2005 - THE YEAR IN REARVIEW

JANUARY

I accepted the position of cafe' supervisor at Borders. I was totally unprepared for (and none too enthusiasitc about) the job, but I wanted the raise in pay. The following month-and-a-half was a learning experience, to put it nicley. How bad was it really? Let me put it this way: I was commander-in-chief of what amounts to a small Starbucks, and I was so coffee illiterate, at the time, that I didn't even know what a latte was! It was that bad! I improved, as one would hope, but I'll never be as good at making coffee drinks as I am at selling books.

However ... I survived and carried on.

Meanwhile, I suffered from a urinary tract infection (very bloody), and had to subsist on cranberry juice and antibiotics. I quit drinking beer and managed to lose 15 pounds!

FEBRUARY

I eagerly accepted the vacated Inventory Supervisor position, which came as a great relief after a month of food servitude.

My dear friend, Amanda, had a big birthday bash at Al Amir (a classy Lebanese restaurant) and we all enjoyed hookahs, belly dancing, and great food.

MARCH

I started drinking beer again. But sparingly.

APRIL

Celebrated Aunt Sally's birthday with a group of old chums at the Royal China restaurant @ Preston & Royal in Dallas. Good food and good friends.

MAY

My birthday was the 6th. And the pleasure-loving Taurus got his fill. A surprise party @ Abuello's Mexican restaurant in Plano really floored me! Everybody was there! Debbie, Clark, Jordan, Amanda, Gus, Natalie, Tracy, Denise, Joanne, Jerry S., Tabitha, and even Abel (from the B&N days!).

The ceiling in Abuello's is painted to look like a bright blue sky. The service is world-class. And they are always near the top of restaurant critics' lists. A great place. Good food. Good fun. Great friends. (However, Abuello's is often uncomfortably full of what my friend, Chris, likes to call "the Dubyahs"; Texans who clearly support and/or resemble our current President and his policies and beliefs.)

Incidentally, Jerry S. and Tabitha (both from work) sat together, side-by-side, for the first time in history that night. A portent of things to come.

Within weeks they were dating. A few months later they were engaged. And, in April 2006, they will be married in a Renaissance-style ceremony on Scarborough Faire's opening day.

Meanwhile, I had a brief affair with a lingerie model who, in those days, worked part-time in the Borders cafe'. We had nothing in common except for a time and a place. She was too young and too ordinairy for me. I prefer someone a little more ... interesting. Naturally, she thought I was weird. I thought she was crazy... She was pretty though.

What I should really say is that she jumped my bones, taking me totally by surprise, and proceeded to rip my clothes off and have her way with me.

So I ain't complaining.

JUNE

Took a trip, at the end of June, to see the parents in scenic, mystical Taos, New Mexico. This meant lots of good food (at their house and in the local restaurants), climbing mountains, traversing gorges, and lots of r&r. Dad and I nearly ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere, which was an adventure. Mom (the artist) went to work on a 7 foot Dementor costume for my part in the upcoming Harry Potter release party. I hiked trail 59 and the Rio Grande Gorge, all in the same day (he brags). Very cathartic and picturesque. We got along splendidly, the folks and I, and everything went perfectly until I got a speeding ticket on the long journey home. The goddamn Texas Highway Patrol were out in force for the upcoming 4th of July. Redneck bastards!

Anyway, my good friend, Tracy, looked after Rerun while I was gone. Thanks, Tracy.

It was at about this time that I struck up a polite, very professional friendship with a beautiful, intelligent Borders customer named Mara (with gorgeous green eyes), who (unfortunately) is engaged, but (fortunately) has become a good friend. I made sure to order two copies of the upcoming Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince for her and her younger brother, and reminded her about the inevitable release party. I also warned her to watch out, that night, for Professor Gilderoy Lockhart as he is (though dashing) quite a cad, and might try to work his winning ways with her. She didn't seem worried. In the meantime, I turned her on to Agatha Christie (quite accidentally), and she got me started on Christopher Moore (who should be read by anyone who likes a good larf).

JULY

Borders (and the world) celebrated the release of J.K. Rowling's latest tome, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. This meant the store was transformed into Harry's magical world, complete with Platform 9 & 3/4, Hagrid's Hut, the Leaky Cauldron, the Forbidden Forest, Snape's Dungeon, and Flourish & Blots - the wizard bookstore.

Professor Snape mixed potions and snarled, cantankerously, at one and all. Professor Trelawney gazed into her crystal ball and predicted gloom and doom for everyone. Hagrid played with dragons and hippogriffs.
Professor McGonagall divided the Gryffindors from the Slytherins by way of the Sorting Hat. Dobby spoke solely in the third person. Harry and Hermione posed sweetly for photos as they were mobbed by fans. But, if I may say so, the dashing Gilderoy Lockhart stole the show, battling a frightening Dementor, and still managing to sign and sell all his copies (shown below) of Voyages with Vampires (left), Travels with Trolls (right), and, of course, his fair and balanced autobiography, Magical Me (center).

Handsome devil, too.

PERSONAL NOTE: Trying to get the younger employees at Borders to wear costumes and ham it up is much harder than trying to get the older folks to do it. The young 'uns is too sophisticated for that kind of tomfoolery.

AUGUST

A group got together at The Londoner (a mock British pub) to celebrate my good buddy Jordan's birthday. It rained and thundered, cacophonously, all day, in fitting English style. The trip across town became an adventure. It was good to see Jordan, Amanda, Gus, Tracy, and all the old gang from B&N. The weather outside made the comraderie inside seem all the more safe and cozy.

In late August, Magical Missives made its maiden voyage. Captained by a maniac, the journey has continued, perilously, on the brink of chaos and cataclysm, ever since.

I also began keeping company with a talented jazz and bluegrass guitarist named Brian (who works at Borders and operated the fog machine for Gilderoy Lockhart's Dementor attack routine). He taught me a few guitar chords. The E-chord was my first, and I'll never forget it. The other two (D and F) haven't stuck, but I've got that E-chord down! I can now play "Wild Thing" and bits of "Back in Black" and some rudimentary parts of "Stairway to Heaven"... however, I often forget where to place my fingers. And those bar chords are a bitch. It can be very frustrating and I often feel like doing this:At month's end, Katrina pounded New Orleans. It was the disaster the sub-sea-level city had always feared. It's hard to wrap one's mind around such destruction, and even harder to write about it without sounding like a dramatic phony.

SEPTEMBER

September saw a quick and sudden barrage of birthdays; Chris, Joel, and Charlie.

Not to mention Bilbo and Frodo Baggins.

OCTOBER

October ended with the annual Halloween bash at my house. This year's shindig was Harry Potter themed (due to all the leftover goodies from the Borders book release party). The event was a basic success (even though my butterbeer wasn't), and a special tribute goes out to a certain witch, in a short skirt and a tall hat, who paid for dinner ...

NOVEMBER

Massive changes at work with the exit of our dear old manager, Jerry L., and the resignation of Margaret, the office supervisor. Meanwhile, Jordan and (briefly) Amanda came to work at Borders. This made me very happy.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire hit movie theaters.

DECEMBER

The yearly Christmas get-together at Aunt Sally's house produced the grand entrance of the world's first disembodied pixie christmas tree ornament, and saw the birth of a marvelous new tradition; the annual eggnog challenge. Future eggnogs will have a hard act to follow.

Well that's, basically, it. I suppose I could say more. Perhaps I could pontificate on the greater meaning of it all. Or try to sum things up with a pithy statement of some kind. Or worry about how many times Harry Potter was mentioned in the above article. But I don't feel obliged to do any of those things right now. So I'll just say this:

HAPPY HOGMANAY!