Thursday, December 30, 2010

2010: The Year We Make Contact

The time between Christmas and New Years (Year's? Years'? I don't know) Day is, as you know, traditionally known as List Season. Best Films of the Year. Top 10 Albums. Worst Dressed. Top 10 Garments Made of Meat. The usual stuff.

It is also the time for Year in Review retrospectives, wherein writers take a bunch of disconnected events and force a false symmetry on them because of where they fit within an arbitrary social construct of temporal demarcation. I'm sure the Katy Perry video where she shoots whipped cream out of her boobs and the ratcheting-up of martial tension between North and South Korea have a great many mutually explanatory facets, causes and repercussions. Except I don't remember Snoop Dogg being in that second thing.

Compelled by the inertia of tradition, I will now list for you my Top 10 Personal Experiences of 2010.

1. I got divorced.

I think I'll just stop. From there it just gets depressing.

Actually, breaking news, that point (see #1, above) is now actually literally true. As of today, according to the state of California, I am officially an unmarried man. My ex-wife (I now have an ex-wife) moved out in January, so the process took 11 months and 23 days in total.

I was warned that, however I felt about the process, when it became final, I should steel myself against an untapped reservoir of unprocessed emotion that wouldn't be available for use until the moment arrived. Now that it's here, I'm ready to face it, damn the consequences. And in all raw, unvarished honesty, the first thing that pops into my head: Hellooooo, ladies.

2011 could be OK.

8 comments:

kittens not kids said...

always a silver lining, I guess.

i've really come to loathe these year-end lists & reviews. yours, despite the depressing nature of its content, has the shining virtue of brevity.

it's been a strange, occasionally dreadful, year. i'm hoping 2011 is blandly uneventful.

happy new year, pops.

Joseph Dietrich said...

I am at oneness with this list. The wife got it in just before the deadline.

I've read that it's usually men that start these things off right after the holidays, while women like to wait a little bit before proceeding with the act.

However, this is not always the case.

Anonymous said...

Poplico,

I have two ex-wives. It was painful bofe times. And I have a current wife who will not become an ex. Sometimes you gotta try, try, baby.

Here's a thought for you: my first ex, who was the most nastiest, keeping the children as cudgels to beat me with when they were small, is DEAD NOW! Whoo hoo! Fuck that bitch. Me and my motherless children are tight. Of course, I don't say things like "fuck that bitch" to them. But fuck that bitch anyway.

Poplicola said...

KnK: I'm still up in the air about whether 2010 was net-good or net-fuck-everybody. But I will agree on "eventful."

Joe D: I've found that reading about what is typical is right up there with cutting. No expectations meaning never disappointed.

Anonymous: There's nothing chicks dig more than bitterness and misogyny. You'll be fine.

kittens not kids said...

Pops, your commentariat has suddenly become my new dating pool.

(actually: No. it just reflects, more or less, the reality of Single Guys I have encountered out there. although i guess that last Anon isn't single. and shit, he's found three women who will marry him. that's impressive).

my review of 2010: it's over. don't have to do THAT ever again.

Katherine Zander said...

Lick, your commentary to Anonymous makes me more confident in a decent future for you than anything you've said over the past twelve months.

If your list for this year has just one thing in it, it will be "I survived." Or, maybe "I got laid more times than I can count." Because, really, your sense of humor about all of this is impressive.

Poplicola said...

KnK: Everybody's so down on 2010. So much negativity. Considering how it went for me, I'm willing to see it as a net positive. I still have all my hair, for example.

Kay-Z: Oh, I can count...

SJ said...

Lick? I had to read all of this twice before I understood that, KZ. Also, sorry I'm so late to getting here and having a nice laugh (and empathetic knowing head nod) at the whole thing.

word verify: GAPOID. The other name for strip mall cameltoe.