I almost forgot

Apparently today is my blogiversary. (I was thinking it was the 27th, but my equivalent of a "Hello World" message went out on 26 January 2002).

Yeah. If my blog were a person, it would now be old enough to drive.

So, what do I say?

I haven't changed much in 16 years. I still live in the same place, still work at the same job, still attend the same church, pretty much still have the same hobbies. I don't know if that makes me consistent or boring.

I was thinking just this afternoon of the things I thought I'd never have to do that I did over the course of my time here:

Changing the wax seal on a toilet

Wrestling a branch as long as I am tall down off the roof without snapping the electrical lines into the house

Pulling a (live) mouse out of my toilet

Calling Animal Control on a turkey vulture that wound up sick or injured on my roof

Spotting a baby rattlesnake in the field and directing my co-researchers around where it was so as not to disturb it

Surviving budget cuts that meant someone with technically more seniority than I have (but not tenure) be let go, and me face a 9% pay cut, taken in the form of furlough days

Surviving a House Full of Buffoons who lived next to me one summer and made my life miserable with loud parties and throwing trash around. (And: dealing with the rat problem they caused in the neighborhood)

Several contretemps involving travel on Amtrak - a derailment, bustitutions, extremely late trains due to various issues

Managing to get an unreasonably-infuriated student who was screaming at me out of my office without incident

Fighting City Hall over the "brush" in an alleyway I technically do not own (and I caved on that, you really can't fight City Hall)

Surviving a student who was so "special" he probably hastened the onset of my hypertension, and about whom I had administrators calling me and fundamentally begging me to pass him so he could graduate. (I wasn't going to do him any favors but he did manage to pass by the skin of his teeth)

Two broken teeth (and crown preps for same), two other crown preps. Getting a mouthguard made to stop me grinding my teeth at night so hopefully I don't break any more.

About 6 months of low-level GI complaints - probably brought on by a virus and made far worse by stress.

Parental trips to the ER, the hospital, falls, and other injuries that brought home to me that I won't have them forever (this is roughly the 2-year anniversary of the night my brother called me, concerned, and I later found my dad had been taken to the ER because of a medication mistake)

Loss of several relatives, none of whom I was exceptionally close to, but which was still upsetting.

Loss of several friends, mostly people from church, which was upsetting.

Coping with: a clogged sewer line, a dead hot-water heater, a dead dishwasher, a busted intake water line into the house, a worn-out air conditioner and furnace, and a broken sink

And, most recently: being awakened from a sound sleep by someone bleeding and screaming and pounding my door on my side porch, and then cleaning up the blood he left behind.

Yeah. I am tougher than I assume I am, in a lot of ways. (There's probably more stuff I'm forgetting). 

But there are a lot of things on there I'd rather not have experienced. Even if "that which does not kill you makes you stronger."

I haven't changed all that much - I still care way, way too much about what other people think of me, and I still probably care way way too much about not hurting other people's feelings. I'm still, I think, under the impression several teachers left on me, with their "Get over your hurt feelings" speeches - I think on some level I do feel like other people's feelings matter more than mine, because of that, and also because I recognize I control my own feelings but not other people's. I still probably care too much about doing a "good job" over and above what would be adequate. (I know someone who teaches college who talks about "working smarter not harder" but I do feel like that person perhaps slacks a bit more on things than they might - not giving challenging assignments because they take a long time to grade). I'm probably still too good at putting duty before pleasure and even self-care.

I've picked up a few things....the biggest thing being that I'm trying to learn to play piano (and to try to come to terms with never being "great" at it but it still being worth doing). I have far more responsibilities at church but that's partly as a result of us being a lot smaller than when I first moved here, thanks to a congregational split. I dress more "girly" than I did sixteen years ago - I usually wear lipstick now, for example, and I almost always wear a dress or skirt for teaching unless it is below 20 F out or I am doing fieldwork.

I guess I could also observe I've picked up Pony fandom (across different generations, in fact) and that's been a net good for me: collecting the G1 ponies has brought me a lot of happiness, as has crocheting my own versions of the G4 ponies (or G4-ized earlier ones and I still do want to do a Surprise). And the show. And just in general accepting a little more that cartoons and stuffed toys are important to me, they help me cope, and anyone who thinks that is stupid or childish....well, I'm still bothered by that, to be honest, but I can also say "I'm not going to let them persuade me away from it, and also they're probably not someone I want as a friend"

I dunno. On balance, I guess it's OK. I wish I could care less about what other people thought, and I wish I were better at determining when I need to just buckle down and grind away, and when working more or harder is really doing too much and I need to devote energy to self-care....And I wish I were better at just letting stuff go. And also at accepting that sometimes people may not care as much as I would like them to.

I don't knit or quilt as much as I once did (or so it seems). I probably spend more time online. I probably make more trips to Sherman than I once did.

So I don't know. Blogs are dead, they say, long live Tumblr (almost purely visual in some cases), Instagram (ditto), and Twitter (microblogging but also essentially indulging your inner old man who wants to yell at clouds). But I still like writing in the longer form. Maybe a few of you still like reading in the longer form. I guess I'll keep it up a while longer.