Listen to the Rain

I don't think I need to talk about how this year has been. I haven't had that bad a year, fortunately--I've been lucky enough to not get sick during this the Plague Year, I've been able to work from home so I've been safe and warm the whole time, and I met a wonderful woman and we're having a daughter together. I've avoided a lot of the flashpoints and problems that occurred and I'm hopeful looking into the new year. Considering everything that's happened, that's a real blessing.

And now, the traditional new year's meme:


1. What did you do in 2019 that you’d never done before?
Worked from home! The AMA sent everyone home in the middle of March, a couple weeks before the Illinois stay home ordered was passed and I've been home the entire time. I only have my water bottle and frog plushie from the office because my boss made a trip to retrieve personal items. We're banned from coming in as long as we take public transit, and with the slowness of the vaccine rollout here, I'll probably be at home for a while longer. I really do like it, but I think I'd prefer at least one day a week at the office. I miss my reading time on the train.

2. Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't do New Year's resolutions, so I will neither keep them nor make more.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Not yet!

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No. And in a year like the last year, I'm extremely grateful that that's the case--I don't know anyone who definitely got coronavirus, but I know several people who suspect that they did. Fortunately none of them have any continuing ill effects they know of, and I hope that continues to be the case.

5. What countries did you visit?
For obvious reasons I didn't go anywhere.

6. What would you like to have in 2021 that you lacked in 2020?
More time with friends.

7. What date from 2020 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
November 7th, when the vote count for Biden ticked over in several states and due to the unseasonably warm weather in Chicago, people were literally dancing in the streets.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Successfully navigating dating and meeting someone even with the plague always lurking in the background and, unlike last year, also starting a new relationship.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Honestly, I can't really think of anything that qualifies. It's been a good year.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nothing stronger than a cold, which in this year is especially a blessing.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
I'm not sure. For most of the year I didn't really buy anything or go anywhere, so I guess maybe Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn? I always thought I was done with MMOs after I stopped playing World of Warcraft but I've played it a ton with sashagee and it's a lot of fun! I'll never be a hardcore raider again but now we own a house (and in the game!) and there's plenty of stuff to do. On a year when we're stuck indoors, it's a nice diversion.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My friends, who mostly took the plague extremely seriously.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Roughly 74,222,957 of my fellow Americans, plus some people on the Left as well. Not a good year for faith in humanity.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Early on, into savings. Later once sashagee was on leave due to extreme morning sickness, into basic needs. There hasn't been a lot I've needed to spend money on, fortunately.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
I'm having a daughter!

16. What song will always remind you of 2020?
Heading Home by Alan Walker.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Much, much happier.
ii. thinner or fatter? The same weight.
iii. richer or poorer? Richer, because the stock market is not the economy.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Gone to concerts in the early part of the year but the shutdowns. On the other hand, maybe if I had, I would have caught corona, so perhaps it's for the best that I was social but didn't completely overdo it.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Worried about things I couldn't control.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
I visited sashagee's parents, though it was a bit awkward because this year Asarah b'Tevet was on the 25th and she hadn't warned them, so they prepared a dairyless shepherd's pie and then I couldn't eat any of it until sundown.

21. Is there a particularly memorable meal you had?
As a series, the various farmer's market dinners I made throughout the summer and fall, because they allowed me to get out and try new foods, make something interesting and different every week, and broaden my culinary horizons.

22. Did you fall in love in 2020?
Yes.

23. How many one-night stands?
None.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
RWBY, which sashagee introduced me to in December and which reminds me a lot of Exalted. I'll have another post about it later once I've seen more.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No.

26. What was the best book you read?
TO:KY:OO by Liam Wong.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Andrey Vinogradov's hurdy gurdy playing. Songs like Northern Ballad or Dark Medieval Ballad or Greshny Cheloveche/Niurochka sound like a band of adventurers returning back to their home village to find it nothing but ruins and ash, or a group of soldiers drinking on the night before a battle knowing that not all of them will be there the next night. I made an entire playlist called Melancholy Strings and added some other music to it when I discovered this.

28. What did you want and get?
A wonderful new relationship with sashagee.

29. What did you want and not get?
An end to the plague.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
I don't think I saw a single new movie the entire year, to be honest.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 38, and sashagee and I ordered takeout from somewhere. I don't remember where, but it was delicious.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Quite a few politicians dying of the plague the way their constituents have been.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2020?
Surprisingly it wasn't pajamas!

34. What kept you sane?
For part of the year, sashagee. For part of it, my own iron-hard grip on reality.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I don't. I don't pay enough attention to pop culture to.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
The election. We won, but there's still work to do.

37. Who did you miss?
No one. The people I've cut out of my life didn't deserve a spot there in the first place. Just like last year but still true.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
sashagee, obviously. It'd be strange if I answered otherwise.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2019.
You can only plan so much. Life is unpredictable, and even if we thought modern society had provided enough cushion that we'd be able to ignore fate, we can't. We are a part of the world, for all our progress.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

This is not the world we had in mind
But we got time
We are stuck on answers we can't find
But we got time
And even though we might have lost tonight
The skyline reminds us of a different time
This is not the world we had in mind
But we got time
-Alan Walker, "Different World"

Or possibly, my traditional lyrics I used to post all the time:

A long December and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can't remember the last thing that you said as you were leavin'
Now the days go by so fast

And it's one more day up in the canyons
And it's one more night in Hollywood
If you think that I could be forgiven I wish you would

The smell of hospitals in winter
And the feeling that it's all a lot of oysters, but no pearls
All at once you look across a crowded room
To see the way that light attaches to a girl

And it's one more day up in the canyons
And it's one more night in Hollywood
If you think you might come to California I think you should

Drove up to Hillside Manor sometime after two a.m.
And talked a little while about the year
I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower,
Makes you talk a little lower about the things you could not show her

And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can't remember all the times I tried to tell my myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass

And it's one more day up in the canyon
And it's one more night in Hollywood
It's been so long since I've seen the ocean I guess I should
-The Counting Crows, "Long December"

Indeed:

Maybe this year will be better than the last

— Counting Crows (@CountingCrows) January 1, 2021