Year's End

This was a good yet hard year. Aren’t they all?

These are some of the past year’s posts -- ones that I like most, feel all special about or best illustrate some shit or other. Yes, try to remember that I'm your très sophisticated and eloquent friend...and shit.

There were posts about Neurofibromatosis Type II and the brilliant docs from my Pit Crew:
Good Vibrations   
Dr. Michael McKenna arrived at MGH and onto the Maderer Brain Pit Crew in 1989. He’d missed my first surgery by seven years but he’s been with me for every single one since then.
The Day The Music Died  
It was the year I turned 46 that my hearing took the last train for the coast.

Tales from my wild days as a Carnie:
Carnival Kidnapping
This was at the end of my first season with the show and I was majorly sick of the 1950s-esque restrictions. You know, “don’t sleep with any of the guys unless you’re gonna shack up with him for the season.” You see, everyone would think I was nothing but a stone whore if I just went off for a one night stand. Christ, I thought I’d escaped high school tiny brained male/female horseshit!
Northline
In November of each year, back in the my carny days of the late ‘70s, 5 or 6 different shows ended the season by coming together, melding into one giant carnival in the mall’s parking lot. A collection of small to mid size carnivals became one oceanically colossal midway.
Galahad, Heracles and Keith Partridge
Beware the beautiful, studly Tiger Beat-esque heartthrob lookalikes. More often than not they carry deep senses of entitlement along with the sure knowledge, if only in their own minds, that others will happily do for them.

Essays about friends:
Kevin Alexander Scott
Prior to Kevin there’d been no one I could really let my hair down/ bare the old soul/be utterly ME with. I was too monstrously afraid -- so sure was I that NO one could possibly like me if I showed my true form. (Manticora on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Ljubljana Dragon on Tuesdays and Thursdays -- I take the weekends off ‘natch).
Werewolf with a Chinese Menu
We met at Rodney’s beforehand -  a used and rare book sellers. Meeting there, I’d sorta forgotten, is a sure fire way to fall into a serious fold in time, only to awake 6 hours into the future, dazed and toting a sack of 20 books.

Short fiction and comics!
From Della Marinis -- Through April Woods
I walked ahead because the others dragged their feet. The woods were damp and cool that morning and the sky a deep blue I hadn’t seen in months. The scent was resonant, speaking something other than the city so that I became lost in it and didn’t hear the approaching crackle of leaves underfoot. Not at first.
Brian Luciano -- Wild Ride
I walked into my house with unbelievable pain in my lower back and the realization that Dan was dead -- never coming back to the house. The police had finished questioning me hours earlier and released me.
and Jen, The Pirate Blogger -- The Moosewood Commute
The return of Jen the Pirate Blogger and yes, we rilly, rilly do eat like this.  You may commence with the major league sympathy for Bob and Oni any time you're ready.

We had travel adventures:
Reunions and Language Adventures
Della lives in Berlin and doesn’t get back to the States much -- I live in Boston and don’t need much of an excuse to travel ("oh look, the sun came up -- let’s go!"). Jen and I packed our rucksacks and made our way to the airport.
from Jenny Jones -- An Anniversary in the Gila Wilderness
As a resident of Phoenix, AZ, I always try to get someplace cooler, with lots of trees when I go on vacation. So, to celebrate our fourth anniversary, in October of 2009, my husband John and I chose the Gila Wilderness area in Southwestern New Mexico.

We had poetry
from The Amazing Bob -- A Bird for Nixon and Kissinger
It’s Veteran’s Day -- a complicated thing for Bob and I. He was in the Air Force during Viet Nam -- 2 tours.
from Vonnegut, McGrath and Alexi -- Hyacinths and Biscuits
The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese. -- Golbert K. Chesterton

There were massive changes recounted:
I lost my mother -- this is the post I wrote after my last visit with her just four months before she went on to the great library and pizzelli factory in the sky.
Mother and Food Reunion

This was the year of Jen’s boobectomy and retrofitting.
Stayin' Alive

We provided tremendously valuable instructions and rants:
The Fine Art of Head Banging
I bet you thought there was just one way to do it. Hell, even within the relatively narrow spectrum of Metal, there are at least 3 distinct ways to bang.
Cars are Cars 
 For every Lamborghini, for every Bugati, for every Jaguar there’s a boring ass SUV or 50, along with a whole slew of chubby, featureless smaller boxes. It’s like being in the auto equivalent of a Botero painting only with less color and humor.

Come, set a spell, put on your reading glasses. I’ll get you a nice cup of chianti and tell you a story or 50.

Happy New Year y'all!