2020 in review and 2021 goals

in this strangest of years, i didn't do as much as i would have liked—who did?— but here's the big stuff that happened in brief. i: took a solo trip to LA, got laid off, co-wrote a book, made my own ice cream, baked a LOT, got another tattoo (see below), got another job, and adopted a cat.

since a tiny sliver of hope is on the horizon, i'm remaining optimistic and came up with 21 pretty realistic to-dos for '21. i'd love to hear your goals for what's hopefully a better year ahead. 

1. successfully release my first book!

2. book an international trip

3. GO TO A CONCERT

4. host a celebratory dinner party

5. take a french class

6. place a piece somewhere i've never been published before

7. see a movie in a movie theater

8. read 20 9 books

9. have an indulgent, expensive, delicious meal *inside* of a restaurant

10. renew my passport

11. write a letter to myself to open in 10 years

12. make a new friend

13. find out my blood type

14. play the lottery

15. make a collage

16. learn a dance routine

17. chill in a hammock

18. stay in a beach house or cabin

19. compliment a stranger 

20. visit the site of a scene from a movie or tv show

21. make pralines

and here are some best-of 2020 lists...

favorite books:

and now we have everything: on motherhood before i was ready by meaghan o'connell

oona out of order by margarita montimore

spinster by kate bolick

my misspent youth by meghan daum

acid for the children by flea

seinfeldia: how a show about nothing changed everything by jennifer keishin armstrong

we are never meeting in real life by samantha irby

alright alright alright: the oral history of richard linklater's dazed and confused by melissa maerz

favorite movies:

banana split

in a relationship

the king of staten island

straight up

favorite tv shows:

looking for alaska

shrill

the circle

high fidelity

little fires everywhere

being erica

emily in paris (it made me happy, sue me)

favorite albums: 

(if you missed my favorite songs post, that's here.)

(also, harry styles would be included if his album wasn't technically released in 2019.)

the strokes - the new abnormal

momma - two of me

machine gun kelly - tickets to my downfall

hockey dad - brain candy

best coast - always tomorrow

gateway drugs - PSA

pope- the lunchbox EP

random miscellaneous things i loved:

discovering the best dancer i've ever seen in those choreography videos, a french timothée chalamet doppelgänger named andy daveiga

the reply all podcast episode "the case of the missing hit"

the heavyweight podcast episode "bobby"

this documentary about '80s malls on youtube, mall city

dakota johnson's architectural digest house tour:

2020 goals in review:

1. get another tattoo: DONE

third tattoo's a charm? i took the plunge in july, after isolation made me nutty and i was struck with a major case of tattoo fever. i got the three of wands from the wild unknown tarot, which is all about adventure and exploration and life's magic, on my right inner bicep. i absolutely love this description of it:

Three wands are bound together, forming an inverted triangle. As you gaze into the center, you see a rainbow swirl. Is this a vortex? Another dimension? The future? Or something else entirely? That is for you to find out.

Branches jut out from the wands, they stand in contrast to the perfectly pruned wands we saw in the previous card. There is a juxtaposition in this card of structure and liberation: the wands come together to form a cohesive shape, yet the wands themselves are rugged, not perfectly manicured. These wands are free-spirited, yet also collected.

The background is filled with horizontal black lines, indicating a stable energy. This lack of flashiness draws your full attention to the wands, and above all else, to the colorful vision at the center. The swirling rainbow beckons you to leave behind the drab, colorless surroundings and explore all the magic life has to offer!

You are a visionary if you let yourself be one. You can look beyond obstacles. You can see beyond the mundane world. Endless terrain is out there for you to explore, if only you choose to say YES. The Three of Wands offers you a chance to survey the landscape around you. You need not rely on someone else’s map – you are exploring the wilderness for yourself, charting it according to your experience, your interpretation. 

Your future is a blank canvas – and all the colors of the rainbow are available for you to create your experience going forward. There is no guarantee of exactly what you’ll find as you continue your explorations. Magic and wonder abound, yes – but illusions and setbacks are part of the journey, as well.

Some structure is useful, so give yourself a moment to survey your inner and outer landscape. The Three of Wands is about trusting your gut, but it’s also about surveying the energies around you. It is about action, yes – but it is about the kind of action that is born of intention, not impulse. The paradox here is you can only do so much planning and intention setting – eventually, you’ve just got to venture on and see where this portal takes you. 

7. get a photo taken with a celebrity: DONE

and in the first three weeks of the year, to boot! i met hilary duff on the first friggin' night of my LA vacation in january, which was just about the only bright spot in this horrid year. lizzie mcguire forever.

11. meet an internet friend IRL: DONE

also in LA, i met my longtime twitter friend heather at the butcher, the baker, the cappucino maker, where we got colorful lattes and chatted for hours.

14. publish 10 humor pieces: PARTIALLY DONE

my brain was broken for most of the year, because...2020, but i managed to squeak out these three:

naughty post-isolation fantasies (mcsweeney’s)

the bigger picture: to all the panda express employees i've ghosted before

slackjaw: introducing xjessicax, the emo american girl doll

i also self-published a few essays: 

death by digital

time to make the donuts

how to live alone

16. make pizza from scratch: DONE

not the cutest, but i had fun making it, at least.

17. buy myself flowers: DONE

let's hear it for trader joe's $3 bouquets, y'all! 

sincerely yours: the breakfast club effect

I pop in the scratched DVD, curl into the sunken corner of my couch, and press “play.” Shoveling Lucky Charms into my mouth, I savor the tinted, marshmallowy milk as I prepare to indulge in John Hughes’ sweet ‘80s masterpiece, The Breakfast Club, for the umpteenth time. I was 13 years old when I discovered the film, which was recorded off of HBO, sandwiched in between episodes of Cagney & Lacey on a homemade VHS tape, and stowed away in a forgotten drawer in my parents’ living room. On the surface, I was immediately drawn to John Bender’s mysterious persona and gratuitous f-bombs, Claire Standish’s dated-but-fabulous wardrobe, and Brian Johnson’s lovable, naive nerdiness. My barely teenage existence, filled with gel pen-laden notes, close reads of Seventeen magazine and visits to the orthodontist, paled in comparison to their seemingly sexy school days. With that first glimpse of what high school could be like, I became obsessed with all things brat pack, from the subtle nuances in each scene to the background songs that were almost as important as the one-liners. When Napster took hold, I agonized for hours, trying to find the song that plays on Carl the janitor’s radio when he strolls in to impart some wisdom on the kiddos (it’s “Waiting” by Elizabeth Daily). 

Despite spending countless hours in the fictional halls of Shermer High School, Shermer Illinois, 60062, this time was different. When I wasn’t mouthing “Does Barry Manilow know that you raid his wardrobe?” and “I’ve seen her dehydrate, sir. It’s pretty gross.” along with the script, my mind wandered. I began to consider the brains, athletes, basket cases, princesses, and criminals that had weaved in and out of my own life. True, I’d never set foot in detention or even made so much as a visit to the principal’s office during high school. Yet, there are always those people—those groups of people—that you’d never find yourself drawn to in so-called “real life,” but that you somehow become intensely intertwined with through a twist of fate, a certain set of circumstances that can never be replicated. Friendships that are built completely around an immediate, shared experience: the sense that you’re all in this together, whether “this” is a crappy part-time job, a stalled subway ride, or hours of rehearsal for a recital. 

Just like that, these strangers turn into temporary soulmates. You’ll create your own inside jokes about the time that one of you stashed drugs in your underwear in the nick of time.  You’ll shimmy and swivel to pop songs and claim them as your own. You’ll trust them with those buried parts of yourself that you swore you’d never let anyone see, like how you failed shop class last semester or how you can apply lipstick flawlessly without using your hands. You’ll discover that you have far more in common than you ever thought possible with the person that you initially sneered and scoffed at. You’ll come to have an intimate familiarity with each and every one of these people for just one moment in time; a snapshot that partially but perfectly captures all of your lives. Your very own March 24, 1984.

One would imagine that such defining experiences are bound to inspire bonds that promise to endure for weeks, months, or years after you’ve signed and sealed your letter to the principal and returned to your respective lives. And sometimes, just sometimes, they do. The dismal truth for me, at least, is that I can probably count the number of times I’ve spoken to most of these individuals since our finite time together on one hand. Even when we run into each other on a Sunday afternoon at Target months later, or manage to make lunch plans, the connection crumbles without the context. That realization still doesn’t stop me from crossing my fingers behind my back every time. Hope creeps in, and gives me those anxious butterflies. This is it, I think. That time when I finally prove history wrong and carry these friendships over the threshold and beyond the stuffy confines of the school library. 

So this one goes out to my very own breakfast club. To the other writers on my high school newspaper staff with whom I agonized over layouts and fought halfheartedly for free speech. To the ladies on my high school dance team, too. We teased truck drivers with cheeky signs en route to competitions, shared the blissful, greasy satisfaction of post-performance cheeseburgers in a decrepit Boston neighborhood, and exchanged high-fives after our devastating performance of “Thriller”—complete with zombie make-up and ripped fishnets—at the spirit week pep rally. To the five corporate interns that I worked with during college on an abysmal, ongoing PowerPoint project. We religiously completed the USA Today crossword, came up with stupid nicknames for the real nine-to-fivers, and giggled at the Sextrology books in Barnes and Noble during our two-hour lunches, occasionally detouring to Hooters for wings when the male majority ruled. 

To the waitstaff at that faux Irish pub in Boston, my compatriots during the summer of 2007. Over slow Wednesday dinner shifts and loud, trivia-filled evenings, we discussed everything from failed romances to red velvet cake, abused our employee discount in pursuit of mozzarella sticks, and even spent a sleepy Sunday brunch trying to score Tegan and Sara tickets. To those two girls that my friend and I shared Nickelodeon nostalgia and trashy celebrity gossip magazines with in a Burger King booth at a Connecticut rest stop, after our faulty MegaBus was forced to make a pit-stop on the way home from a music festival. To those 19 instant friends with whom I sipped Sangria, cringed through a bullfight, and danced ‘til dawn in a dimly-lit Florence nightclub on a two-week tour of Europe. Slow change may have pulled us apart, but I still have one lingering question. 

As you walk on by, will you call my name?