There was better reading in 2008 than in 2007, maybe because I was tying (at least for a little while) to generate content for four different websites, all of which eventually landed here. I’d call this year “reflective” and “hectic” with grad school and all. I also worked a very odd part-time job, continued with my freelancing, and migrated the site from static HTML to WordPress. I’d sort of forgotten what a busy year it was.

January

• Crazy Agnes
• Christmas and stuff
• San Francisco nostalgia
• 5 October 1992: The arrival

February

• The geekiest pornography store ever (all this SF nostalgia was part of a short-lived rebirth of Planet SOMA)
• Making preserves out of history
• Sunset people

March

• Rock and roll queer bars
• Goodbye, old friend

April

• Myrtle

May

June

• Fedex orifice
• California dreamin’

July

• He no longer stands anywhere
• Planet SOMA is over

August

• Lets Active and Pylon
• Planet SOMA (1996-2008)
• Mark his words
• Update

September

• At Yum Yum

October

• The atheist homosexuals who stole Christmas
• Advice column (sad foreshadowing)
• Why I generally don’t vote Republican in the South

November

• The first Tuesday following the first Monday in November

December

• Charleston and Pittsburgh (several posts follow)

 

Past the halfway point now, and only eight days until the anniversary. Highlights and favorites from 2007 (the year I started grad school and actually started working toward having a real career) follow. I have to admit very little of it is especially entertaining or inspiring.

January

• Family crises

February

• Coming home, sort of…
• Hypocritical homos

March

April

• Charlotte vs. urban

May

• Books and porn
• The evolution of a website
• May 1977
• Not really a personal ad

June

• Newspaper junkie

July

• A long week
• Richmond (one post follows)
• Roanoke
• The wizard of ID

August

• Mama mia
• Filling up the house

September

• The first paper

October

• Whither yer humble host
• Dotmaniac.com: Negligence, incompetence, or just plain fraud?

November

December

• Must be a cheap scale

 

Ten years ago I was celebrating ten years of the site. 2006 also brought homeownership, a slight case of cancer, and more travel. Highlights and favorite posts below.

January:

• We like Winston-Salem
• New urbanism is neither
• I do not nurture nature

February:

• That word
• Triangle weekend (the “something that was bothering me” was the early-stage cancer I’d just been diagnosed with)

March:

• The ‘burbs

April:

• One size does not fit all
• My car
• Columbus (several posts follow)
• Jane Jacobs: 1916-2006
• We’re home

May:

• The old homestead
• Celebration
• The new house

June:

• MySpace. Blecch.

July:

• The big urban essay
• The big gay essay
• An honorable disease

August:

• The yard
• The yard, reviewed

September:

• Formidable power
• Bug spray
• Preservation, my ass
• Hell in the desert

October:

• Chicago, Detroit, and Toronto (several posts follow)
• Five years of gooeyness

November:

• Aunt Lucille
• Curtains for Eastland

December:

• Christmas at home
• Where I live

Back to one year per day as we move toward the big anniversary on 13 January. 2005 was another pivotal year as it brought my departure from San Francisco and return to the East Coast. Highlights and favorites follow.

January:

• San Francisco 100, Me 0
• The joys of lowered expectations

Febtuary:

• The land of lowered expectations
• Immigrating to the sex club
• The date is set

March:

• Of queer ska librarians

April:

• The move is on
• Leaving San Francisco

May:

• What WILL I miss?
• Psycho neighbor
• The last supper

June:

• Goodbye SF
• The great migratory road trip of 2005 (several posts follow)
• Good to be home

July:

• Records
• Where I live
• 132 and Bush

August:

• Columbia and a couch
• Charlotte’s “uptown” magazine
• Happy birthday to me

September:

• Am I a writer now?

October:

• Underground nostalgia

November:

• Myrtle Beach
• Practice makes perfect
• Minnie and Yogi and Arthur and Roy (one of the most accessed posts on the site)

December:

• Adaptive reuse
• Stupid Christian tricks
• Lowcountry road trip (several posts follow)

I’m almost caught up from my vacation break and so I can return to one year a day soon The anniversary happens on 13 January.

In 2004, the trend toward daily updates with no substantial essays continued, making the site more of a journal than a reflective space. Thus it’s harder to pick “highlights” as such and the ones I chose don’t really show what was on my mind quite so well as in earlier years. Anyway, here are the ones I chose, such as they are.

January:

• Credo

February:

• Married (sort of)

March:

• Charlotte
• The chase

May:

• Giving up my thyroid
• San Jose

July:

• Individualism?
• The answer

August:

• In the local paper
• Marriage
• Hawaiian wedding (several posts follow)

October:

• Public art
• Grand opening

November:

• Documenting
• Muzak
• East Coast trip (several posts follow)
• Pittsburgh