Good morning. Hello. How are you? #556
A year-end wrap-up meme I've been doing for, like, a decade.
Good morning. Hello. How are you? The sun is shining. I am good. Happy new year. Welcome back to work. I do this list every year, I’ve been doing it for more than a decade. I guess I’m doing it in email form this year. I used to do it in LiveJournal. Maybe I will still post it there too.
Oh and before we get started, if you’re excited about these sorts of things, a new episode of my podcast is up:
It is shocking how many of these answers are essentially exactly the same as 2020.
1. What did you do in 2021 that you’d never done before?
Go to my father’s funeral. Potty train a kid.
2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Last year’s resolutions and their results:
Dieting: Failed completely
Be a good dad: Did pretty good
Be a good husband: B+
Get through Apple ATT and all of that work BS, leave Timehop in a stronger place than when you entered the year: A fucking Plus.
If you happen to make more than enough to live off of, give the rest away: Well, I kept this one because the if statement did not kick in.
Save as much money as possible: B-/B
Continue to be careful during this pandemic even as the entire quarantine crumbes around me and I’m filled with more FOMO than I thought humanly possible: B+/A-
Try and be here for my friends: B
Get those cassette tapes ripped and off my work table. Finally: A+!
This years’s resolutions. Hrm. Well, actually, seems like most of last year’s are applicable again. Lose weight. Be a good dad. Be a good husband. Get work into a better place than it was the year before. Give away your excess wealth. Save as much as you can. Continue to be careful during this pandemic even as the entire quarantine crumbes around me and I’m filled with more FOMO than I thought humanly possible. Super cool that one is still 100% applicable a year later. Try and be here for my friends. I did get the cassettes ripped, though. And I got, like, pretty much every archiving project under the sun done, so I don’t know what to replace that resolution with. Fix my headaches maybe. LOL that won’t happen.
3. How will you be spending New Year’s Eve?
I did a Zoom with some friends in Boston and LA and it was quite nice. I watched Miley and Brandi and it was bonkers. We all watched the ball drop online and then I went to bed, and woke up with a splitting headache from five beers.
4. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Some various friends had some kids, I would like to shout out to my friend Graydon, especially, who had twins some time ago, and one is still in the hospital, and just today due to staffing concerns his baby had to go back to the NICU out of his private room and now Graydon and his wife can’t see their daughter whenever they want. Some other friends had second, or third kids. Lotta kids proliferating on those holiday cards.
5. Did anyone close to you die?
No. This was a lot better than last year. I had a couple old friends pass away, but not at the same relentless rate as last year, and not people with whom I was super close. That sounds awful. It was still sad, but somewhat more manageable. I still miss my dad.
6. What countries did you visit?
Mars, Middle Earth, A galaxy far, far away, a planet called Qitan, The Expanse, China (past, present and future), a post-apocalyptic, geologically unstable Earth of the future, the Mayan empire, Cathulhuyak, Cantebridgean England. It’s just like that librarian told me: books let you travel.
7. What would you like to have in 2022 that you lacked in 2021?
BraveheartFreedom.gif.
An end to this pandemic. Successful snow peas and garlic. A victory in the great garden battle against the deer and squirrels. Cucumbers. Successful potty training completed. My daughter to learn to take deep breaths. To bring Jane to Alaska.
8. What date from 2021 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
January 6th.
My dad’s funeral.
Jane peeing by herself in the morning for the first time.
That one night at Tom and Jerry’s with a bunch of friends.
9. What was your biggest achievement(s) of the year?
This is what I wrote last year, and it doesn’t seem to particularly need revising:
Surviving. Not going crazy. Not giving up on Quarantine. Not getting in too many fights with my wife. Enduring my daughter’s tantrums. Teaching her to share. Teaching her basics of empathy.
10. What was your biggest failure?
I still lose my patience with Jane more than I would like. Not, like, in a big way or a terrible way. But more than I would like.
I don’t know. I’ve had some big failures in past years, but this year, I had some trials, but no huge failures. I gained weight, that was a failure. I didn’t write any more new music. Failures of not doing things I guess. Wow that sounds more depressing than it is.
11. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I had a terrible groin pull that caused a blood bruise from my pelvis to my knee, front to back on one of my legs and I couldn’t walk for a few weeks and it was fucking awful and it has now been like six months and I still suffer lingering damage to my knee where I can’t kneel on it, even on a mattress or carped.
The arthritis in my fingers grows progressively worse and I routinely wake up with trigger finger in one finger or another.
Apple ATT was a giant clusterfuck and I am still pissed off about it and while it didn’t kill Timehop, it certainly hurt us and… I don’t know I guess this isn’t a real injury but it makes me mad.
I did not, astonishingly, get COVID. Well. Knock on wood. I am witing this at 3PM on the 31st. Nine more hours.
12. What was the best thing you bought?
Emma’s new computer. It is rad. I didn’t buy a ton of stuff for me. Oh, okay: I bought a really sweet workbench table I like it a lot. And I bought a copy of the Flaming Lips The Time Has Come to Shoot You Down… What a Sound. That was really great. Oh and a really sweat cheapish treadmill. A bunch of gardening accessories.
13. Where did most of your money go?
Savings. I don’t spend even half of what I make. Country living. It is amazing, I’m telling you.
14. What song will always remind you of 2021?
“Pond House” by Saint Etienne. The Olivia Rodrigo album. Taylor’s ten-minute “All too Well.” “Wild Horses” by Brandi Carlile.
15. What do you wish you’d done more of?
I said this last year, seems a good repeat this year. IT IS ALL REPEATS: See friends, travel, go to rock shows, go to movie theaters, see my family
16. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Last year I said: Read Alaska 123. Grocery shop. Fume about politics. Suffer from the deaths of others. And I did less of all of those things, so hats off to me.
Hey good news! I don’t think I read Alaska 123 at all this year. Jane is into Harold and the Purple Crayon now. Much better. This year. I would like to do less… um… deal with Apple and other evil oligopolistic megacorporations who don’t give a shit about small companies. See Tweets by VCs on Twitter. Clean the kitchen. I am so sick of cleaning the kitchen. But I like a clean kitchen. The only solution is to use it less, which means go out for dinner once again.
17. What was your favorite TV program?
Only Murders in the Building, What We Do in the Shadows, Wandavision, Lower Decks—the best Star Trek in 30 years.
18. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
I was no fan of Joe Manchin in 2020 but I don’t know that it had risen to an extreme level. I donated, god help me, to Krysten Sinema’s campaign and I am pissed about it. I’m pissed at Disney and every studio who keeps releasing movies in theaters-only in a pandemic. I’m still angry with a certain ex-coworker but I don’t hate them.
19. What was the best book you read?
Fiction: The Wayfarers Series by Becky Chambers
Non-Fiction: Fears of a Setting Sun: The Disillusion of America’s Founders by Dennis Rasmussen
20. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Pharoah Sanders. Aeon Station. For Those I Love. Olivia Rodrigo.
21. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Jane, Emma. At work: Matt, David, Dmitry, Adam, Kristen, Vanessa. Dolly Parton (except for that Squarespace commercial), Peter Hotez, Taylor Swift, The squad, Liz Cheney (my god can you believe that shit), Thor Harris, Frances Haugen, Matt Levine, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, Britney Spears, Suzy Birmingham, Stacey Abrams, Raphael Warnock, Taylor Swift
22. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema. Most Republican lawmakers, still finding new ways to appall and depress us in 2021. JK Rowling. Joe Rogan. Tucker Carlson.
23. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Jane. What a gift. What a miracle. It’s been an absolute blessing.
I got, like, briefly excited about crypto and NFTs and web3 but I have kind of chilled out again. The primary thurst of NFT culture is becoming insular and impenetrable and I do not have time to be taking quizzes to join Discords to get a wallet address to mint directually against a contract. It was iffy enough discovering them on Twitter and their own websites. In hindsight I realize it was just another way to kill time while stuck at home.
I got really excited about gardening. Making Youtube videos. My GMHHAY book. The Book of Boba Fett.
24. Compared to last year, are you:
Happier or sadder? Happier? The light at the tunnel has moved further away, but it’s still there. Trump is gone, or at least hibernating. Competent people mostly run the government. Things are not getting particularly better, but they are not getting worse. Jane is less stress. I’ve adapted muchly to so much domestic life. Oftentimes, I like it.
Thinner or fatter? Heavier. Wait, actually, let’s go look. Haha nine pounds heavier. Fuck.
Richer or poorer? True for the fourth year: Slow and steady wins the race: Richer but really just incrementally through savings. No major changes.
25. How did you spend Christmas?
We did dinner on Christmas this year, big holiday dinner. We should have done it on Christmas eve but I had COVID complications with getting the turkey from the grocery store on time and I had to wait for it to thaw. Then we did presents. Then we had pie. Then we laid around and did nothing. Jane spent, like, two hours opening her presents, it was adorable and rewarding. We went for a nice walk through the neighborhood later.
26. Did you fall in love in 2020?
I did not.
27. How many one night stands?
None!
28. What was your favorite film of this year?
Whirlybird, Dune, Pig, Adrienne
29. What did you do on your birthday?
I legitimately don’t remember. Let’s go look. Good thing I am a relentless journaler. Here is part of my entry from my birthday. Sure sounds exciting:
I am not in a soooooper good mood this birthday. It was raining this morning, it ruined my Lowe’s outing. Couldn’t garden. Decided to “get all the errands” done, focusing on the quality of the four-day weekend as a whole, rather than the actual birthday. Got the SEP paid in. Took shit to the collection center, got rid of the lame, broken, old hoses, took a bunch of crap to the storage unit. I’m happy all that shit done but it is not making for a particularly pleasant day. But it’s 1:30, and I’m done now. I think I’m going to go straighten up/spiff up the library, that should be kind of rewarding.
30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Even though Trump is gone we still “have Trump,” and we still have a pandemic, so my answer is the same as last year: To not have a pandemic or Trump.
31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2020?
Been saying this since 2015: None more black, except when I’m lazy then typical aging old navy sci fi geek
32. What kept you sane?
My wife, Jane, even as she drove me crazy. GMHHAY and the friends who read it every day. 750 words. A work ethic. A democractic-controlled presidency and congress. Books. No Man’s Sky. YouTube. My house and my neighborhood. My garden. WITI. Fake Slack friends.
33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Amanda Seyfried I think. It’s those eyes.
34. What political issue stirred you the most?
The radicalization of the Republican party, the Supreme court, immigration, the election, the attempt to steal the election, the Georgia senate races, Jan 6 and the aftermath, the Impeachment, the botching of the vaccination rollout, the botching of the pandemic guidelines,
I said this last year, too: This list could go on and on I am rattling these off without even trying I could add fifty more it is absolutely insane how much of my brain this shit has taken up this year. And there is no going back.
35. Who did you miss?
I miss my dad.
I miss Andy Shea.
In terms of the living, I miss Abigail, Rachel, Liisa, Friendly Beth, Beth, Katherine, my mother and sister, Heather, Kelly, Jen, Jenna, Jamie. Drinking with Doug Pfeffer I miss that so much.
36. Who was the best new person you met?
Last year I met a few people because of Zooms and Slacks and stuff. But this year, I am not sure I met a single new person. If you’re a new person I met this year, then hey, congratulations, you’re the best new person I met this year.
OH. Derek Wiggins, co-founder of Guilty By Association. He is awesome and I am awesome to have invested.
37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2020.
Hope and Optimism are different things.
The below paragraph is now four years old but it’s still the best I’ve come up with. Beyond this, maybe something like ‘learn to take notes at a young age.”
Progress isn’t linear. Hard things are hard and things aren’t black and white. The world might be getting better all the time but it was getting better all the time in the dark ages too and that doesn’t mean your life is going to necessarily be in a period where things get better all the time or even at all. People who saw progress their whole lives died with Donald Trump in power and fascism on the rise. You always will need to do more. You can’t do as much as you should but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. Guilt is both useful and useless. Most opposites aren’t opposites. Two opposites can be true at the same time. We try and simplify things but we lose the truth when we do. We almost never know what is really going on and we should stop pretending we do. Bobby Kennedy was an asshole but he did good things. LBJ was an asshole but he did good things. Nixon was an asshole but he did good things. The Bushes were assholes but they did good things. Obama was a good guy but he did bad things. Even Trump occasionally did good things. Parenting changes you but doesn’t. Life is fragile. Stop and smell the roses isn’t just a cliche. Health matters. Don’t take it for granted. I knew many of these things before this year but I am slowly merging them all. I have a new respect for those weird Jewish Rabbis who never take a stand but also take a stand. Ambition is good but poisonous. Slow and steady wins the race. Or it doesn’t win the race but it makes the race a victory on its own. Not winning the race is okay and probably even better. You can be special and not special simultaneously. The best skill is to know when to hold to conflicting views simultaneously and to know when that is wrong and they need to be resolved.
Happy new year. Tomorrow is my media round-up, so you’ll get a giant playlist of all of the best music from 2020. Today you can have a nice justa mix of new and old. Fittingly, volume 100. A milestone mix for a new year’s milestone.
Until tomorrow. How your back-at-work Monday is endurable.
I am SOOOO touched to be included on your list of people whose behavior merited celebration. how did i manage that?!