Complex Numbers

Decade Dance

PROMPT January 1st

Welcome to 2020! As we start a new decade, take the time in your entry today to look back on the previous decade (2010-2019). Write about some of the major milestones from the past ten years. When you look back on your life over the past decade, what events stand out as most noteworthy and significant?

For me, the Teens are a lost decade.

My father died in the late noughties. That was a watershed moment for me. Shortly thereafter, my wife dumped me like yesterday's trash. So i started drinking in earnest.

And I just spent the last hour going through old blog posts, trying to remember what was going on 10 years ago. Damn, I was an asshole. Also, I was funny. Funnier than I am now. This sucks.

The thing that stands out for me over the past decade was traveling.

In 2010, I bought my current car, a Subaru Legacy. It's got 99,000 miles on it, give or take. Most of those miles were from driving across the country. Not once. Not twice. Not even three times. I've made four cross-country trips. I think. I've been drinking (quelle surprise) and I may have lost count.

Let's see. There was the first one, where I got it in my head that I would go from the easternmost point to the westernmost point in the continental US. Okay, go ahead, get pedantic and say that Alaska is on the continent. Fine. You know what I mean, though. I drove from Maine to Washington State. It took a couple of weeks, because I took my time.

There was also the one where I picked three points in the US at random. There was one in Montana, one in Nevada, and one in... Mississippi or Alabama; one of those states.

There was another one where I just decided to drive to Las Vegas and the middle of California rather than fly. I got remarkably sick on that trip, while I was in Vegas, and ended up infecting half of California.

And I'm pretty sure I did that more than once. Not the getting sick part, but the driving part. Like, the last time, I drove to Las Vegas and decided to follow US 60 on the way back. Oh yeah, that was the year I went to Nerd Camp in Colorado and proceeded to Vegas afterward. Also spent some extra time in Colorado on that trip, but somehow managed to find exactly 0 legal cannabis shops.

So let's see. More shit that happened to me in the 2010s. Oh yeah, I had a heart attack. No big deal. I spent a month on Maui. That was awesome, even though it happened to coincide with a time when I had some massive pain in my neck.

Maybe it wasn't actually a "lost" decade. Maybe it was a decade of decadence. A decade dance. Appropriate for a Waltz, I suppose. Beer was a constant. One of my reasons for traveling was to sample as many different beers from as many different places as possible. Did you know that Utah has some excellent breweries? You wouldn't expect it, but it does.

I can't help but think about what the next decade might bring. I have some plans, but life has a way of interfering with them. No point in speculating; if I'm alive to do so, I'll play the recordings here. Until then, here's some Leonard Cohen.