What was the most important event in your life in 2001?

Getting married.

My brother working late on September 10th at the World Trade Center, allowing him a late (enough) morning for the 11th.

The most important month was November. From high to low, I had it all that month. I went to Japan with my parents and nieces, then flew to Hawaii... Finally came back home to find out my grandfather had died. I still don't realize he isn't here anymore. He still lives but only in our memory.

Peter Clarke killed himself on Aug. 23, Scott Clement killed himself on Aug. 30, My Grandmother dying in the beggining of Novemeber, Davids Sister being late for work and missing the train on Sept. 11

Schoolfriend killing himself in May.

Finishing school in June.

Getting results in August.

Starting College in September.

Meeting Una.

Well you know what my answer to this question would be.

Second most important event: my surviving it.

I'll never, ever forget sitting in a bar in Brussels airport on Sept. 11th watching the events in New York unfold. If it were not for the fact that my plane back to Heathrow was delayed for 3 hours, giving me the chance to get totally drunk, I KNOW that I would never have been able to board the flight. As it was I shook all the way back.

More positively, my 40th birthday - (sings) "all of my friends were the-re"

And a fantastic weekend in Greenwich in Sept. Bought records at the market, sat in friends C and V's garden drinking champagne and beer and listening to the New Order album. C cooked lamb, we watched England trounce Germany, drank more beer and finished the night on Armenian brandy. Up the next morning in time for Dr. Who on cable.

It's been a quiet sort of year for me - nothing seismic. The things I didn't do meant more than the things I did do. I've still got the same house, same job, same girlfriend, same hobbies, same friends as I did in January. So to some extent the only thing that's changed this year has been how I spend my leisure time, and in that sense the most important thing that happened *to me* was bloody ILE being set up.

That said it's a measure of the impact of Sept 11th that I can't remember the rest of the year before that very well.

October 1st 2001. After years of study and self-doubt, finally being admitted to the rolls as a solicitor. It still hasn't completely sunk in yet. The rest I'm doing my best to forget.

Going to Bali, loving it...
then sinking into two months of total depression as a result of coming back and thus re-evaluating whole life, realising for the first time that I cannot be happy unless I live a life that is true to myself and that I cannot be happy unless I have a job that makes me happy. Then...
Leaving fuckwit ex
Leaving Web Development and doing Therapeutic Massage certificate and now working as Massage Therapist

- moving back to pennsylvania.

- not committing suicide on feb. 21st, 2001 and july 20th, 2001.

- coming to grips with the notion of death - my own and others - and achieving spiritual clarity (of a sort) for the first time in my life.

- writing. (again. finally.)

- meeting someone who disproved the notion that love had died with her.

Tomatina - I haven't been as happy,happy,happy for ages.

some answers here are really profound and touching which makes me feel like a dope, but here's mine: Sending Hank an innocent email offering help with his Web site. (ps to Toraneko, I envy your career chutzpah.)

Being dumped. And still not hearing back.

On a positive note, discovering I could actually write a novel-length piece of fiction, and finding that people liked it. :-)

Moving my life to a new place and starting philosophy grad school.

I'm not sure yet. It seems like one of those setting things up years, I'll be glad when it's 2002. This year has dragged on, I feel.

surely not coming across you soppy lot?

Aw. Mark S = cool, as was already made plain. Now about that invite...

Maria's father had a heart attack and was hospitalised for a month in October/November then had a pacemaker fitted, all 's well now though. He's 65 today. Then her uncle dying suddenly of a heart attack just after her father got out of hospital.

More positively we have a new nephew Josh and another nephew on the way.

Highlight of the year was getting a trip in a Hawk fighter aircraft. Flying upside down at 28,000 ft is not an experience I'll forget in a hurry. Most nerve wracking was taking the controls of the aircraft.

its a tie between discovering ILE, and the LD50 CD.

Spending the last three months racked with severe sciatic pain was undoubtedly the most noteworthy event of my life this year.

Oh, you know, the guy who did that thing...

MOST IMPORTANT? Ack, what a terrible thing to ask me, now I'm actually going to have to think about this past year. I'd say finally getting my driver's license, about time, but that really shouldn't seem all that important...it's a card. Probably my vacation to New Mexico I suppose - all fun in the artsy sun.

Waking up one day realizing I was utterly submerged in the muck of my introverted head. Despising everything for a moment and walking out of the apartment for the first time in many moons. Drinking a cup of coffee last week that probably saved my life. There was also the span of deaths that occurred between Aaliyah and 9/11.....

I'll never, ever forget sitting in a bar in Brussels airport on Sept. 11th
Then you probably saw my niece. She returned from Spain that day. They showed the attacks on a big screen right before she boarded the plane.

I realised a few weeks ago that I can remember virtually nothing between the months of May and October this year. I suppose the most important thing that's happened to me is contracting an illness, which is a fairly miserable answer.

OK, to put it in a more positive light, the most important thing that's happened to me is re-finding how to get properly excited about stuff, after a while of being so drained I'd completely forgotten. Sentimentally, I'll probably date that to hearing an as-yet-unnamed Clientele song at a soundcheck in Santander.

I realised a few weeks ago that I can remember virtually nothing between the months of May and October this year.

Not even winning Trig Brother? Then again, I'm surprised any of us can remember anything about that. ;-)

**Then you probably saw my niece. She returned from Spain that day. They showed the attacks on a big screen right before she boarded the plane**

She may have been sitting right next to me for all I know - I couldn't take my eyes off the screen.

The death of my father on September 30th. And the 5 days preceding it and the week following.

Outside of that and the obvious world events, very, very little of consequence happened to me this year. Well, my sister gave me a car, that was astoundingly nice of her. And I drove it across the USA, stopping in Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. I took a wrong turn on the way to Salt Lake City and ended up driving through my deceased friend James's small rural hometown in Idaho with tears in my eyes.

Celebrity death that *really* affected me: Joey Ramone.

Finishing and releasing my album. Buying my house.