Year End Roundup: 2009

2009.

I think I might've been mistaken about you.

In my head, I thought I couldn't wait to be rid of you. That you were one of the worst years ever. The economy was crumbling. I had a horribly stressful job that I hated. Michael Jackson died. Creed got back together. People freaked out over health care reform. Glenn Beck became creepily popular. I began to worry a lot about the future.

Then I began looking at photos I had taken over this past year. Of all the things I've done and all the time I've spent with friends and the adventures we've had. And then I realized that I was wrong about this year. I had let too many little things get me down, too many things I couldn't control.

This year was actually really great. I've done many things I'd been too scared to do before and gone places I've never been able to before and had many, many good times.

So, let's epic-ly review...2009. In pictures!

JANUARY

I rang in the New Year, as usual, with Linnea. This time at a big party at Mallary's Arlington house.


January marked a few significant events. The most memorable of them involving a trip up to New York with Megan and Skye, where we watched ourselves get a brand spankin' new president. Other people migrated to our home base of the DC area to watch the inauguration. But we wanted to be different. Instead we watched it in Times Square, on all the huge big screens. Sure, there was weirdly no sound on any of the screens, but it was just as cool.



It was also during that trip where we saw this young wizard naked on Broadway (and I've never been able to watch a Harry Potter movie in quite the same way again).


FEBRUARY

One of my favorite things in February was my trip to Seattle, marking the first time I've ever taken a trip alone. It was scary as hell, but it was worth it and I had an amazing time.


I also got to see Dan Savage in person twice in one week!


MARCH

March was a good month. It marked many things. Including the first time that we went out for St. Patrick's Day, as a group.


It was also marked the anniversary of the birth of that dark forest of a man, Mr. William Shatner. I went and played Shatner-themed Cranium (dubbed "Crane"-ium, after Denny Crane of Boston Legal) at Lisa's fiance's apartment.


Megan and I took in a lot of events at the Kennedy Center. We also took in a lot of the view from their terrace.


Jenny and Chris also came to visit and I was reminded how much I missed having them around on a near-daily basis.


APRIL

April. I got to go to Megan's and make festive Easter cupcakes for the first time. Seriously, aren't these adorable?


It also began to get nice and warm again, which meant I could spend more time outdoors with friends.


MAY

May was a huge month. I went to Philadelphia one day, to watch a kinetic sculpture derby race.


And then a couple of days after that I went to Boston to go see The National.


On the way to the concert, I walked by Fenway Park. This would've been really cool if I was a Red Sox fan.


JUNE

June was also a crazy month. I saw a warehouse full of art in DC.


Mallary and I drove 6 hours to Watkins Glen, New York, to camp out with other crazed fans and see The Mountain Goats play in a barn.


Mallary and I also tried out Ethiopian beer for the first time, which was delish.


JULY

July was EPIC. Mostly because of Marianne and I's trip to Ireland.



I also moved out of my mom's house and Skye and I moved into a big, grown-up apartment together!


Boaz, one of my rats, passed away suddenly. I still miss his spazziness and complete inability to sit still.


AUGUST

August involved getting settled in to the new apartment.


Megan, Skye, Megan's mom, and I also went down to Colonial Williamsburg for a weekend. It was the first time I've ever been there, even though I'm a Virginian and you think I would've gone like...a bajillionty times by now.


We got to see the American Revolution begin, as it does every day in Colonial Williamsburg...promptly at noon.


Megan left for Morocco, and I thought that I would have to spend the entire next year missing her (but then she came back a year early and my heart was whole again!)


SEPTEMBER

In September, Skye's friend Allison came to stay with us while looking for a place and a job in DC.


Megan, Anna, and I went to New York to see some Broadway shows


Though sadly, not Spiderman, which has yet to open.


Marianne moved to Spain to be a teacher, and so we had our last ever meal at Tippy's Taco in Fairfax. I really miss Marianne and I's Tippy's trips, which we would take whenever she was home from college.


Marlowe also passed away this month. I'll always miss Marlowe, even if I get rats again. Marlowe would've made a great ambassador for rats. He was so wonderfully affectionate and sweet.



OCTOBER

We were officially into fall now, which brought many things, including a trip back to Fredericksburg to visit old college haunts.


Burlesque shows...


The Equality March in DC (which actually did pass marriage equality legislation, huzzah!)


And of course, that greatest of holidays, Halloween. Symbolized here by a carved orange pepper (Harris Teeter was out of pumpkins).


NOVEMBER

I think I suffered from a lack of picture-taking initiative in November. It seems as if the only pictures I have are from the camera on my phone from concerts I went to. But I did go to a crap-ton of concerts in November!

Public Enemy (sorry, it's with an iPhone so it's a very dark, blurry pic of Flava Flav...but you can see the big-ass clock!)


The Mountain Goats...the 3rd time I'd seen them that year.


And Saul Williams, as his alter-ego Niggy Tardust


I also saw Cold Cave and Metric in November, but sadly have no photos of either or those. Sigh.

DECEMBER

And now we finish off the year!

We had not one, but two snow-storms this month. The later, being the more intense, blizzard-y, 2-foot of snow affair, referred to nation-wide (or Twitter-wide, at least) as the great Snowpocalypse.


Megan turned 24!


And Skye and I put up our very own Christmas tree!


So that's my pictorial year in review! It's actually been a pretty fun year I think, and I've realized that I've actually done a lot of cool stuff, met some neat new people, and had plenty of hijinx.

So here's to 2009 and hoping that 2010 will be even more epic!