Let there be Singing! Let there be Cake! LET THERE BE PREZZIES!
Seriously. I accept anything except livestock.
Today is the one year anniversary of the launching of this blog!
A lot has happened in a year.
A year ago, I was a recent college graduate. With 12 months of post-grad work experience under my belt now, I can call myself a "Seasoned Professional" and ask for extra tall heaps of dollars in my paycheck.** I can lord my amazingness over the indigenous peoples herein, and sometimes they even let me get away with it. Mostly not, but you know. Sometimes.
A year ago, I was in a totally different office building. I have moved "Downtown" (which is, ironically, north of my previous location by almost ten miles) and into the heart of the most city-esque location I've had the pleasure of frequenting. It was a massive feat, the accomplishment of which left me feeling very proud.
A year ago, I was in a totally different work position. I answered phones, answered questions and answered to the whims of a very disgruntled people. Today I work for a team (seriously - they all get along and everything) of professionals (they only cuss when they really mean it) that actually enjoy having me around (they even tell me so) and stuff. So it's kind of fabulous.
Yeah. Uber changes. All over the place.
But how to celebrate all this change?
That, my ReaderFriends, is the question.
I considered everything.
No, seriously... Everything.
I thought about doing a sojourn through the archives. That is... if one can really call one year of backlogged blog posts an archive. But we're feeling ballsy, so that's exactly what we'll call it. However, archive dives on the anniversary seems like a cop-out. Lots of people do it. So I think we'll pass.
I thought about setting up a new layout and instituting it today. But then I started looking at the layout and how much it sucked, so I changed it right away (last week). And then said a little silent thank you in my head - and a not-so-silent one from my back porch - to everyone who put up with that icky, nonsensical layout of yore for almost-a-whole-year-minus-a-week-or-so-because-it-was-too-gross-to-put-up-with-anymore.
I thought about making myself a cake, but that just seemed self-congratulatory. And I didn't want to fill up on cake in case you got me something else that was more delicious. So I didn't do that either.
I thought about doing a photo montage, or drawing pictures of how awesome the last year has been.
It wasn't ideal.
 |
| I kind of suck at art. |
I even thought about finishing that damned NaNoWriMo book. (See how desperate I was to please you, ReaderFriend?) But then I laughed at myself. Funny, Sunny. You're a basket full of chuckles, you are. That half-finished monstrosity is going to stay that way until long after I've gone back to the dirt from which I came.
So my point here is that I wasted a lot of time. Oodles and oodles of time. And I didn't come up with anything.
But then I thought to myself,"Self, what keeps these ReaderFriends coming by day after day?"
No, seriously. My writing capability is all but nil. There must be something here that keeps bringing you back around like a rat after morphine-laced water.
And then it dawned on me:
You're not in this for the babbly fluff.
You're in it because you are someone, or know someone, or psychic-ly connect with someone who deals with this sort of phenomenon semi-regularly.
(All The Vague was thoroughly implemented for that sentence. I'm kind of proud.)
You're here because somewhere in your life, there is an EngineerFriend (or a socially challenged someone not unlike an EngineerFriend).
(On the off chance that you ARE an EngineerFriend and you're looking to use my information to avoid social snafus of your own... I commend you. And would like to send you one of our anniversary stickers.**1)
So you aren't hear to read a long drawn out blurb about my day - You're here to commiserate, and to seek solace in the idea that you aren't alone in your dealings with this highly-educated-but-most-often-socially-awkward race.
That, we can do.
DEAR ENGINEERFRIEND,
Thank you for providing another year's worth of fodder for my imagination. Thank you for "forgetting" to refill the coffee pot, commenting awkwardly on my attire, fouling up my evenings and weekends with your ill-timed project requests and for generally being a pain in my posterior. Because as much as I complain, I would be a pitiful nothing without you.
Well... Relatively speaking. I will never be as pitiful as an EngineerFriend without coffee.
Respectfully (For Real This Time...),
Sunny Smiles
And so, without further ado, we celebrate! Here's to you, here's to me, and here's to another fantastic year!
All these thanks and more to everyone around the world who has made this a fabulous year in SunnyLand.
It's so special to have my voice heard, and to share the Smiles when they cross my path.
(See, that wasn't so bad.)
Now, lets forge boldy onward into a new era of Adventures!
**I said ask for... Not get. Employer is not stoopid.
**1 They exist. Really! Or, at least, they will. If anyone actually wants one.**2
**2 Dammit, now I want one for myself.
