Nigel would’ve been 60

Today my Nigel would’ve turned 60, another number that, like last year’s, underscores that we never got the chance to grow old together. That’s still my greatest sadness, not merely because I miss sharing life with him, but also because we lost our future, too—and I lost my future, too. I still haven’t found a replacement for the future that should've been, and I don't know when I will. All of that is front of mind at this time of year.

Last year I wrote about the thing about all this that really is funny to me:

This year, I’m particularly pissed-off. When I turned 59, Nigel often said to me, “Fuck you’re old!” and, “I can’t believe I’m going to be married to a SIXTY year old.” I was very much looking forward to returning the favour this year. However, he’d of course have already started his new jokes at my birthday this past January, with an updated, “Fuck you’re really old!”, and this year he’d have added, “I can’t believe I’m going to be married to a SUPERANNUITANT!”, using a somewhat old-fashioned term for “pensioner” one that he would’ve used precisely because it was old-fashioned: He would’ve felt it underscored me being old. I would’ve pretended to be annoyed and said to him, “Not yet!” every time he said that, just like I did when I turned 59. And we would both have thought that what we were saying this year was hilarious.

I’ve joked about that several times in the year since then, and each time it made me smile. Actually, most of memories of him, and us, and our life together, make me smile. As I also said last year:

And that’s the thing: For me, this grief journey isn’t about being sad and crying all the time, not anymore. Instead, it’s about remembering him, smiling, and laughing at our lame jokes.

To be clear, I think about him every single day, and sometimes I definitely cry, but now I’m far more likely to either be laughing, or maybe thinking about what he would do about something I’m trying to figure out, or I maybe imagine the great discussions we’d have had about the issues of the day, like, for example, he would’ve loved watching the recent Democratic National Convention and talking about it afterward. That sort of thinking makes me feel like I’m getting a warm hug.

Still, I knew this year would be trying for me. First, I had my 65th birthday back in January, and I knew it would be hard on me to reach a fuck, I’m old age without him there to make me laugh about it—and, especially, to reassure me that everything would be okay. That’s why I went to Fiji with family back in January, to do something so utterly different from anything I’d ever done for my birthday, including going to a country that he and I never visited together (that also now mean I've celebrated my birthday three countries, something that Nigel never got to experience, managing only two, as I had until this year).

The second challenge was today, and not just because I never got to tease him about getting old, but more because he never got the chance to get old, and I wanted so damn much to grow old with him. Again, it’s that lost shared future.

The final big anniversary this year will be in a few short weeks when we arrive at the fifth anniversary of his death (how is that even possible?!!!). I won’t speculate on how I’ll feel when that date rolls around, however, each of these dates has become easier every year, so I think—think?—it’ll be basically okay.

Against all that, though, I’ve also had a lot additional stress around applying for my superannuation (NZ government retirement benefit), something that’s been a big—no, huge—topic all on its own, and one I’ll need to discuss in a separate post. However, today I received my first full payment, and in my mind, it was absolutely appropriate that my first full payment should begin on Nigel’s birthday, almost as if, even now, he’s still talking care of me. And who am I to say that he isn’t?

This year, like last year, I went out for lunch with the Hamilton family who were in town, something that was my mother-in-law’s idea. Last year, we went to Saints Public House (a place I’ve blogged about before), and I amused myself thinking that Nigel would’ve joked that it was appropriate for us to go to a place with that name because he was such a saint all his life. However, this year I chose Thai for lunch because it was among his favourite cuisines, and it was what we often did for our birthdays when we lived on Auckland’s North Shore, so I felt having Thai food was the perfect way to celebrate his 60th.

So much has changed even since his birthday last year, and there are so many changes yet to come. Carrying him in my heart and in my memories continues to give me warmth when I’m cold, and comfort when I feel none. What we had isn’t entirely gone, it’s the foundation on which I’m slowly building whatever my future life will be, and that’s no small thing. Still, I'd much rather have him. Of course.

And, yeah, fuck he’d be old this year!

Happy Birthday, sweetheart. Always.

Previously:

Nigel would’ve been 59 (2023)
Nigel would’ve been 58 (2022)
Nigel would’ve been 57 (2021)
Surviving the day and being okay (A 2021 post on how I handled his birthday)
We celebrated Nigel’s birthday (About the party in 2020)
It won’t be a good day (2020 – the first birthday after he died)

Special Note: I didn’t talk about Nigel’s birthday on this blog while he was alive because I wanted to protect him, and so, I didn’t share stuff that was personal to him. I talk about it now because I have no way of knowing who may run across my posts, and maybe they'll help someone else in a situation similar to mine. Besides, I love talking about the most important person in my adult life.

I’m still a helpful blogger

Everyone figures out ways to make everyday life easier for ourselves, and some folks share what they do so others can learn from their experiences. I often do that, too, but it’s been nearly three years since I last published a post specifically about shortcuts (so-called “life hacks”) to make life easier. It’s time to add another hint.

Just like my 2021 post, my first stand-alone helpful hints post was limited to one topic back in 2019, and dealt specifically with something to help dog owners. Today’s post is about a cleaning “hack”. First, though, some background is needed.

As I’ve documented here on this blog, New Zealand has been banning more and more consumer plastics, the most noticeable beginning of which was banning single-use plastic shopping bags in 2019. Since then, the New Zealand government has banned more plastics, and industry has joined the efforts, both of which I mentioned in a post last year. All of this has been awesome to see, and yet, some personal changes have proven harder than others, like doing without plastic bread bag tags.

I finally came up with a workable solution.

Of all the things I re-used those plastic tags for, the most common (and useful) was as small scrapers. In particular, I used them when scrubbing cooking pots, roasting trays, etc. (or cleaning up after painting), any time I wanted to scrape off something that had become stuck on something else. By using the tags, I could avoid using, and possibly damaging, my fingernails or scratching whatever I was trying to clean.

In 2022/3, those plastic tags started disappearing. At first, and sometimes still, they were replaced with brown cardboard, which are not only paper and too flimsy to use as scrapers, they’re also too small to recycle, so I cut them into small pieces and put them in my compost bin. Other companies have used other cardboard or hardened paper, which also don’t work as scrapers.

My solution was to use a cheap plastic paint scraper (example on the photo). Ordinarily such scrapers are used when using chemical strippers to remove paint or some other finish from wood (personally, I prefer metal ones for that work because they last far longer and removed the gunk better). What I use plastic scrapers for are using plaster filler to fill holes in the wall (life nail holes or whatever) because the plastic won’t scratch the paint. The one in the photo is part of a small bag of such scrapers that Nigel bought to use with his 3D printer, so I have plenty.

I only thought to use the scraper recently, and I’ve only had a couple chances to use it a couple times, but both times it worked really well. The fact I can grip it with my whole hand gives me more control and power than I ever had using one of those little bread tags. I highly recommend this method.

And there you have it: Another short, very specific tip to get small household jobs done better. What can I say? I’m still a helpful blogger.

Winter woes grow

If there’s one topic I return to frequently, even if it’s only in a brief mention, it’s my lawnmowing adventures, yet I’ve said nothing about it in ages. It’s just another example of how this winter is progressing—in this case, both good and bad.

Back in July, I published ”Winter of my discontent”, a post in which I said something I can’t remember mentioning before—that I hate winter. I also listed some of the challenges that I’ve faced this year, and all of those are still true, but now there’s another to add to the list: Taking care of my lawns.

I took the photo up top early afternoon on August 1. It shows part of the “lawn” nearest my patio, and how the water was beaded up on the leaves. It’s like that many days in winter.

As I often mention, it rains a lot in winter in the upper North Island, and this year my part of the country is at or above normal rainfall for the season. What this means in practice is that the lawns never truly dry out, and that makes mowing a real challenge. As I said back on June 7:

Mowing… is much harder when there’s been rain, especially when the grass is long, because moisture stays close to the ground for a long time. That makes the lawn much denser than it is when dry, and that can stall the mower if I’m not careful. [emphasis in the original]

My battery-powered mower simply doesn’t have enough power to deal with dense, wet lawns, though some newer models (and other brands) of battery-powered mowers have less problem with that, and petrol-powered mowers manage it pretty well. The past two winters were both much milder, and so I tried to wait two days after rain to let the lawns dry out a bit, but in a winter with at least normal rainfall, like this year, that’s just not an option. There may be no more than one day—or merely part of one—with no rain, and that means the lawns never actually dry out.

This is one of the reasons that nearly two months passed since I last mowed the lawns, however, the other reason is a benefit of winter this year: It’s been cold, and the grass grows very slowly (if at all) when the temperature is low. We started getting very cold (freezing or below) nighttime temperatures back in May, which is unusual. Since then, even the daytime temperatures have often been quite cool or even cold, meaning slow-growing grass. That was a very good thing because it meant I didn’t need to mow the lawns as often as in milder weather—until I did.

By this month, the lawns were getting quite long, the back in particular (which is obvious to me in the photo), and the edges of both needed to be done, too. Tuesday of last week, I finally mowed the front lawn and side yard, including using the line trimmer on the edges. The next day, I finished the back lawn and edges.

There’s a reason I always do the side yard before the rest of the back lawn, especially in winter: I know there won’t be much charge left in the battery, and if I don’t finish the entire back lawn right away, I won’t see a half-done lawn when I look out the windows. An additional benefit is that the shorter grass makes it easier for me to get my rubbish and recycling wheelie bins out of the side yard.

There’s one more aspect to all this, one that is also worse in winter: The lawn mower’s battery itself. My mower’s manufacturer says to store batteries part-charged, which they say extends battery life. However, I’ve read elsewhere that doing that minimises the chance of thermal runaway, explosion, and fire that lithium batteries are notorious for. That’s not a big issue by itself, but it means that tight planning is essential because I need to charge the battery before I can use it, something I try to do using solar power, and daylight hours are short in winter. I managed, obviously.

Thursday of last week, the day after I finished the mowing, the rain returned, and it’s been rainy at least part of every day since. A major weather system moved through the area over the weekend and into today, dumping lots of rain, giving some strong winds, and today we even got some thunder. Still, we had a sunny morning today, so I was able to run my dishwasher using only solar power, something that helps to keep my higher winter power charges somewhat less than they’d otherwise be. Nevertheless, the cold and rainy weather continues to give me challenges (not even talking about comfort), and back in July I talked about what I do:

To cope with that, on the many days with no sunshine, I do power-hungry chores—like running the clothes dryer or dishwasher—after 10pm when the electricity rates are lowest. When I can, I wait until a sunny day to do those sorts of chores so I have free electricity, but that’s not always possible—especially when we have the better part of two weeks with nothing but cloudy or rainy days.

In that same post I mentioned pressing the “boost” button on the device that prioritises sending my solar electricity production (if any…) to the hot water cylinder, and how it was only the second time I’d ever had to do that. Since that July post, I’ve had to do that two more times—and almost did it for a fourth time last night, but didn’t (the sunny morning today made that unnecessary).

All of this added together—the huge amount of rainy, or at least cloudy, days this winter, plus the cold temperatures at night, have made this winter the worst I’ve experienced in years, and it’s definitely the worst I’ve experienced since I moved to Kirikiriroa-Hamilton. I struggled to get the lawns mowed, I needed to boost my hot water cylinder three times (so far…), and I’m often cold, especially in the evening.

Still, it’s not been all bad: That grass I struggled to mow grew more slowly because of the cold, and yesterday when I vacuumed the heat pump filters, they weren’t bad at all, which surprised me considering how much they’ve been running every day and night.

Winter’s been a very mixed bag this year (and more bad than good), but the hopeful thing is that in two weeks we’ll have just started Spring. I wouldn’t mind a warmer- and drier-than-usual Spring, but whatever it is, these winter woes are going to end—eventually. That’s a very good thing.

Memory, realisation, and the Swedes

Facebook “Memories” can be interesting, showing us things we’ve forgotten about, good times, maybe bad times, maybe things we were even proud of. Even so, and despite appearances, I never mention the vast majority of “Memories” that Facebook serves me, and when I do share one here, it’s either to reminisce or to use it as a starting point for commentary of some sort. This post is the latter sort, but one of the “Memories” Facebook showed me today (screenshot above) was about something I don’t seem to have even mentioned here, let alone shared the photo—not at the time or since. That’s not what struck me about it, though: It made me realise something that I’d never thought of before.

The “Memory” was about something I posted on August 13, 2021, soon after I found the AOL diskette in a box in the garage. The text may not be clear, so here’s what I wrote three years ago:

Going through stuff stored in the garage means going through some boxes of my own stuff that I packed up “quite some time ago”. Didn’t know I’d find any antiques, though. Takes one to know one, I suppose. But, seriously: A *floppy disk*?! 😯 I remember when those AOL disks (then CDs) were everywhere. Also, I really am an antique. 😕

I never shared that moment here on this blog, just on Instagram, which automatically posted it to my personal Facebook (which is how it showed up today as a “Memory”). However, I never shared that photo or story here, which is similar to the “Memory” I wrote about on Sunday. In both cases, I have no idea why I didn’t share the photos here at the time.

The bigger thing for me, though, was a sudden realisation: Many people have things they feel should “go to family” when they die, and I do, too. In fact, I was recently thinking about some of the stuff from my childhood that I planned to put altogether so someone can send it to the USA after I’m gone, but then it suddenly hit me: no one will want that stuff. Sure, they might get a kick out of seeing some of it, but after that it should be disposed of—but they might feel guilty doing that.

This is exactly the dilemma that many families face: What to do when you’re willed grannie’s prized china? She loved it, but it might be hopelessly old-fashioned (and not in a good way), and if it’s not even valuable, the recipient will be left feeling they need to store something they don’t want.

There are solutions, of course. For example, before getting rid of inherited stuff, a recipient could ask other members of the family if they want it—maybe someone truly does! But I’ve come around to thinking “Swedish Death Cleaning” is more or less on the right track, though I certainly didn’t think so when I mentioned it back in January 2018. My thoughts about changed, something I talked about in November 2021:

I inherited huge piles of Nigel’s stuff, things that I now have to dispose of, one way or another. I don’t want whoever clears my estate to have to go through the same thing.

And that beings me back to the old-timey diskette. It occurred to me that many of us may have stuff that’s not old-fashioned china or some other thing we have no personal connection to, but things that are much more modern—though no less personal for us. I certainly have loads of old tech stuff that I think is cool or interesting, plus other stuff that has meaning to me—to me. I don’t want to burden others with having to deal with stuff I alone decided they might want, and I’m quite happy to make that decision for them. If I’m on my final days and still of sound mind, then people can tell me if there’s something they want. But otherwise, whatever I leave behind will be cleared after I die. If I still have that diskette by then, it’ll be included.

In the meantime, and hoping that the final clearing of my house is a very, very long time away, I’ll continue to enjoy the things I know to be useful or believe to be beautiful, as I alone define those notions, and also that I’ll continue to reduce the volume of stuff in my house, as I’ve been doing since ever I moved into this house, though I still have a long way to go. Actually, I suppose my attitude is the ultimate expression of optimism: I’m betting that my lifespan also has a long way to go. This clearing of stuff is, for me, a marathon, not a sprint, and I intend to win the race.

I doubt I’ll find any more old diskettes, though.

Left off the map. Yet again.

A very serious international incident occurred today. Sure, it won’t lead to global war, or even sanctions or whatever, but it’s still very, very serious: New Zealand was left off a world map at the Olympics closing ceremony. After the most successful Olympic Games New Zealand has ever had, literally everyone in New Zealand is asking, “How many medals does New Zealand have to win to be included on the map?!”

Okay, so not everyone is talking about this faux pas, but that may be only because we’re used to it: New Zealand is frequently left off world maps. The video up top is from the 100% Pure New Zealand YouTube Channel, a project of and New Zealand Tourism, and it features all sorts of videos promoting tourism in New Zealand. This video features NZ comedian Rhys Darby (who is probably best known for playing Murray Hewitt, the band manager of Flight of the Conchords in the television series of the same name as he tries to find out who’s behind the “conspiracy” to leave New Zealand off of maps. Also in the video is Jacinda Ardern, who was NZ Prime Minister at the time.

The video was released in May, 2018, which may explain why I never shared it here on the blog: That was the month that Leo came to live with us, so my focus was elsewhere. Insteadt, I only shared it on Facebook, writing:

This is joking, BUT it’s something every New Zealander has noticed. First time I noticed it was nearly 20 years ago. We were visiting Universal Studios in California, and, yep, New Zealand was missing from the big globe.

On the other hand, I’ve read that New Zealanders have a superhuman ability to spot the letter “Z” within a full page of printed text without even trying. I’m certain there are studies proving this, but none by American researchers. They keep pronouncing it “zee” so they miss the proof entirely.

I thought that there was a photo of Nigel and me in front of the globe pointing to where New Zealand should be, but I I looked through the album, and don’t have a photo like that. It might be in the video Nigel shot, but I’m not certain where that is, and, anyway, it’s never been digitised and that may not even be viewable anymore: It was shot 25 years ago. To get the general idea, though, here’s a photo Nigel’s cousin took of us in front of the globe (I don’t think I was pointing, or whatever—she probably snapped the photo before I was totally ready). Australia is just above me at the top of the photo—but there’s no New Zealand!

So, New Zealand missing from a world map isn’t really an international incident, though the incident will likely inspire Kiwis’ to use their legendary sarcastic humour to mock the perpetrators, and that may be a bit too pointed for French sensibilities to hear—sacré bleu!—so maybe the international incident is still to come?

All joking aside, it would be nice if various folks stopped leaving New Zealand off the map. Many foreigners have trouble remembering where on the globe the country is, and leaving us off the map doesn’t help. Wait a minute: If we’re left off of maps, maybe the bad people in the world who might start a global war won’t know where we are so they won’t attack us. Hm…

On second thought, never mind.

Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 11

The appeal of pop music, like so many other things, often depends on an individual's taste, and the new Number One this week in 1984 is an example of that. On August 11, 1984, ”Ghostbusters” (video up top), the theme song to the movie of the same name, went to Number One. It was written and performed by American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer Ray Parker Jr.. It was Parker’s only Number One in the USA. The song was the lead single from the film’s soundtrack album.

This song, and the video for it, are both examples of how the appeal of anything in pop culture is personal. I saw the movie Ghostbusters, and enjoyed it as something that was fun and entertaining. However, I wasn’t a huge fan of the song, and that was probably partly because it was played so heavily when it was a hit. But there was also something about the song that seemed, well, off, though at the time I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.

Parker was sued for plagiarism by Huey Lewis who alleged the melody, especially the baseline, were taken from his 1983 hit, "I Want a New Drug". I don’t remember hearing anything about the lawsuit at the time, but when I hear about such lawsuits I’m often indifferent at best, and sometimes extremely sceptical. However, in this situation, the similarity is too close for even me to remain sceptical. Lewis won an undisclosed amount in 1985, but was later sued by Parker when Lewis talked about the settlement in breach of the confidentiality clause in the settlement. So, yeah: Very messy. But the fact I’d heard the Huey Lewis and the News song so much the previous year—and wasn’t all that keen on it, either—maybe that made me less receptive to the “Ghostbusters” song?

Still, the song is definitely a big part of its era, a genuine cultural phenomenon (for a time), and that “who ya gonna call?” line was repeated a lot in many contexts. Similarly, the music video, directed by Ivan Reitman, who also directed the film, was filled with cameos by celebrities of the time: Chevy Chase, Irene Cara, John Candy, Melissa Gilbert, Ollie E. Brown, Jeffrey Tambor, George Wendt, Al Franken, Danny DeVito, Carly Simon, Peter Falk and Teri Garr. According to Wikipedia, “none of the actors were paid for participating but did so as a favor to Reitman”.

I watched the video above when I began this post, and I realised I hadn’t seen it in possibly/probably decades. Watching it again in 2024, I was struck by how very 1984 it is, and the celebrity cameos are certainly part of that feeling. I kept wondering why the celebs were there at all (apart from the fact they were familiar at the time). However, I also knew who each celeb was, so maybe the cameos sort of centred the video in its time? Or, maybe now that so much time has passed, and so have some of the celebs, maybe I should say they anchored it in 1984. The other thing in the video that jumped out at me was all the neon lights—they positively screamed 1984.

Once again, this was a song I wasn’t fond of, the music video probably even less so, but I did enjoy the movie. And so it goes.

“Ghostbusters” reached Number 2 in Australia, Number One in Canada (Platinum), 2 in New Zealand, 2 in the UK (Platinum), and Number One on the USA’s Billboard “Hot 100” and on the Billboard “Hot Black Singles” charts; the song was also Gold in the USA.

The album Ghostbusters: Original Soundtrack Album reached Number 6 in Canada (Platinum), 18 in New Zealand, 24 in the UK (Gold), and 6 on the USA’s “Billboard 200” chart (Platinum). The album didn’t chart in Australia.

This series will return September 1 with another new Number One, and it’s a song that, like “Ghostbusters”, had a three-week run at the top of the charts and was the only Number One for the artist. Obviously, I'm a fan of trivia, too.

Previously in the “Weekend Diversion – 1984” series:

Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 1 – January 21, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 2 – February 4, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 3 – February 25, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 4 – March 31, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 5 – April 21, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 6 – May 12, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 7 – May 26, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 8 – June 9, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 9 – June 23, 2024
Weekend Diversion: 1984, Part 10 – July 7, 2024

Challenges and bright spots

Reminders about our lives and past are literally everywhere, and today I got one following what had been a trying week for me. The reminder was a happy one.

This morning, I saw that Facebook served up another “Memory”, the photo up top. It was of Nigel and me at the Celene Dion concert in Auckland on August 11, 2018, something I barely mentioned at the time, and I'm not sure I ever shared the photo here. When I shared the ”Memory” on Facebook today, I said:

Nigel’s smile in this photo from six years ago today was totally genuine: He loved the concert and had such a good time. He was always a bigger fan of Celine Dion than I was, but I was glad I got to see her, especially because of her challenges we didn’t yet know about. Nigel and I also had no way of knowing that a year later, everything would change forever. I often think about that night in August 2018, and especially how happy Nigel was, and that thought makes me happy, and it also makes me really like this photo, despite the fact I never liked the way I look in it (a common enough thing for selfies I took of us, actually). The following January, we had my birthday party, and there were plenty more smiles. It’s those happy memories that sustain me and give me strength, even now.

The memory came after a challenging time this week. Yesterday, I wrote on Facebook that “the past couple days or so have been a little bit rough, for very different reasons.” On Thursday, I’d gone with some family to the funeral for one of Nigel’s uncles (his mum’s brother), who died last week. His wife died a couple years ago. The two of them were always nice and friendly to me, which isn’t always the case with older folks raised in rural farming communities. They were both particularly kind to me when Nigel died, so I wanted to be there as my last chance to acknowledge and honour their kindness. I met their son (Nigel’s cousin) for the first time (he and his family live overseas), and he told me that his parents had some wonderful stories of Nigel and me, which was nice to hear.

Even so, funerals are extremely difficult for me, for obvious reasons, and it’s really only now that I feel strong enough to go to one. It made for a long day, though, since it was like an hour and a half drive each way (I was fortunate that my brother in law drove).

A little while after I got home Thursday evening, I felt like I had a cold—complete with sneezing, runny nose, and feverish feeling (though I didn’t have a fever). I had an early night.

On Friday, I felt worse—same symptoms, but maybe a bit more intense. I felt intensely lethargic (totally a thing), and pretty grumpy and scratchy. I I told (yeah, “told”, that’s the word…) Leo to shut up when he was barking at the front window. He was probably barking at nothing, but telling him to stop doesn’t actually work, no matter what volume I use, something I’m normally very well aware of. I fell asleep in my chair that night, and didn’t wake up for a couple hours, which wasn’t ideal.

I slept late yesterday, and felt better when I got up, but I’ve had these symptoms off and on over the past week-ish, and I think it’s actually some sort of allergy. One reason I think that, apart from the fact the symptoms are sporadic and I never have a fever, is that I know that pine pollen is around—in fact, it’s along one side of my car (and probably on Leo’s fur when he comes back inside the house).

So, this week my biggest accomplishments have been a few loads of washing and running the dishwasher. Yay. On the (VERY) bright side, three weeks from today is the first day of Spring! It won’t be much (if any…) warmer when Spring starts on September first, of course, but the days are already noticeably longer, and that means the end of my seasonal malaise is nearing—and that deserves a genuine YAY!

But there’s still a lot for me to get through, a fact that led me to add to my Facebook post about the photo. “I’ll need every one of those happy memories this month and next month.” Nigel’s birthday is later this month, and the fifth Horrible Anniversary is next month. Overall, this year has been about as challenging as I expected it to, and in the spots where I expected it, so that’s something, I guess—I was prepared, maybe? At any rate, the photo popping up on Facebook today, and my memory of how damn happy Nigel was that night, were very, very good things (and so is the fact that, for now, I don’t feel yucky.

But the fact that Spring is around the corner? That makes me irrationally happy. This year, it’s especially worth focusing on the good things, and there are always good things. Even for me.