Last night I went to a going away party for Darren and Julie, the only Vancouverites moving to Malta this year.
It’s a strange thing to be celebrating, someone’s going away, like a wake with the departed still there. Even a vast array of shrimp, cold cuts and scotch can’t fully soften that blow.
Maybe if it was your going away party, it would make more sense to invite all your enemies and every jerk you dislike to your going away party. Then the crowd would be much happier, and you’d be happy to be leaving them all behind.
Of course, this going away party’s gloom was mitigated by the fact that they’re moving to Malta, not, like, Bakersfield or something. (Bakersfield is my default armpit nowhere destination, ever since my old editor Mike Carlson went there for an early journalism job.)
And Susie and I now have a good reason to go to Malta, and a nice place to stay while we’re there.
Of course, when we leave Malta, we’ll have to have a going away party.
“We were addicted to the intensity of our hunger—the almost limitless depths of it—and to the certitude that we were needed, that we were vital. Such a feeling is not as wonderful as the condition of being loved, but it is similar, with its dependencies, and far more reliable.”
“From the backstabbing co-worker to the meddling sister-in-law, you are in charge of how you react to the people and events in your life. You can either give negativity power over your life or you can choose happiness instead. Take control and choose to focus on what is important in your life. Those who cannot live fully often become destroyers of life.”
: “If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; be honest and frank anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; build anyway.”
You can scroll right easily by holding down the SHIFT key and using your scroll wheel. (Firefox users trying this will end up jumping to old Web pages until a) Firefox releases a fix, b) they change their settings like so.)