Things and Stuff

So life has been pretty tumultuous for yours truly as of late.

Here's the ketchup:

2004:
June: My beloved Southampton College announces it is closing it's doors, beginning my slow downward spiral.
July: I get laid off from my design job after training three news designers because the company is, and I quote, "overstaffed."
Aug: My mother loses her last tenuous grip on what's right and wrong.
Oct: My grandfather dies.
Oct: Best friend's bro gets into motorcycle accident from which he has yet to fully recover.

2005:
May: My last game as a softball coach, the best job I have ever had.
Aug: Southampton College closes, ending my association with the College and the athletic department after 12 long and wonderful years.
Aug: I become unemployed for the second time in two years.
Oct: The Chicago White Sox win the World Series!

2006:
Feb: The Steelers win the Super Bowl!
Apr: I begin working for Nike.
July: I very quickly stop working for Nike.
July: I begin working for the bank.
Sept: My softball team DangerZone wins it's fifth and final league championship.
Oct: My father dies.
Nov: I am diagnosed with a disease generally found in canines.
Dec: I go out on medical disability due to stress and exhaustion.
Dec: Three days after I return, my brother's car is flipped by a brainless truck driver who missed his exit.
Dec: THREE DAYS AFTER THAT, a truck runs a red light trying to get into WalMart, gets hit by a car, and then smashes into my car. It is an accident the effects of which I feel to this day. My brother was in that car, too.

2007:
Jan: I officially begin my physical therapy. I will end up missing four months of work, and it will be another 8 months in the tenth ring of Hell- er, the Riverhead branch of the bank- before I can work full time again.
Mar: An old crush from school reconnects via mail and email.
June: She comes to visit. We begin dating four days after she arrives. The catch? She is from Denmark.
July: She leaves after almost two months, overstaying her original plan by a full month.
Nov: A steroid/cortisone injection brings me the first true pain relief I have known since 2006.
Dec: Christmas brings my Danish girlfriend back to the states for another three wonderful weeks.
Dec: I begin to work full time at the Blue Point branch of the bank.

2008:
Mar: The bank changes ownership, name, and sanity. The company that acquired us treats us like one of Lenny's pets in Grapes of Wrath, not knowing what to do with us and hurting us in it's attempts to figure out how to run a bank.
Apr: My cousin Randy passes away, the first of 22 cousins on my father's side to die.
May: I take my first international journey to the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany.
July: I have LASIK surgery, eliminating my 24 year dependence on corrective lenses.
July: The pain begins to resurface in my back.
July: My girlfriend, having applied to enter our country legally, is denied. Millions of rotten illegal bastards have far better luck.
Aug: Her spirit crushed, my girlfriend decides to abandon her dream of coming to America, and our relationship ends as a result.
Sep: I meet another wonderful beautiful girl online, and we begin dating shortly afterwards.
Oct: My new girlfriend reveals she is very likely moving back to California after this school year.
Nov: One year to the day after my first injection, I receive another, giving me temporary relief from my pain again.
Nov: My new girlfriend and I break up.
Dec: Christmas is not fun.

2009:
Feb: The Steelers in the Super Bowl! Again!
Apr: My ex-girlfriend and I get back together.
May: I take my first cruise, which is actually the first extended vacation my siblings and I have taken together in our adult lives.
July: My ex-ex-girlfriend and I break up again.
Sep: My lawyer reveals that the original offer from the guiltiest party in my lawsuit was never committed to on paper, and they fired the lawyer that made the offer.
Oct: My siblings and I have the first real falling out in our adult lives, over a video posted on Facebook and it's effects on those in our friends lists. It's a miserable time to be me.

OK, so now you can see what's gone on. And now you can see why I am desperately in need of a win. I've done a pretty decent job (in my own estimation) of helping people and trying to make the lives of others better in whatever way I could. Now, it's time for Karma to roll up and give me a nice big kiss.

I'm waiting.