I love a good list and I love to get weird about the passing of time. The year coming around the corner gives us so much to feel weird about, too: 2020. Twenty-twenty. The roaring next. What have you done with your last decade? Fuck, I don’t know. Not enough, but definitely some things I feel good about.
I was 24 when the decade started and I’m 34 now. I feel like I wasted a lot of time when I was younger and regret it a lot, less so these days for what I didn’t accomplish and moreso that I was really down and really anxious and quite often literally too scared to move. There’s an upside to this, though (also I promise we’re getting to the list, which is fun, I swear): although I threw my back out this year and no longer wish to get trashed until the small hours of the morning, my 30s feel bigger and brighter than any decade so far. When you spend a lot of the life you remember struggling hard with mental health, getting to a better place is incomparable. It’s like being in a dark, airless room, and then a blind snaps up and the window is opened. Things feel fresh and new, if still overwhelming and hard - but for different reasons. If this last decade was a second chance, a second act, a slow IV drip of possibility, I guess I’m ready see about the next one.
P.S. If you are one of those ghouls who takes perverse pleasure in telling someone it’s all downhill from here, please refrain. True, it might get worse! But it also might not. You are not me and you are not an oracle, ergo you don’t know. I don’t know either.
I do know that these were my top 19 of 2019. Something could sneak around the corner in the next two days, but I’m trying to go into the ‘20s with a spirit of optimism and confidence, because dear god we need it. In no particular order (except the first one, which could be the whole list), what stood out for me in the last year of the ‘10s:
My first fiction! I published a short speculative story, The Lake House, in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. It’s about lakes and twins and the burn of gin in a bottle of Green River. There is something stunning about accomplishing what you’ve loved and admired forever, even when it’s often hard and confusing and you feel like a dope for trying. Also, and I’m throwing this in here because I’m trying to cheat less obviously with a 19.5: writing groups are good for feedback, commiserating, and keeping your head in the game.
NARS Jungle Red might be my new favorite red. It’s classic and matteish but bright and slick enough to keep it from feeling dated.
I made double stock six million times.
The Body Keeps the Score is an amazing and important book about the effects of trauma, it rang a lot of personal notes and the science is fascinating. Here’s an interview if you want to get an idea of it.
What are the cliché Chicago essays (or lack thereof)? The bigger question is, what is Chicago’s identity as a city? Who are we as a place? Related, not cliché: The Chicago Neighborhood Guidebook (it’s on sale!)
On a more daily level: there are so many ways Chicago can do better, and there are so many things we do well, and beyond good or bad there is so much going on. Subscribe to Block Club and get some reliable, nonpartisan, and essential coverage of our diverse neighborhoods.
what great inconvenience: Anne Helen Petersen’s newsletter is always good and this one was very good, “Are you willing to embrace that truly slight inconvenience — and maybe pay a few dollars more — so that a person’s job is significantly less shitty?” Further reading from her and a response from Tiana Clark: How Millennials Became The Burnout Generation, This Is What Black Burnout Feels Like.
I’m in decent shape for the first time in my life and aside from smooching my baby biceps in the mirror every morning, exercise has done a lot for my brain. I hate when science is right but here we are.
Jawline was a thoughtful documentary about digital celebrities. While my first thought was that these youth group preacher Justin Bieber influencer dudes the film focuses on can’t act, sing, dance, draw, or do anything beyond say positive things into a livestream, the emotions underneath (I want to be loved / I want to be rich / I want to be famous) should ring painfully real and familiar for anyone who has ever been a teen.
Speaking of teens, that Greta Thunberg is saying some things everyone needs to hear.
Speaking of trying not to trash the earth, I’m working on eating less meat and dairy and have mostly stopped buying new clothing. That’s not going to prevent the planet from boiling, nor should it be the responsibility of individuals to stop something that will only happen through big, systemic change — but every small action helps while we push for bigger ones.
I finally saw 70s noir Klute and not only did I love it, 1971 Donald Sutherland and I will marry quietly upstate in the spring. Please join us for a small, private ceremony and light reception. No gifts.
Undone is a well-animated television show that’s just killing the magical realism drama genre. I don’t see much else exploring spirituality, indigenous cultures, mental illness, and the things humans go through in such a beautiful, funny way.
I only made one new zine this year, I Was a Teenaged LARPer, but I tabled at some really good zine events — Chicago Zine Fest and CAKE — where I enjoyed the company of friends new and older and read many a fine pamphlet. More Zines 2020.
I am so bad at keeping up with new music, yet determined to not to become like everyone who thinks good music stopped The Year They Were 23, yawn. I loved Go Ahead in the Rain by Hanif Abdurraqib which is a book not music, I listened to a lot of Billie Eilish and Carly Rae Jepsen and Sleepy Kitty and Lizzo and Joey Purp and Big Thief and Lana Del Rey and her long-lost country brother Orville Peck. What are you listening to that more people should know about?
Eden Robins’ essay At Sea with Scientists, I Learned What It Means to Be an Explorer: “Science relies on observation and the ability to control the out-of-control, and the deep sea thinks this is hilarious. It’s an act of courage to try anyway.”
See you soon. In these pleasant netherworld days between the holidays and back to work, I’ll be trying to sit in my feelings about the new decade.
I couldn’t find a good image for 2019, here is a beach near my in-law’s house onto which you can project your intentions for the coming year. A whole ocean for your feelings.
OH MAN I am sneaking in one more. I deeply loved On Such a Full Sea by Chang-rae Lee, a lovely and lush sci-fi deep dive into an uncomfortably familiar dystopian future.