Dept. of Beginnings and Endings

[kaffy_r]

2016, The Year That Was a Troll

2016 should have been fired about two weeks after it arrived. Unfortunately, it hung around, like that one guy at the party who manages to insult your parents, alienate your best friend, spill red wine on your best white shirt and possibly absquatulate with one or two pieces of heirloom silverware. Bad cess to 2016, then. And possibly bad cess to its younger brother, who is already looking to be the kind of unfortunate dudebro one hopes one's son won't emulate. I do not hold out much hope, I confess.

On the other hand, hope, like that pixilated aunt you adore even as you know you should worry about her, springs eternal. In fact, she refuses to give up springing, jumping, leaping, pogoing, and otherwise acting in a completely unbecoming fashion, while motioning you to join her on the dance floor. I suppose just one sproing couldn't hurt ....

Meanwhile, there are all of you out there, my friends and acquaintances, all of you eminently worthy individuals, each of you having added something positive to my life. I will, at least temporarily, hang onto my pixilated aunt as she pogos around the room, and wish you all the very, very best 2017. You are in my heart, each of you, and you have provided much of what joy 2016 offered me. 

So - wanna join me and Hope on the dance floor?

Comments

[st_aurafina]

*twirls you* Happy New Year, bb, let's kick this one into shape!

[kaffy_r]

*enjoys being twirled*

*puts on her pointy-toed roach-killer* kicking shoes and readies herself*


*"roach-killer" was the adjectivial label we used to slap on boots with narrow toes, and I've always liked it, which is why I used it, and wow, this explanation has gotten longer, and sillier, so I should just end the sentence. Now.

[promethia_tenk]

Never has this icon been more appropriate.

Fuck you, 2016. 2017: may you grow to overcome your origins.

*dances*

[kaffy_r]

You have much more hope for 2017 than I do, but let's go with it. Also? I love this gif, and will nab, with your permission. I need to find many dancing gifs, and I suspect I'll use them a lot in the coming year.

[owlboy]

Sé bueno con nosotros, 2017

[kaffy_r]

Heh; I play around with Portuguese in my fanfics enough that I almost got that right. (I thought it was "Be gentle with us, 2017," which is at least in the conceptual ballpark.

And, oh god, yes, let it be good to us.

(Where's your icon from? It seems particularly apropos these days.)

[owlboy]

The Hour.

You haven't seen it?

You absolutely must.

[kaffy_r]

Ah, right; I've heard of it, and it's been on my "Gee, I should watch that" list for a while. I'm really bad with catching up with my "Gee, I should watch that" list, however. I still may end up watching it at some point.

Hope your New Year went the way you wanted it to?

[eaweek.livejournal.com]

I don't have a ton of hope for 2017, but I will join you on the dance floor. I'm bracing for the worst, but still enough of an optimist to hope I'm pleasantly surprised.

[kaffy_r]

I think dancing is better than mourning, although there's a significant part of me that wants to do the latter rather than the former. Welcome to the dance floor!

[thisbluespirit]

You've got to at least have hope, haven;t you? 2017 doesn't look promising, but we'll see... And we'll see what we can do.

Happy New Year! ♥

[kaffy_r]

You do have to have hope. It gets very hard sometimes, but I guess we need to keep on grasping at it.

And we'll see what we can do.

There! That, right there is the best thing I've heard so far this year! Thank you! We need to do something, rather than hang back and whinge (even when whinging seems like the perfect activity, at least to me.) Thank you again!

♥

[thisbluespirit]

Although, in fairness, it should be noted that 'what I can do' usually covers writing ficlets and making icons, but I'm hopeful that other people can do more and I can just cheer their soul afterwards with an icon. ;-)

♥ *hugs you*

[kaffy_r]

I'll just echo my icon - go, us!

[sarren.livejournal.com]

I will join you on the dance floor :) I don't have hope but I have a determination to fight.

[kaffy_r]

First - I adore your icon. We have a dance we do in our house sometimes, which we call the "Do The Funky Otter," because we all love otters, and the way they move (especially their heads). So, yes, I've managed to derail my own train of thought, but ... OTTERS!

And secondly, yes, determination to fight is, I think, a type of hope. If one has surrendered completely to despair, then one won't fight, so the seeds of hope can be found in determination.

Happy New Year to you, and I will try to join you both on the dance floor and in the fight!

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

I have hope, but it's a kind of desperate hope. I am glad to have said good-bye to 2016, but I'm not sure I trust 2017 yet. I'm waiting to see how many people it kills from my childhood in the first week, before I decide. I will wave to you from the comfy chair. A sprained ankle does not allow for much dancing.

[kaffy_r]

I know what you mean when you speak of desperate hope. I think perhaps that that's what I have as well. But desperate hope is better than none at all. I'm glad to see you waving from the comfy chair, but sorry to hear that you have a sprained ankle - may it heal quickly, as a good omen for 2017!

[flowsoffire.livejournal.com]

Beautifully put as always ♥ Wishing you the best for the new year, and let's hope it treats the world a little more kindly…

*hugs*

[kaffy_r]

Thanks for your good wishes, my dear; I hope your New Year's Eve went as you wanted it to go, and I definitely share your hopes for 2017. We can't escape it, after all, so we might as well try to improve it!

[liadt]

Happy New Year!

Keep the hope:)

[kaffy_r]

Thanks - I'll try to keep the hope going, possibly by dancing the jitterbug!

[davesmusictank.livejournal.com]

Hope that 2017 is better for all of us.

[kaffy_r]

I share your wish, and hope your year will be good.

[shanghaied]

No can do, as I'm in the band. Without us, you've nothing to dance to.

: :P :P :P


(Being blessed - or cursed - hmm, is that blursed? - with a lethal allergy to rose-tinted glasses, I have no 'hope' whatsoever. This does not stop me from loving this planet, from loving most of its lands, flora and fauna, from loving being alive, from being amused by the weird doings of its top-predator ape species, from being delighted by the occasional marvellous!!! doings of said species, and from being - despite stoopid M/D wetware - subject to frequent bouts of almost inexpressible joy. So yes, I'll stay up here on the stage and provide the music ~grins~)

[kaffy_r]

Why, of course you'd be in the band! (Do you need an old-ex-chick-backup-singer? No? No problem, I'll go back to gallumphing the Schottische on the dance floor.)

"Blursed" ... must find a reason to use that in casual conversation ....

I'm probably all too ready to wear rose-tinted glasses, although at my age, the glasses are cracked and rather more smoky than they once were. As one of my lack-of-newsroom colleagues said to me the other day, "Kathy, we used to call you Pollyanna. You've changed." I nodded sadly. Still, I keep the cracked frames around and don them, possibly out of habit. And I think being able to love and find joy in things is hope, in one of its many diverse forms. So we may not be so far apart.

[wendymr.livejournal.com]

On more occasions than I can count, when I read your LJ I am reminded that you are a writer by profession. This is one such occasion - you are eloquent, witty and so very right.

Yes, let's have hope for 2017. True, there aren't many indications that there's all that much to hope for, but we may yet be surprised. Certainly, there are some excellent protest movements out there, not to mention individuals doing good work to help or protect those at risk.

Let's hope. Let's hope that the next time a woman is attacked and has her hijab pulled off (as happened twice to a friend of mine here in Canada, a community worker who is one of the kindest, most generous people I know) there will be people who won't just walk away but will come and help. Let's hope that when women or LGBTQ people or ethnic minorities express fear that they may lose their rights, others will defend them. I've been encouraged by the increase in donations to organisations campaigning for or providing services to those under threat, not just in the US but in the UK, Canada and elsewhere.

Here's to a positive and peaceful 2017 for you and yours!

[kaffy_r]

Thanks for the kind words. These days, when my writerly skills appear pretty damned attenuated and intermittent, it's good to be reminded that the skill hasn't left me completely.

Certainly, there are some excellent protest movements out there, not to mention individuals doing good work to help or protect those at risk.


To be honest, those movements and those individuals are the only generators of hope that I can see.

All the people in power appear to be mapping out a regressive legislative agenda that makes it clear they want to return to an imagined "better" day that in truth is better for no one, not even the white, cis-gendered males to which the agenda plotters are playing. I saw the headline in the Washington Post today and didn't even go to read the story, because it was about just those plans, and I couldn't approach that cesspool first thing on the last day of my vacation.

So I hang on to the kind of hope you mention, and try to look for ways to keep people in all our marginalized communities - LGBTQ, Muslim, ethnic minorities, etc. - as safe from the storm as I, and we, can make them.

ETA: And although it's more than a day late, Happy New Year to you!

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

OMG, perfect description!!

I shall join you and Hope on the dance floor. And I shall bring Love. Because Love should always lead...

*HUGS*

[kaffy_r]

Because Love should always lead...

Oh, yes, you're so beautifully right - thanks for reminding me!

Right now, I'm dancing in place, but perhaps with more folks on teh dance floor, we can all do the jitterbug.

Happy New Year, my dear!

[nucleosides.livejournal.com]

♥

[kaffy_r]

♥ right back to you - and have a very, very good 2017!