spirits of the past
Just one Flickr photo album filled with video clips from last night: our February 2002 concert with the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Chorus, called Spirit. It was the only one of the concerts I sang in for that group between fall 2000 and spring 2004 for which I ever got a full video recording. I don't remember who did the recording, I just remember copies were made for all of us who wanted one. I don't even remember whether we had to pay for them. I hope not; it's just standard home video quality, although granted, whoever dubbed a bunch of copies would still have had to spend a lot of time doing that.
The videos are split into 25 different clips, each separated by a single song performed. This is nineteen years ago, so it had been a long time since I last even contemplated some of these songs, let alone sang them. I did get a bit of nostalgia re-listening to some of that stuff after all this time. My time with SLGC was a huge part of my getting socially established in Seattle, and I made at least three good friendships out of it—although Laney remains the single one I still have anything to do with, her now being easily one of my three closest friends. Shawna, I had a spectacular falling-out with back in 2004, that being really the biggest reason I finally said "fuck it" and left the chorus. To be fair, there remains no bad feelings between us now and there hasn't been for ages; we just new grew back together again. The same could be said of Julie, with whom I used to spend a great deal of time, and we never even had a falling-out—we just grew apart over time, having little else in common outside the chorus and her distance living in Renton creating an additional barrier. (Danielle lives in Renton too, of course. But my I've known Danielle since we were both 11 years old, and Danielle also has no real issues with coming into Seattle, both of these things being key differences from Julie.)
It's weird now to think of how much time has gone by since those days in the chorus, and how massively my life is different now. And again, that concert was in the midst of my unemployment period in early 2002. Even more relevance to that in this case: Marianne in HR used to sing in the chorus too, and it's entirely because of her that I have this job—which I mentioned just the other day when it was announced she was designated this month's office "Customer Service Star." I had emailed the chorus list just to let them know I was looking for work, and Marianne had forwarded me the job listing. The rest is PCC history: I'll have worked here 19 years as of this August.
Let's see, what else? Shobhit had his Project Management class last night. And again, I thought about watching a movie in the bedroom, but then I needed to drive to the office during his class. I didn't drive earlier, because in the hour between the end of my work day and the start of his class, we watched two different things: last Sunday's episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and then President Biden's first prime time address to the nation.
I thought the speech was excellent, and in keeping with his promise to level with the American people. He made no hard promises, only what our goals are, and that there is hope that we can achieve them—namely, that we could be returning to some measure of normalcy again by Independence Day. He cautioned that we likely won't be back to large gatherings, but small holiday gatherings for things like backyard cookouts might be deemed okay by then. With vaccine production ramped up to make all adults eligible by May, that is the goal. (It did occur to me, if we still have no public fireworks show again put on by the city, our 4th of July will likely look very similar to last year's, just maybe without as strict of social distancing guidelines.)
Both Easter and my Birth Week are, of course, between now and then. Easter is particularly close, and I do plan to go to Dad and Sherri's in Olympia. But, even though I will bet money not a single other person in the family does the same (unfortunately), I will still approach it very much like I did our Christmas visit: staying outside, only going inside to use the bathroom with a mask on. With Dad and Sherri now vaccinated (as well as Gina and Beth), it may not feel quite as imperative to keep a mask on in the backyard, but we'll see. A lot just depends on what official health guidelines are saying, even by April 4.
In any event, that speech was incredibly emblematic of how much more at ease I feel just existing in this country. We still have lots and lots of problems in this nation that are not being handled well enough quickly enough, but the difference it makes to have a real leader in the executive position cannot be overstated. President Fuckwit actually issued a press release saying everyone should think of him when getting vaccinated. Jesus Christ, fuck that guy. I might think of him, sure: in a sense of relief that he's been pushed aside after four years of horror.
[posted 12:31 pm]