HEY THIS IS COOL, CHUCK: GOOD IDEA,CONGRATS! And Thank You...
1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?THAT'S EASY:
A--******I adopted my son******... he is the joy of my life
B-- I showed up in Brooklyn and quietly TOOK CHARGE during a family medical emergency doing whatever was necessary.....and quietly got it all done...leaving nothing to reproach myself with. When you KNOW you have done everything possible...there isno feeling like it.
C--Shattered my sternum
D--and had a minor nervous breakdown
2. Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?I didn't make any. I think. Which means if I did I didn't follow them.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?NO
4. Did anyone close to you die?Yes. My friends BrianGarvey & Jackie Pascarella both died in 2008, while Heath Ledger--whom I never met, but whose performance in Brokeback Mountain hit home with such power it changed the course of
THIS Jack Twist's life, overdosed & died back home in New York.
5. What countries did you visit? [/i][/b]
It was Juniour's idea, he wanted the 3 of us to go on a family vacation. We were supposed to go to France and see Katrina's late father's boat. It was restored by a couple in Provence after the French Senate declared it a' National Treasure of the Republic' but it took 4ever to hear from them In a depressive moment I momentarily opened my mouth, blew off Paris & the Riviera and got stuck [or so it seemed at the time
with Bah. Blah.Humbug. Blecch. Yecch....California. And I didn't even know I'd been stuck, for...
Unfortunately my wife ACTUALLY LISTENS TO ME lol.
Afterwards I went to my bank, about 500 feet from the house. By the time I got back 3 minutes and 47 seconds later, she'd already called Nicholas, cancelled the reservations & arranged for him to come over. I was floored. Nicholas suggested a 3 week family vacation in California: San Francisco; Monterey; the ranch in Paso Robles; San Diego and Los Angeles. OK. Who needs Paris???
I'd NEVER have gone to the Golden State for that long; the original plan was for me and my wife to stay with Joe/WLAGuy for the gathering & then head home---AFTER la belle France!!!!! I really knew nothing about the Golden State aside from what one sees on tv and in the movies. In my whole life, I'd spent 3 days in LA with WLAGuy [Joe D.] plus a Thanksgiving at my wife's aunt's ranch. That's it. Any time spent with Joe is treasured and life at Chimney Rock Ranch is glorious, but all in all I can't say California hadn't done anything for me. The countryside was ugly, desert-in-the-making which was just waiting for a match...but Juniour was eager, which made ME eager.
Well, the Golden State was a real surprise! I even said as much to a gallery owner in Monterey. She was astonished--floored actually. You could tell she was thinking 'Where backward village is this guy FROM!'
What she SAID was " Where are you from? California is the most important state, the center of EVERYthing." I told her I was from NYC {LoL} and added "A lot us go to The Other Side when we travel, and aren't really interested in what goes on west of New Jersey". She said "The other side of what, New Jersey??" [lmao] and I said "No the other side of the ATLANTIC " , adding that {UNTIL RECENTLY} traveling to Europe instead of here had been a financial wash, sometimes cheaper......and much more interesting then a lot of the states.
It was pretty funny, how east and west think so differently at times.
The countryside became very unattractive south of Paso Robles, but the 3 of us had SOOOO much fun!San Diego was cool, & Katrina I went to Mexico for a day. Went to Sea World, which was fascinating. The gift shops were disappointing, they didn't have one single SERIOUS book about the oceans, pelagic life, polar conditions>>>but Shamu was in good spirits! It was disappointing when Juniour had to go home early, missing Los Angeles.....but Joe got me over it. [lol]
And Los Angeles??
The town everybody hates?? We LOVED LA!!!!
Yep, I loved Los Angeles, We spent 2 entire days at the Getty Center and didn't even see 60% of the incredible grounds [not the Villa--that was another site;we were at the Getty CENTER], Frankly, I'd never seen anything like it. I think John Paul Getty told his architect to translate Versailles into the modern vernacular, for that;s what it is! Versailles done in post-modern neo-baroque, with concentration on materials and texture. AWESOME!!!!! Joe, Bob, Jack, John, Jack and the 2 of us had a wonderful time hanging out all over LA....
ALL OF US HAD a lot of fun.
And the screening was the finest I'd ever seen.
6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?AAH, this is an EASY one:
In 2009, I'd like to have the....
{A--} Mental Stability I lacked in 2008 as well as....
{B--} -
NO>>NADA>>>NONE!!!!>>>NO physical problems and injuries in this coming BushLESS Year Of Our Lord, 2009. May it be the first of MANY.......
lol
7. What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?There are 3 dates:
---January 22nd
---the day of our Memorial for Jackie & Heath
---Sept 8, 12:30AM... when I had a siezure driving, blacked out, wrecked the car, shattered my sternum and scared the hell out of both wife and son. I will never forget the look on Nicholas' face when he saw me at the hospital...which was immediately after he had seen my utterly destroyed car,
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?Oh,what an easy question !!! To neither commit myself nor BE committed to any cheery Psychiatric Wards by my wife.
[On the other hand we DO need a couple of woven baskets...]
lol lol lol
9. What was your biggest failure?Another easy one
--I stopped writing
--I've ...lost words. No other way to splain, it, Lucy
--I letting myself get to the point where answer 8 applied
--I didn't hang enough with the Denver Brokies
10. Did you suffer illness or injury this year?Yeah.
I sort of
no,...actually DID have something of a breakdown early in the year. Nicholas, Katrina and me, well we dealt with it and got help from friends too. It's one of those awkward things which isn't secret---& shouldn't be secret. There's no shame in getting sick. At the same time one doesn't need to shout it from the rooftop, for there's also no reason to dwell on it.
It just "was". I'll post something about it in my blog later.
This fall,I had a seizure. It wasn't one where you're bouncing all over the place;I sort of blacked out and stiffened up. I was driving the car, knew something was happening and pulled over as soon as I could...but blocked out while pulling over. My foot jammed the gas pedal and I crashed into the rear of a parked car. Both cars were totals and ALL the airbags went off. That's wha shattered my sternum; that and blacking out gave me my first 5 days in the hospital. The second 8 day stay was caused by water. I went home and was back in the hospital 5 days later, so bloated you wouldn't have believed it. Katrina ordered me into the car, but not for nothing, I was so flipped out by it that she heard NO arguments lol. The swelling had begun slowly, but on the morning of the 5th day it exploded---I woke up with my calves literally--SERIOUSLY--the size of my thigh. Couldn't even get my pants on and had to wear flipflops and these HUGE gymshorts.That time was for what, 10 days.
This was a nasty year, health-wise.
11. What was the best thing you bought?A---many rare & uncommon roses
B---legal expertise to file those crazy papers for adoption lol
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?my wife's
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?A---certain persons behind the scenes at another BBM site, who were not gentlemen when we had the Memorial this February and behaved badly towards all of us.
B---Mine, in the sense of how I treated myself. Not well, that's for sure!
C---Jake Gyllenhaaal, who you CAN'T say behaved badly to a close,close friend of mine and ours because he didn't behave badly, but whose behaviour towards Charlotte was just WRONG. As in WRONG.
14. Where did most of your money go?--Southern California
--Christmas ornaments. I have a weakness for good Christmas Ornaments.
--FIVE JetBlue flights to NYC, to deal with family illness
15.What made you really really really excited?*****my 87 year old aunt's recovery from breaking her back, getting out of that nursing facility and GOING HOME!!!*****
---going to Wyoming
---getting and planting those rare roses, watching them grow
---spending a day in LA with Ellen R/Tellyouwhat & her family in LA
---seeing so many brokies before and after the Wyoming Round-Up; didn't go on it myself
---the day my autumn flowering crocus speciosus bloomed, all 1,000 of them!!!Next summer I'll put in another thousand....
---getting out of the damned hospital, BOTH times. YAYYY!!!
---putting up our Christmas Tree
16.What song will forever remind you of 2008?the Ave Maria from the Donnie Darko score,it played at the Memorial for Jackie & Heath
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:a) happier or sadder? happier
b) thinner or fatter? fatter
c) richer or poorer? richer and poorer at the same time
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?A---writing. writing anything. I 'lose words' and it's become worse since that siezure.
B---*****constructively getting out of my own head*****
C---seeing much much more of The Denver Brokies.As in MUCH MUCH MORE!
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?hanging out in my own head
20. How will you be spending Christmas?In DENVER, if you can believe it!!! With Katrina, Nicholas, Katrina's mother and brother...maybe a brokie or 2 as well.It will be in OUR HOUSE-- At HOME--- which is a FIRST.
21. How will you be spending New Year's?
very nicely. I bought tickets for "A Night In Vienna" at the Colorado Symphony for Katrina & I. Vienna is where I took her on our honeymoon, and she loved it insanely---even though we were both sick on our honeymoon lol. We hung with the Viennese Brokies ---who got us tickets to a Ball at the Imperial Palace. [Never underestimate a Viennese Brokie!!! DAZZLING!!!!]
BUT WE ARE AVAILABLE FOR BROKIE EVENTS AFTER 9:30 lol
22. Did you fall in love in 2008?
No. I was already in love.
23. How many one-night stands?
Not a one
24. What were your favorite TV programs?
{IN NO ORDER>>>}
Battlestar Galactica [the new one]
CSI
House
Reruns of 'The Golden Girls'; 20 years later it is STILL hilarious!!
Reruns of 'Angel'
Reruns of 'Charmed' [how embaressing...]
The History Channel's shows on the ancient world
The Starter Wife
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Nope. I don't hate ANYBODY; hate destroys the hater. It is an UNHEALTHY thing to do, and completely unproductive.
There ARE people, on another Forum, whoseunpleasant behaviour last January manifested itself in ways which were ...NOT appreciated by those Brokies along the Front Range. However, I don't hate them and never did.
26. What was the best book you read?
Well, there were a few:
---an unpublished work-in-progress by my favourite author; breathtaking... fiction
---'History of the Byzantine State' by Prof. Ostrogorsky history
---'The 4th Crusade & the Sack of Constantinople' by Jonathan Phillips history
---'A Canticle For Liebowitz' Fiction
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
ROFLMAO
I forgot the name!!!!
28. What did you want and get?
Easy!
---A son
---Hope
29. What did you want and not get?
---Mental Stability, but I have hopes
lol
---closer relations with The Denver Brokies
30. What was your favorite film of this year?
The Dark Knight: It was STUPENDOUS, and Heath was breathtaking.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I didn't want my family to celebrate it but they did anyway. And FrontRanger did...
53
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?Mental Stability
Friends I saw frequently.
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
jeans, t-shirts
34. What kept you sane?Well, I certifiably WASN'T sane LOL....& credit Katrina and Nicholas with preserving what little I HAD...and Brokies like Charlotte, FrontRanger, Lauragigs, WLAJoe...
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?Well, my all-time has always been Charles DeGaulle; he's been on top forever, since I was a boy awed by his raising a fallen nation, the 18th of June,
the Liberation; and that majestic manner with which he said the teenage boy's favourite word:
"NON"
-------------------------------------------------------------
For President I'd been Pro-Hillary. My esteemed Brokie Bud Ellen//Tellyouwhat had decided we'd stick with her until she threw in the towel. We knew Barack was going to win after Iowa, but regardless she deserved our loyalty; the more people jumped ship, the more loyal we became. And when she conceded to Barack, he got our loyalty....and our votes.
36. What political issue stirred you the most?The unbelievably unreflective stupidity of the US Federal Government which in its' collective blindness has brought the nation to the edge of an abyss we may very well fall into, and its' inability to either learn from or profit by mistakes which should never have been made in the first place. My wife & some of our friends were looking at me as if I had a crystal ball in the basement. EVERYTHING I said would happen has happened, in the order I said it would happen. [I'm a trained historian, although I never did anything with it. And very perceptive and clear when it comes to panoramic historical trends. ] I'm watching the economic news; the possibility that their attempts to avert one catastrophe might bring down another, namely the hyperinflation and destruction of the dollar, is quite real. What's being done is incredibly dangerous.
however remember I said i was certifiable lol lol lol
37. Who did you miss?my friend Brian who died in April
Jackie, who died in January
Heath, but I didn't KNOW him.
I missed family back in NY
Joe in LA
The Viennese Brokies
and of course Billy in Brooklyn>>>but he came to visit me last month!!!!
38. Who was the best new person(s) you met?-----My wife. I'm serious. I met her when I was 19 & she can still surprise the hell out of me
-----JimGrrrrr and
-----Bob, whom Katrina & I buddied around with in Los Angeles
-----a cowboy up in Centennial, Wyoming
39. Side question...who would I like to get to know better?My Wife, she fascinates me.
Billy in Brooklyn, who after 20 years still surprises
Brokie "Chuck" in Denver
Cellardweller, The Brokie
Nicole Kidman, the Actress
Me, but we'veat least been introduced<grin>.
40. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008:We could have one sweet life together if I get outta my head. This bronc has a low startle point...
41. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year (any song from any year):"Our love is here to stay......."
