aunts and uncles and thinly connected distant relations and their cute babies. It was a good Christmas!

21. Did you fall in love in 2008?

I had a couple new fuzzy carpet shark loves this year. :-P Molly, who in her short life with us hopefully had as great a time as we did with her, and Charlie, her successor.

22. What was your favorite TV program?

Futurama baby. Also the Simpsons (old seasons, not current crap) have risen steadily in the ranks. South Park remains strong as ever though.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Did I know about Palin this time last year? I don't remember. There's a couple people I'm distinctly angry with at the moment that I wasn't last year but I wouldn't go so far as to say I hate them.

24. What was the best book you read?

Gabriel Garcia Marquez and his sexalicious Hundred Years of Solitude stole my freaking heart, despite all the weirdness. I've read quite a bit this year and enjoyed it all immensely.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Hm... Think her name is Stina Nordenstam. She's sexy.

26. What did you want and get?

A sexy apartment!

27. What did you want and not get?

Money?

28. What was your favorite film of this year?

Hmm... Se7en, Dark Knight, Harold and Maude, uh.... God, my brain is failing me tonight.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I worked on my birthday but I regret it not one bit. There is nothing like working-on-your-birthday sympathy to get great tips!

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

God I hate this theme, but, money.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?

Finally graduating from the Cheesecake Tighty Whiteys and then 'trying'?

32. What kept you sane?

God, a good chemical combination of fluoxetine, lamotrigine, buproprion, crystaline, and THC.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

I am still a complete puddle of mush for my Angelina. Six kids and still sexy... Nom... Also, I would in less than a heartbeat go straight should President Elect Obama ask. I'm really, really sorry Mrs President, but if he asks I don't think I'll have the willpower to say no.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

Props 8, 48, and the whole damn election in general. I narrowly avoided god only knows how many heart attacks this election season!

35. Who did you miss?

My brother. George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Ben Franklin, and whoever those other guys are.

36. Who was the best new person you met?

Erica, Lindsay, Ainsley, Johnnie, Stephanie, Judi, lotsa cool people this year!

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.

You can get by successfully on a lot less than you think you need. That said, there is still a line.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

We'll sit on front porches and swing life away
We get by just fine here on minimum wage
If love is a labor I'll slave 'til the end
I won't cross these streets until you hold my hand!