Wednesday, December 28, 2022

2022 in review and 23 things to do in 2023



it feels like i say this every year, but SERIOUSLY: how is 2022 over already? i loathe the passage of time. anywho, it was a good year. a great year, even. it wasn't omg-best-year-of-my-life-all-my-dreams-came-true or anything, but you can't win 'em all. here are the highlights, and some to-dos for next year that will hopefully provide some inspo!

in 2022, i:

  • resumed my tradition of winter getaways with a trip to visit my friend alissa in st. petersburg, florida, where we ate, drank, went on a museum scavenger hunt, drank coffee at cute cafes, stalked adorable houses, watched inventing anna, bought a drink for a tiktok star we saw at a restaurant, and watched the super bowl halftime show at a bar




  • saw 40 artists/bands live (including 2 festivals, 16 acts i’ve seen before, and the long-awaited and twice-postponed def leppard/mötley crüe/poison/joan jett show at fenway)

  • met andrew mccarthy of brat pack fame at a travel show





  • started a substack newsletter, which will be returning in 2023; shameless plug to subscribe!

  • took my first dance class (hip-hop) since before COVID!

  • met my internet friend danielle IRL and had a fun-filled overnight trip in mystic, CT 

  • drank frosé, people watched, and jumped around to ABBA at the tea dance in provincetown 

  • enjoyed a completely idyllic weekend at a farmhouse in upstate new york with 6 other ladies for my best friend gleni's bachelorette extravaganza — we drank wine, made dinners and breakfasts and french press coffee, lounged in the pool, took edibles and sang karaoke under a blacklight, watched legally blonde, did nail art, had a coastal grandma photoshoot, and made s'mores by the fire pit


  • went to brooklyn for for gleni’s wedding, gave a toast, and danced the night away


  • dealt with the insanity that is salem, massachusetts on a saturday in october, but apple cider cocktails eased the pain

  • reunited with my marist friend tati in vegas for a whirlwind adventure that involved a distillery, high winds, meow wolf, magic mike, and a frantic but ultimately successful search for when we were young sunday tickets after the festival was canceled on saturday


  • did the stranger things thing as eddie munson with my friend cassidy (who was max) at the liberty hotel halloween party

  • got a new couch!


happiest moments:

  • sitting for hours at a wine bar in porto, portugal with my new tour friend nolene — looking at the douro river, eating cheese and sardines, drinking wine, and chatting 
  • marveling at the natural beauty of the caves on the algarve coast on a boat tour
  • singing and dancing like a fool by myself at a machine gun kelly concert
  • seeing a man walking his pet pig at the hollis flea market
  • finding a random magic 8 ball on the sidewalk on my way to get a scone and sourdough and iced coffee on a summer sunday morning
  • drinking painkillers at the treehouse bar + watching youtube videos with danielle in our b&b room in mystic
  • floating in a random suburban pool cassidy and i rented through swimply
  • walking 45 minutes to honeycomb creamery in cambridge and ordering a scoop of port cherry vanilla ice cream and a scoop of salted caramel crackle and walking home
  • screaming "pour some sugar on me" with thousands of other people at the stadium tour
  • singing karaoke for hours, watching family feud, and then sleeping in a magical canopy bed during the bachelorette weekend
  • listening to "away from the mire" by billy strings several times on my solo road trip and tearing up every time
  • seeing my best friend get married and dancing to the best wedding playlist!
  • smoking a joint in my bathtub and listening to d'angelo on a random tuesday night
  • reliving my emo glory days and catching up with tati 

pop culture favorites 

note that these did not necessarily come out this year (though some did), i just consumed them in 2022.


songs: HERE


albums:








movies:

promising young woman

hotel mumbai

jackass forever

barbarian

top gun: maverick


books: 

mary jane by jessica anya blau

miss fortune by lauren weedman

in five years by rebecca serle

the paris apartment by lucy foley

everything i need i get from you: how fangirls created the internet as we know it by kaitlyn tiffany

cackle by rachel harrison

one italian summer by rebecca serle

a novel obsession by caitlin barasch


tv shows:

inventing anna

the 7 lives of lea

the sex lives of college girls

the summer i turned pretty

maggie

the bear


2022 to-dos review

well, out of 22 items, i did 11, which is kind of par for the course at this point. not bad!

visit portugal

sing karaoke

visit a friend in a different state

take a road trip

find one of the records on my vinyl wishlist out in the wild and buy it (the list includes MC5, the stooges, and crosby, stills, and nash) found CS&N at bull moose in portsmouth!

take one day off work for no reason other than to relax and recharge

see a live play/musical counting lost spirits distillery and magic mike in vegas

finish the new york times crossword every day for a week

order a cocktail that involves fire got a smoked old fashioned at two different bars, so i'm counting it

hang out on someone's boat technically, the p-town ferry is someone's boat, right?

watch a classic movie rome adventure


23 things to do in 2023

  1. do a sound bath meditation

  2. visit a state i’ve never been to (looking at you in may, utah)

  3. dine at the olde pink house in savannah, georgia

  4. go to a sofar sounds show

  5. finish taking (and develop!) the roll of film on the disposable camera i bought last summer

  6. take a pole dancing class

  7. finally learn to parallel park and do it successfully

  8. get published on one of my bucket list publications (the new yorker, the new york times, travel and leisure, condé nast traveler)

  9. go to a poetry slam at lizard lounge

  10. make this bourbon cheddar apple pie

  11. find the acler raven midi cutout dress secondhand for less than $100 because i fell in love with it last summer at saks off 5th and have thought about it nearly every day since, but have nowhere to wear it

  12. go to a GVF show with danielle because we haven’t seen them together yet (bonus points if we get barricade on jake’s side of the stage so we can realize our banger sisters/cougar dreams)

  13. host a dinner party for real, for real this time

  14. try a tasting menu (maybe at tasting table?)

  15. go to the encore casino since i haven't been

  16. make dinner using a majority of ingredients from the farmers market

  17. be a guest on a podcast

  18. get a cute vintage table + chair set for my dining room

  19. visit montreal

  20. crash. a. wedding. SOMEBODY DO IT WITH ME!

  21. complete and shop around a book proposal to literary agents

  22. get another eerily accurate psychic reading from raymond at the tremont tea room

  23. stay at a luxury hotel or resort (thanks, heather!)


also! i decided to take a look back and note the stuff that i've had on previous lists that i eventually accomplished in a later year. this was kind of a fun exercise. there were 45 in total!

2012:

visit san francisco 2015
go to a talk show taping 2013
take a pottery class 2019
go to an open house (with no intention of buying) 2014
visit nashville 2013
go out to a sit-down dinner by myself 2015 if bar dinners count, 2019 if we're talking an actual table
take pictures in a photobooth 2016
go to tampa & st. petersburg 2022 
go to the rock & roll hall of fame induction ceremony not the ceremony, but R&R HOF in 2018
make my own bread 2015
stay at a bed & breakfast 2016
go speed dating 2017+ 2019 with two different companies, and they were each comically awful and everyone received refunds because literally 20 women and 2 men showed up both times despite the fact that you had to prepay???
ride a bike 2016
finally get my cheeseburger tattoo! 2015

2013:
see blue man group, because i've never seen it and that's just wrong 2019 and it was one of the cooooolest manifestation stories ever
visit the pacific northwest (preferably portland, OR) 2017, seattle and portland!
drink a mint julep 2017
hula hoop 2022 when my neighbors were throwing theirs out and i swiped it from the curb
play a musical instrument 2022, trying guitar again!
send a query letter to an editor or literary agent 2014
go on a picnic 2015

2014:
try air bnb 2017
get something that i wrote published on mcsweeney's 2016, 2019, and 2020!
win at pub trivia 2015

2015:
secure a book deal 2019
go zip lining 2018
relax in a hot tub 2018
get a tarot reading at the tremont tea room 2017

2016:
take a day/weekend trip to providence and/or newport, RI (i've never been, somehow??) 2018 and 2017, respectively, and then newport again in 2021
sing karaoke (preferably a rap song) 2017, but i sang harvey danger
give a toast 2022

2017:
book a trip to south america 2018
jump into a ball pit 2018 
read seinfeldia 2020 i think?
adopt a shelter cat 2020
go to a renaissance fair and order a giant turkey leg 2021
find and buy liz phair's exile in guyville on vinyl from a brick-and-mortar record store 2018

2018:
visit south america 2019
related: take a selfie with an alpaca not a selfie, but a photo with one, 2019
get my aura photographed 2019
eat fried dough on hampton beach 2019
watch an outdoor movie 2019
see the sunflower fields at colby farm 2020

(weirdly, nothing from my 2019 list)

2020:
renew my passport 2021
spend a weekend in philadelphia 2021


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