{"id":115,"date":"2004-11-18T10:56:45","date_gmt":"2004-11-18T17:56:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/blog\/?p=113"},"modified":"2004-11-18T10:56:45","modified_gmt":"2004-11-18T17:56:45","slug":"year-four","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/2004\/11\/18\/year-four\/","title":{"rendered":"Year Four"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"storycontent\">\n<p>Today would mark the four-year anniversary of my relationship with Emily (you know, if that whole &ldquo;break-up&rdquo; thing hadn&rsquo;t happened). To mark the occassion, I sent her an e-mail, said thanks for the time we spent together and that I thought she was a wonderful person. I got a similiar note in return. It&rsquo;s good to be amicable, though I admit sometimes I regret that things didn&rsquo;t work out better between us. I like the direction of my life right now, and I wouldn&rsquo;t change it; but there&rsquo;s always the thought that I just didn&rsquo;t try hard enough. Enough. Enough though, it&rsquo;s a vain game to play in one&rsquo;s head, and ultimately futile. I wish happiness and fulfillment (to everyone) and am ready to move on with everything.<\/p>\n<p><em>To Emily: Happy Anniversary (or non-anniversary, really);<br \/> Wish I could give you a big hug, at least.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&ndash;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/brendanthemes.com\/\">Brendan<\/a> has some good links involving activites in Fallujah; you know, if you feel a little too optimistic about life right now.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/esquire.com\/features\/articles\/2003\/030922_mfe_isabella_1.html\">This article<\/a> is fascinating, as is the associated <a href=\"http:\/\/shes.aflightrisk.org\/\">blog<\/a>, if you&rsquo;re interested as I am in the idea of fiction blurring with reality. Who knows if these things are true, and who cares. Life&rsquo;s more interesting if you believe that these things are happening all around you, all the time. To paraphrase <a href=\"http:\/\/karro.blogspot.com\/\">Karla<\/a>, we&rsquo;re all living our own autobiographies: we pick the music, the camera angles, and the actors we play with. Some of these stories overlap, and some of them read like spy novels. That&rsquo;s what makes life interesting. I may not have upscale private detectives tracking my movements across the globe, sent by a <em>Don Corleone<\/em> father with deep pockets and an arranged marriage waiting in the wings; but I lead a life of private adventure, and I&rsquo;m happy with it. And despite <a href=\"http:\/\/wonderyak.org\/blog\/b2trackback.php\/28\">Nick&rsquo;s list of reasons<\/a> not to move to Canada, I think I will. Or at least, I&rsquo;m going to do my damndest to end up in Montreal by next fall, and to stay there for at least two years. Besides, I like the metric system. Thanks to all you kind strangers for your encouragement in this. It&rsquo;s past time for me to jump ship for a bit and see where the current carries me.<\/p>\n<p>&ndash;<\/p>\n<p>So, I nearly joined the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.foe.com\/history\/index.html\">Eagles<\/a> here in Olympia, mostly because the Eagle&rsquo;s Hall is where we swing dance, and Christine, the main swing organizer in town, is a big Eagles campaigner. I was supposed to be initiated this last Tuesday, actually, &rsquo;til I thought about it and realized that I really didn&rsquo;t know anything about this organization. It&rsquo;s a community organization dedicated to &ldquo;people helping people&rdquo;, but it still seems more to me like a cult, and I can&rsquo;t help but wonder if the values they choose to uphold are really the values I want to spend $60 a year supporting. Christine was disappointed, because in the end it&rsquo;s all about saving the ballroom for our dance. I told her I&rsquo;d gladly donate $30 specifically to save our dance space, but I didn&rsquo;t feel like selling my soul to a &ldquo;fraternal order&rdquo; so early in my life. Am I just crazy, or does a group like this kind of scare anyone else?<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today would mark the four-year anniversary of my relationship with Emily (you know, if that whole &ldquo;break-up&rdquo; thing hadn&rsquo;t happened). To mark the occassion, I sent her an e-mail, said thanks for the time we spent together and that I thought she was a wonderful person. I got a similiar note in return. It&rsquo;s good [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,17,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ahniwa.com\/old\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}