2009: A Harsh Teacher

It has been a really long, really short year and pretty iffy in terms of quality. I do not know how else to talk about it, so, in 2009, I learned or realized:

• you can traffic cocaine by hiding it in a toolbox, mixed with coffee grounds, with nails layered over it.
• how to get over someone.
• Oprah has a house in Mantoloking, New Jersey.
• shamans rock.
• that I definitely want to do social work or community work and not sociological research.
• my body is a bastard and likes playing tricks on me.
• people can disappoint you so hard.
• how not to get out of a traffic ticket (i.e., telling the officer I "don't know what happened...").
• I am a "card" (according to Delana Gregg).
• every guy I know is gay.
• not every kid grew up reading books about animals and knows how snakes taste the air because they cannot smell.
• I can do things I never thought I would, even if I felt incredibly uncomfortable the entire time.
• even more about gender and race and queerness and oppression and power without ever having to take a class and I love the internet.
• Natalie Tran is love.
• there was a guy during the Harlem Renaissance whose party trick was inserting a tall candle up his ass.
• there is no depths to which crazy conservatives will sink.
• how to alienate friends and make enemies.
• how much possibility there is for change and there is so much opportunity to make the change you want. (I already knew how far people will go to stop you.)
• I have ideas for change, and I can make them happen if I really want to.
• it is hilarious when people talk about queer rights when they clearly know nothing.
• how eating meat just seems increasingly unjustifiable and veganism looks to be the right path.
• how to get into a car accident.
• that politicians, despite everything, really are more about making the other guy look bad than helping people.
• that I neck-snap and finger shake like a stereotypical angry black woman. I, I don't know.
• that when you apologize, you just apologize. Put aside all your bitterness and resentment and all the other valid points you have: The point is that you did wrong. Apologize, and step back. Don't mitigate, edit, amend. Just. apologize. That is all.
• that I probably am dealing with clinical depression. ("Probably" in the sense that I would have gone in for psychiatric counseling about pharmaceutical treatment if I were not leaving so soon.)
• the depths of my dad's assholishness is far lower than I thought.
• "Just Dance" is not a song that has been around forever and is, in fact, a relatively recent song by Lady Gaga.
• what Lady Gaga probably looks like.
• that I am not kidding when I say: Every guy I know is gay.
• how to accidentally and permanently delete the first entry of my blog, where I explain some things.
• it is possible to be in love with a duffel bag.

ETA: Added a few points over the past half hour. (Not at the bottom, because I put the items in somewhat chronological order.) I promise I am done.