The Day I Reviewed 2010

On December 31, 2009, I strolled along the Old Sacramento riverbank with AJ while we waited for midnight fireworks over the draw-bridge. You’d think we were in love.

In February I turned 23. In June, I'd been a college graduate for one year.

2010 was a year of two very different versions of myself. 

Colors explode in the sky. Smoke-trails idling in the air like slow shadows. The countdown is underwhelming without a big clock or a brightly-lit ball descending into bursts of confetti—but the Times Square New Years can wait. For now we take what we can get, this simple Sacramento celebration, and we all promise to ourselves that this will be the year our lives get better.

A lot can happen in one year.

I think, now, of the way keys change.

Today I have four keys. One for the car, one for the iron gate, one for the bedroom door, and the other one—I honestly don’t know what it’s there for, but I get the feeling it’s important, so it sticks around.

Earlier this year, I had three: the key to Apartment 44 in Carmichael, the key to said apartment’s mailbox, and the car key.

I’d had a key to the entrance of Creekside Café up until May, in addition to the aforementioned set.

This was the year I gave up the keys to a red 1990 Jeep Cherokee with hypochondria for a black 1995 Acura Integra with transmission problems. A few months later, some asshole knocked the mirrors off the Acura in the parking lot of a Roseville movie theater.

Gets me thinking about other evolutions:

The changing of haircuts: started the year with long shaggy hair and a clean-cut face, ending it with short clean-cut hair and a shaggy face.

The changing of music: started with Atmosphere and mix-CDs, ended with Mumford and Sons and the Forest Gump soundtrack on tape.

The changing of beds: started sharing a queen-sized with AJ, ended it in the single-sized mattress on the squeaky bed-frame I once shared with Amy in Santa Rosa, now shared occasionally with my coworker, Kirsten.

The changing of paths: started in a dead-end coffee-shop job, ended in a dead-end coffee-shop job while finishing an internship at Sacramento Press.

The changing of tastes: started with Stella and Adalbertos, then Fat Tire and microwave burritos, and ended with Sangiovese and Hot Italian pizza.

The changing of dealers: started with Pat and Jason, then just Jason, and ended with Max.

The changing of company: started with AJ, Sean, the neighbors and the pets, then Jessica and her family, and ended with Sean, housemates, and my own family of coworkers.

The changing of views: started with a sliding glass door overlooking the pool, ended with a window overlooking the intersection of Capitol and 17.

The changing of scenery: started with dull suburbia, ended with the bustle of the capitol city. 

The changing of philosophies: started with everything happens for a reason, ended with low expectations and high hopes.


The universe is the dream of an explosion.

This year marks my first real attempt to take control of my life, to actually grab the steering wheel and make important decisions. Sadly, I think the best way for me to continue doing that is to refrain from participating in any more long-term relationships.

The year starts 11 miles away in an upstairs two-bedroom apartment in Carmichael. Two bath, a pool and a liquor store across the street. The year stars in a different life entirely.

AJ and I have a fully furnished life together. We have a white wire-haired terrier named Banjo, and two sibling tabby cats named Gibbons and Mewz. Our neighbors include: John, Laura, Monkey, Sebastian, Nick, Amber and her family. For all I knew, this was the way things were supposed to be. It was like an unfunny spin-off of Friends. Complacency was synonymous with patience and I figured things would work out for the better, eventually, like they did on TV. 

We watch a lot of Netflix, smoke pot in the evenings, work enough to afford $770 rent, take the dog to the dog park, and do a lot of lounging. It’s the simple life of an aspiring author and a practicing musician. It’s the kind of mediocre situation that endures a lifetime because it’s never quite good, but it’s never quite bad, either. So you just keep going along with it.

Sean hates her. My family and friends want me to leave her. But I can’t—there’s too much guilt, too much fear of hurting others, and that tiny voice telling me that I’ve got something good with AJ and I just have to look harder. Besides—if I left AJ, it would be for me, not for everyone else. They didn’t know about the genuinely happy moments. They only saw me when I was worried all the time.

They were right, of course.

When the year began, I was still working at Creekside Café in Auburn, with a thirty minute commute from Carmichael. Creekside Café was the worst job I’d ever had. As a spin-off of my grandmother’s coffeeshop, it was a waste of money and effort, snuggled into a building complex that wasn’t busy enough to make us any profit. She kept the place going because she liked having her name out there in the community. The only reason I took this job was because our apartment complex manager needed proof of employment, and it was meant to be temporary. Over time, I settled into the job and two months turned into nine. It was where college graduates went to die.

Good things about Creekside: Sean, Heather, visits from my family and a lot of down-time for writing.

Bad things about Creekside: the job, the low pay, the long hours, the boredom, the self-doubt, the regrets, the commute, the bus ride (when the car was broken), the laughable tips, the health inspections, the catering jobs, the phone-in orders and the lack of an ice machine.

Then my grandma sold the business and everything changed.

When AJ and I first started dating—two weeks into the relationship, actually—I went to San Francisco to celebrate my friend Kayla’s birthday. The highlights of that evening include: being in the city, feeling buzzed off Guinness and making out with Kayla's roommate, Ann-lise, in the hotel room. I returned to Santa Rosa the next day and never told AJ about that experience. Coincidentally, we broke up about two weeks later because AJ was having feelings for some other guy. For all I knew, that was the end of that story.

A month later we got back together for the sequel.

Long story short—she eventually found out about Ann-lise, a schism of distrust formed between us and the relationship never recovered. We moved together to Carmichael and started a little life, but it was never emotionally secure. It got way worse before it got any better, and I don’t think it ever did get better at all. We tried to blanket the issues with pets and promises. She was often annoyed with something I'd done and we got to where we counted the days without fights like those boards on construction sites that count days without injuries. We never made it more than a week. It wasn't the fighting that killed us, though. What eventually broke me was bearing the brunt of the financial burden for a life I knew I wasn’t happy with, like paying for a car that doesn’t run. I just couldn't afford unhappiness any longer.

When my grandma sold the business, this guy named Mike stepped in. He was a prick from the get-go and I sensed impending unemployment. And so I started looking around a little bit here and there, still riding the consistency of Creekside, pushing my luck for another month or two. And then, one morning, Mike fired me.

That’s when I started this blog.

With no time to be picky, I wound up with two new coffee-shop jobs within two weeks, one in Fair Oaks and the other in Midtown. Within two months, I quit Fair Oaks when I broke up with AJ and decided to move into Rhonda’s spare bedroom. Within another two months I was living in Midtown down the alley from Old Soul.

On December 30, I’m going to be seeing Pinback play a show at Harlow’s.

On December 31, it’ll be the night before 2011.

This was the year for spiritual growth. Finding myself. Figuring out my personal view of the world. Becoming a social creature. Meeting people.

This was the year I realized the apprehensions I have are due to the fact that I don't know how seriously to take this life. I'm trying to predict what's going to make me the happiest, and when I look to others for examples, they're all so different and too often flawed. It's up to me to figure out how serious I need to be.

I'm starting to realize life is not meant to be taken very seriously at all. I've seen happy people smothered in bad relationships. I've seen successful people cry. I've seen unsuccessful people laugh. I've seen what happens when stress gets the best of you. I watched the American Dream turn its back on us. I'm starting to realize that most of this world is built on illusions, and I'm starting to see through them to what really matters. Life is meant to be an adventure, not a numbers game. 

Next year is going to more physically-based. I imagine I’ll be moving somewhere within the next few months. I imagine a new job. I imagine more change—but this time with a new mindset behind the wheel. When I left AJ it was in a hurry, it was out of necessity. This time I’m going to be doing things my way. This time, I’m in charge.

It’s been a great year. I’m excited to see what’s next.

- Left to Fry