Filling a blank calendar

I have a tradition with my parents that we go to the same Japanese steakhouse for my birthday each year. But my birthday is December 31st, so it didn't take long as an adult to have the tradition displaced to December 30th or the 29th or whenever was convenient for all involved. For a while it was December 30th which must've been an anniversary for a couple old high school friends because a few years in a row I ran in to them at the restaurant and we would catch up. By the time I ran in to them on December 30, 1997 I had lived in LA for a year. I had done an internship with a major movie producer, worked on a couple other films, spent some time as a PA at a studio and been promoted to start a new job working for the writers of The Simpsons when I got back to LA in January.

And that happened. And while I was working there I got an offer from an old buddy-- a challenge, really, to write a book about yo-yoing. I worked at a specialty toy store in college, playing with yoyos and now things were picking up in the yoyo world. They were picking up enough that not only could a book get published but companies were looking for guys to be demonstrators. When Duncan Yo-yos stopped doing their regular school-yard promotions in the mid-70s the youngest guys were 20-something. So now 25 years later the youngest guys who could do yoyo tricks were 50-something. Fifty-something guys are a hard sell to 12-year-old boys. So being able to do yoyo tricks, rent a car and cash a check meant you got a job. It seemed like a good way to add some chapters to my autobiography so on the advice of one of the producers at the Simpsons I took the job. I traveled around and even got as far as Paris before, again I was back in Florida with the parents for the holidays and my tradition of the birthday meal at the same Japanese Steakhouse.

I don't know if I actually saw my friends Chris and Meredith on December 30, 1998 or if I was just laughing to myself on December...

Filling a blank calendar

I have a tradition with my parents that we go to the same Japanese steakhouse for my birthday each year. But my birthday is December 31st, so it didn't take long as an adult to have the tradition displaced to December 30th or the 29th or whenever was convenient for all involved. For a while it was December 30th which must've been an anniversary for a couple old high school friends because a few years in a row I ran in to them at the restaurant and we would catch up. By the time I ran in to them on December 30, 1997 I had lived in LA for a year. I had done an internship with a major movie producer, worked on a couple other films, spent some time as a PA at a studio and been promoted to start a new job working for the writers of The Simpsons when I got back to LA in January.

And that happened. And while I was working there I got an offer from an old buddy-- a challenge, really, to write a book about yo-yoing. I worked at a specialty toy store in college, playing with yoyos and now things were picking up in the yoyo world. They were picking up enough that not only could a book get published but companies were looking for guys to be demonstrators. When Duncan Yo-yos stopped doing their regular school-yard promotions in the mid-70s the youngest guys were 20-something. So now 25 years later the youngest guys who could do yoyo tricks were 50-something. Fifty-something guys are a hard sell to 12-year-old boys. So being able to do yoyo tricks, rent a car and cash a check meant you got a job. It seemed like a good way to add some chapters to my autobiography so on the advice of one of the producers at the Simpsons I took the job. I traveled around and even got as far as Paris before, again I was back in Florida with the parents for the holidays and my tradition of the birthday meal at the same Japanese Steakhouse.

I don't know if I actually saw my friends Chris and Meredith on December 30, 1998 or if I was just laughing to myself on December 29th thinking about what I was going to say to them when I ran in to them again (I had a crush on Meredith in high school and Chris was a good guy I always enjoyed catching up with), but I remember thinking about how the book, the yoyos, the tour, the trip to Paris, none of it was even thought of when I saw them at the end of 1997. In the span of one short year all of that had happened; None of it was as random as winning the lottery or being struck by a meteor, but I had absolutely no idea it was coming.

While 1998 definitely had more than its share of unexpected twists and turns it was not unique in that department... or even that amazingly unusual really. It's just the year I love to use to make a point. And I often forget that point. I've gotten in the habit of each New Year's day rewinding the calendar in my cell phone and reading it through to recap the year that was. And inevitably I catch up to the day at hand and I look forward at the new year and it's blank. The last year was filled with things, stuff, goings-ons, but the one at hand is empty. What a boring year.

Obviously the year-to-be is going to have more going on than recurring birthdays and Thanksgiving on the last Thursday in November. I know that but like so many things, I know it and at the same time, for no reason, don't believe it. ABout 8 months ago, now, (December 29, 2008) I was out at dinner with possibly my oldest, dearest friend, Kris, and I was laughing at myself about this. "Who knows, this time next year I could have a 3 month old baby, I could be living in a foreign country. I could be on the run from the law..." So we made a deal that this time next year we would get back together and we would have had an unexpected bend strike each of our paths in 2009. Ought-Nine was not going to be a run of the mill year! We even shook on it.

It was really kind of a foolish deal because having control over something goes hand in hand with some form of predictability. Which defeats the game. You absolutely have to be conscious and aware of opportunity knocking and you have to put yourself in harm's way if you want to get hit by the bus of destiny, but really you can't make these things happen. Yet we sat there and tried to list off unexpected things that would count for the game and in the interest of pagan-style ritual I am going to list them here (plus some others I can think of) to tempt the fates. Feel free to send me any more you can think of or have had befall you.

have a giant business windfall (lottery counts)
be married
have a complete change of career
be involved in a scandal (celebrity, political, public)
win a major public award
contract a major disease
taken up an addiction
lost a limb
be dead (sure those aren't a good ones, but not all unexpected events are)
started a religion
joined a cult (fundamentalist religion counts)
have your own TV show (star or creator of)
invented something useful (or at least notable)
become a best-selling author (this may count as "change of career")
be a hero in a disaster
cause a disaster
be swept up in a revolution (political or art... the internet doesn't count)
have lost everything/bankrupt
... and the ones we started with:
have a baby
be living in a foreign country
be on the run from the law