It's been a quiet few days here in diaryland. I guess no one else has any reflections either.

But I think I'm going to do a mini year-in-review just like every other media outlet is doing right now. Except that mine is less profound or something.

2002 began with Emilie, Lauren, Jess, Abby, and I at the Catwalk's Girl-for-Girl New Year's party. It was a total blast and there were a lot of cute girls there including Angela. Yes, this is how Emilie and Angela met. I drove them all home from the club late that night and a very stoned and weird Angela came along with us. I pulled an all-nighter because I had to go back to work the next day.

In early January, I took a plane down to San Francisco and joined the Green Tortoise bus for a trip down the Baja peninsula of Mexico. It was fabulous and what I wouldn't give to go again! I got to go snorkeling for the first time ever. It was also my first more-than-an-hour-or-two trip outside of the country. The trip was also a growing experience for me in other ways as well. I really started valuing the companionship of older women.

February brought the massive crush on bookstore boy #2. I spent the entire month trying not to go to the bookstore so often that they'd put a restraining order on me. This was the first boy I'd met in ages with whom I could talk for hours and never run out of things to say. I had a glow-bowling birthday party in West Seattle (to which I invited BB#2 but he couldn't go because he had to work - I also found out that his birthday was one week after mine and that he had a girlfriend and that his goal in life is to bowl a game over 200). The party consisted of 12 women, and 2 men. It was here that I set out to intentionally meet some more people in Seattle. Emilie, Lauren, and I went to the Oregon coast for Lauren's birthday and paid the required visit to the Tilamook cheese factory. I went to see Amelie 3 or 4 times and became briefly obsessed with creme brulee.

Jessica and Michelle, two of my housemates, got together again in March. They'd been dating the previous year, but broke up. The house was SO MUCH BETTER when they weren't dating each other. Issues in the house made me feel a bit claustrophobic. But March was also the month of dating for me. I hadn't been on a date since I broke it off with maggot-head in April of 2000 - er... ok, excluding that little something-something with freaky freak freak freak boy on April 1 of 2001. I'd prefer to forget that episode, though. So anyway! The dates of March 2002! I put out an ad on Nerve.com and met Albert, the boy I had absolutely NOTHING in common with, but with whom I had tea once, Jon, the self-important shined-shoes boy who played himself off as a journalist, but who turned out to work at Microsoft - he wasn't very nice, and John, the super-model-good-looks boy who eventually joined my photography class. Also, a girl who shares my name stayed over and there was a little... ahem... affair. We'd been flirting on and off for several years, getting close and then repelling each other. Unfortunately, the affair effectively ended our friendship and we haven't seen each other since. It also finally made me realize that I have absolutely positively NO interest in women at all whatsoever. And finally, there was this guy who wrote me on nerve.com a few times, but didn't seem very interesting... and then one day in late March, I ran into him at a coffee shop, and we've been dating ever since.

In April I spent some time in Maine with my cousins and best friend. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like living in Portland, ME, but I'm also now pretty sure I'd like to move back east someday.

May and June were spent with The Boy pretty much constantly. At the end of May I went to a wedding for Tim, a friend from college. He was part of the Christian Fellowship group in college and most of those people were there (and married and pregnant and/or with children!!!) and living in a completely different world than I do. I got to visit with my family, too. I also spent oodles of time at the wonderful Seattle International Film Festival.

Jessica and Michelle broke up in July, and Jess moved out - replaced by Becca. I spent several weeks houseboat sitting for The Boy. I made a garden for him on his boat deck. I spent a lot of time sunning, relaxing, and reading. The Boy and I took a camping trip to the Olympic Peninsula. Also in July, Bookstore Boys #1 and #2 moved away! Bookstore Boy #1 aka "the rock star" disappeared. Bookstore Boy #2 and I have been writing ever since this time. He writes the best letters ever! Nice long ones, wandering about in subject matter, and telling a real story. In August, Lauren and I went to visit him and his then-girlfriend-now-wife in their remote summer home - caretaking a ghost town in the Cascade Mountains. I also began volunteering at an International Adoption Agency and looking VERY hard for a new job - preferably at said agency.

The Boy and I started faltering in August and things haven't been stable ever since. Sometimes I think he wants to dump me, sometimes I want to dump him. In September, we went to Bumbershoot - a weekend full of relationship "issues" that almost tore us apart. But the concerts were nice as was the one-reel-film-fest. Also in September, Amy of DC and her husband, Peter came to visit. I had the BEST time with them and I really really really hope that they move out here like they said they wanted to.

In October, Michelle moved out (she'd hardly been in the house at all since Jess dumped her) and Amy moved in. There was more strife in the relationship. At the end of October, I started this journal, and I also met reddirtgirl which has started a new chapter in my Seattle time - I've met some interesting people from here.

November and December have been pretty busy. There was the election obsession in the beginning of November. There was our wonderful Thanksgiving party, Q came to visit, I was invited to join two book clubs, BB#2 came back for a visit, and of course, there was my trip home. I'm skimping on those last two months because you can read about them in here pretty easily.

Anyway, overall, 2002 has been a good year. I've been in a relationship for longer than I've ever been in one before, I've made a lot of new friends and I've done some traveling. I've read a lot of books and gotten a lot of new music. I've at least started volunteering and moving in the general direction of a new job - you're going to hear a LOT more of that come February.

And here's to 2003, may it be at least as wonderful if not better for us all!