we've got another thing coming undone
1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Traveled alone in Europe. Successfully executed a surprise cross-country birthday visit.
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
My resolution for 2011 was to eat more vegetables at breakfast and I failed as this, as I always do with breakfast-related resolutions. I keep saying I'm going to start eating breakfast like a human person and then it's 6:08am and I'm drinking orange juice from the carton with one hand and pouring my coffee into a thermos with the other. So let's just go ahead and pencil in a "eat breakfast like a human person" resolution to fail at for 2012 as well.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
One former and two current co-workers. Somehow I ended up covering on maternity leave for all three of them (yeah, even the one I don't even work with anymore, that was awesome).
4. Did anyone close to you die?
After the dead grandmother theater that was 2010, no close relations, no. One of my parents' close friends passed away and so did the father of one of my close friends, and in some ways this was stranger, figuring out what to write in a condolence card, what charity donation to send in lieu of flowers.
But, oh, here is a story about how Facebook is ruining the fabric of society: When I was in California in October, I woke up to a voicemail message from my friend N, who had called earlier, not realizing I wasn't on the east coast. His message was: hey, I'm just trying to call all my closest friends, because people are starting to post about it on Facebook and I don't want you to have to find out from Facebook. My father passed away.
Dear N, I love you, but I would not have been mad if I found out your father died via Facebook. You probably had more important things to worry about.
5. What countries did you visit?
Switzerland and Spain. Switzerland for a wedding, Spain on the way to Switzerland because I was already flying all the way to Europe and it was extremely nominal to add a stop along the way to somewhere I actually wanted to visit. (No offense, Switzerland.)
6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
The time to take a lunch hour more than once every two weeks.
7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Probably October 1, the date of the aforementioned Swiss wedding of doom. (Chinese American childhood best friend from growing up in California, currently living in China with her German-born now-husband, got married in Switzerland because ... I'm still not really sure.) Money, work-related shenanigans and my complete lack of German language skills made it seem impossible that I would get myself on a bus, train, bus, plane, plane, train and then another train to a small tourist trap town an hour outside of Zurich near the Swiss/German border. But I made it! That Swiss railway system, man, they do not fuck around.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Started getting dry haircuts. You laugh, but it's been a shitty year. Dry haircuts are a curly hair game changer. My life kind of sucks but my hair looks awesome.
9. What was your biggest failure?
I wanted to keep something a secret and I failed. You could argue that I must have wanted to fail all along, and that keeping secrets is bad and pointless, but fuck that. Keeping that secret was stressful and awful in its own way, but my day-to-day life would still be better right now if I wasn't such an overwrought drunk.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Ugh, dental work. I don't have dental insurance, so I endured the comedy of errors that is getting a root canal at a dental school. (Spoilers: it ended with the tooth getting straight-up extracted. Good times.)
11. What was the best thing you bought?
Duo boots. You can order them by calf size! They're a little pricy and they have to be shipped from the UK, but I fucking love them, totally one of those lady magazine "worth the investment!" bullshit cliches. (It's also possible that you will not think $200 is pricy for shoes. But I'm a fucking cheapskate, so.)
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Progressive protest movements across the world (from the Wisconsin state senators to Arab Spring uprisers), fucking-finally-but-I-still-love-you closet exiters (Zachary Quinto, I'm looking at you).
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Democratic mayors who failed to work with their cities' Occupy movements (thanks a lot, Rahm Emanuel and Mumbles Menino). Dudes who sit spread eagle and take up three seats on the train.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Aforementioned motherfucking plane ticket to Switzerland. Farmer's markets. Pitchers of PBR.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
I was really excited to visit Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. The last time I was in Barcelona was in 1998 and Sagrada Familia was still in the early stages of this current push toward completion and you couldn't even go inside. Going back more than 10 years later and seeing how much progress has been made (and how much more Barcelona has changed in those additional ten years since the death of Franco) was really amazing.
16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
The National -- "Runaway"
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
(a) happier or sadder? Sadder. A lot of the intangible things I wanted and didn't have this time last year coalesced into a specific thing that I wanted and didn't get this year.
(b) thinner or fatter? Thinner. An ocean of mixed feelings about this one. I'm not someone who keeps an aspirational wardrobe in the back of the closet. I buy clothes that fit, and I like the clothes I have, and they're a carefully culled collection of sale rack items and clothing swap treasures and this summer none of them fit and I spent the whole time feeling unkempt because I looked like a little kid wearing her mother's nightgown. Ugh. Whatever.
(c) richer or poorer? I broke even; enough of a victory for me.
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Writing. Learning to say more than two or three token phrases in German. Going out dancing.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Walking home from Porter Square at two in the morning after missing the last 96 bus.
20. How did you spend Christmas?
Watching football, basketball and S1 Alias DVDs with my brother and my parents. On Christmas Day we saw Young Adult because we saw Juno and Up In the Air as a family on Christmas and I said we should keep the Jason Reitman streak alive. And, well -- look, I actually loved Young Adult, but if I thought Up In the Air was an iffy choice for a feel-good family Christmas movie, I really had no idea.
21. Did you fall in love in 2011?
I think I did. Someone told me this year that you can't really fall in love with someone if your regard is unrequited, and that felt harsh at the time but I wonder more and more if it's true. I plunged to pathetic depths of being enamored and angst-ridden and preoccupied, but to call that love? I don't know if that was really love. It felt so terrible.
22. What was your favorite TV program?
All the TV critics are cheating and putting down Friday Night Lights as a TV program that aired in 2011, so I will do the same, because the finale of that show made me so fucking happy I seriously can't even talk about it. I also caught the last seat on the Community/Parks & Rec bandwagon and devoured those in a crazed marathon this spring. At the end of the year I fell in love with Homeland.
23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Dormant simmering hate for certain people definitely amped up this year. (Newt Gingrich, die in a fire.)
24. What was the best book you read?
Zone One by Colson Whitehead. Did you know that if you mention you are reading one of Colson Whitehead's books on Twitter, he will @reply you, like, 30 seconds later? He's so dreamy.
25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Bad Rabbits! This is a funny story: Bad Rabbits is originally a local band, and smartlikejustin wanted to go see them when they came through town opening for ... The Black Cards. We left before The Black Cards even came on.
26. What did you want and get?
Thick wool socks for Christmas. Seriously not kidding, I probably wouldn't even own any socks if my parents didn't buy me socks for Christmas every year.
27. What did you want and not get?
Grant funding. I wrote a lot of fucking grants that did not get funded.
28. What was your favorite film of this year?
Probably The Skin I'm In? I really didn't see very many movies this year. Honorable mention to Breaking Dawn because I've been watching the Twighlight movies for the lolz with a civilian friend who wasn't spoiled for the werewolf imprinting and the jaw-dropping face he made in the theater when [UH, SPOILERS] Jacob imprinted on the baby was Oscar-worthy. Seriously. Cinematic highlight of my year.
29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 29. I had to work. Last year on my birthday, I found out I had to lay someone off, so when my staff came into my office to sing happy birthday, I kind of flipped out with mortification and now they erroneously think I'm someone who hates their birthday. So I spent all day stewing about how I bake cupcakes for all their stupid birthdays and nobody did anything for mine, but I guess it's my own fault.
30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Time machine.
31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
Surprise! This dress used to fit and it now hangs like a tent. What will make it look wearable: a safety pin? a belt? a staple gun?
32. What kept you sane?
V8 Fusion and Kashi Go Lean bars as all-purpose $4 meal replacement: available at a CVS near you! Also, maintaining a pre-work gym routine. I really love leaving the house when it's still dark outside and how peaceful the morning commute is at 6:30am.
33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I know Michael Schur is barely a public figure, but hahah, oh my god, I love him. I love his geek-out mutual admiration society podcasts with Joe Posnanski so much, I can't even.
34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Economic inequality, but perhaps on a more micro level than most. I have no beef at all with the Occupy movement. The Occupy Boston encampment was just a couple blocks from my office in the same square where I picked up my farm share all this fall. I used to call Occupy Boston my "Dewey Square neighbors" in both a geographical and philosophical sense. I think that type of social justice community organizing is important, but it's not how I chose to contribute to the movement. Running programs that provide direct services to low-income populations during this recession has been an incredibly depressing and demoralizing experience. I'm honestly scared to see how much worse things are going to get for the lowest 10% in 2012.
35. Who did you miss?
Co-workers who actually know me. A couple specific people who I once worked with and whose faces I wish I still got to see every day, but also just that general swarm of people I don't even like that much but with whom I've worked with long enough that I don't feel like I constantly have to pretend like I have it all together when I don't. I also missed all my Boston ex-pats, although I got to see each of them at least once this year and even got one of them (imogenics) back.
36. Who was the best new person you met?
Carles, the complete stranger who said, oh, hey, you used to work with my girlfriend four years ago? Sure, come stay in our beautiful apartment in Barcelona, no problem! Let me tell you amazing stories about how rooting for the Barcelona futbol team during the dictatorship was a revolutionary act.
37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
No matter how overwhelming and inconceivable it all seems, you have an inherit ability to figure problems out, and it will eventually kick in. You will be surprised how long it will take, but it will happen. Eventually.
38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
"What makes you think I'm enjoying being led to the flood?"
Traveled alone in Europe. Successfully executed a surprise cross-country birthday visit.
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
My resolution for 2011 was to eat more vegetables at breakfast and I failed as this, as I always do with breakfast-related resolutions. I keep saying I'm going to start eating breakfast like a human person and then it's 6:08am and I'm drinking orange juice from the carton with one hand and pouring my coffee into a thermos with the other. So let's just go ahead and pencil in a "eat breakfast like a human person" resolution to fail at for 2012 as well.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
One former and two current co-workers. Somehow I ended up covering on maternity leave for all three of them (yeah, even the one I don't even work with anymore, that was awesome).
4. Did anyone close to you die?
After the dead grandmother theater that was 2010, no close relations, no. One of my parents' close friends passed away and so did the father of one of my close friends, and in some ways this was stranger, figuring out what to write in a condolence card, what charity donation to send in lieu of flowers.
But, oh, here is a story about how Facebook is ruining the fabric of society: When I was in California in October, I woke up to a voicemail message from my friend N, who had called earlier, not realizing I wasn't on the east coast. His message was: hey, I'm just trying to call all my closest friends, because people are starting to post about it on Facebook and I don't want you to have to find out from Facebook. My father passed away.
Dear N, I love you, but I would not have been mad if I found out your father died via Facebook. You probably had more important things to worry about.
5. What countries did you visit?
Switzerland and Spain. Switzerland for a wedding, Spain on the way to Switzerland because I was already flying all the way to Europe and it was extremely nominal to add a stop along the way to somewhere I actually wanted to visit. (No offense, Switzerland.)
6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
The time to take a lunch hour more than once every two weeks.
7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Probably October 1, the date of the aforementioned Swiss wedding of doom. (Chinese American childhood best friend from growing up in California, currently living in China with her German-born now-husband, got married in Switzerland because ... I'm still not really sure.) Money, work-related shenanigans and my complete lack of German language skills made it seem impossible that I would get myself on a bus, train, bus, plane, plane, train and then another train to a small tourist trap town an hour outside of Zurich near the Swiss/German border. But I made it! That Swiss railway system, man, they do not fuck around.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Started getting dry haircuts. You laugh, but it's been a shitty year. Dry haircuts are a curly hair game changer. My life kind of sucks but my hair looks awesome.
9. What was your biggest failure?
I wanted to keep something a secret and I failed. You could argue that I must have wanted to fail all along, and that keeping secrets is bad and pointless, but fuck that. Keeping that secret was stressful and awful in its own way, but my day-to-day life would still be better right now if I wasn't such an overwrought drunk.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Ugh, dental work. I don't have dental insurance, so I endured the comedy of errors that is getting a root canal at a dental school. (Spoilers: it ended with the tooth getting straight-up extracted. Good times.)
11. What was the best thing you bought?
Duo boots. You can order them by calf size! They're a little pricy and they have to be shipped from the UK, but I fucking love them, totally one of those lady magazine "worth the investment!" bullshit cliches. (It's also possible that you will not think $200 is pricy for shoes. But I'm a fucking cheapskate, so.)
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Progressive protest movements across the world (from the Wisconsin state senators to Arab Spring uprisers), fucking-finally-but-I-still-love-you closet exiters (Zachary Quinto, I'm looking at you).
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Democratic mayors who failed to work with their cities' Occupy movements (thanks a lot, Rahm Emanuel and Mumbles Menino). Dudes who sit spread eagle and take up three seats on the train.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Aforementioned motherfucking plane ticket to Switzerland. Farmer's markets. Pitchers of PBR.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
I was really excited to visit Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. The last time I was in Barcelona was in 1998 and Sagrada Familia was still in the early stages of this current push toward completion and you couldn't even go inside. Going back more than 10 years later and seeing how much progress has been made (and how much more Barcelona has changed in those additional ten years since the death of Franco) was really amazing.
16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
The National -- "Runaway"
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
(a) happier or sadder? Sadder. A lot of the intangible things I wanted and didn't have this time last year coalesced into a specific thing that I wanted and didn't get this year.
(b) thinner or fatter? Thinner. An ocean of mixed feelings about this one. I'm not someone who keeps an aspirational wardrobe in the back of the closet. I buy clothes that fit, and I like the clothes I have, and they're a carefully culled collection of sale rack items and clothing swap treasures and this summer none of them fit and I spent the whole time feeling unkempt because I looked like a little kid wearing her mother's nightgown. Ugh. Whatever.
(c) richer or poorer? I broke even; enough of a victory for me.
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Writing. Learning to say more than two or three token phrases in German. Going out dancing.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Walking home from Porter Square at two in the morning after missing the last 96 bus.
20. How did you spend Christmas?
Watching football, basketball and S1 Alias DVDs with my brother and my parents. On Christmas Day we saw Young Adult because we saw Juno and Up In the Air as a family on Christmas and I said we should keep the Jason Reitman streak alive. And, well -- look, I actually loved Young Adult, but if I thought Up In the Air was an iffy choice for a feel-good family Christmas movie, I really had no idea.
21. Did you fall in love in 2011?
I think I did. Someone told me this year that you can't really fall in love with someone if your regard is unrequited, and that felt harsh at the time but I wonder more and more if it's true. I plunged to pathetic depths of being enamored and angst-ridden and preoccupied, but to call that love? I don't know if that was really love. It felt so terrible.
22. What was your favorite TV program?
All the TV critics are cheating and putting down Friday Night Lights as a TV program that aired in 2011, so I will do the same, because the finale of that show made me so fucking happy I seriously can't even talk about it. I also caught the last seat on the Community/Parks & Rec bandwagon and devoured those in a crazed marathon this spring. At the end of the year I fell in love with Homeland.
23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Dormant simmering hate for certain people definitely amped up this year. (Newt Gingrich, die in a fire.)
24. What was the best book you read?
Zone One by Colson Whitehead. Did you know that if you mention you are reading one of Colson Whitehead's books on Twitter, he will @reply you, like, 30 seconds later? He's so dreamy.
25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Bad Rabbits! This is a funny story: Bad Rabbits is originally a local band, and smartlikejustin wanted to go see them when they came through town opening for ... The Black Cards. We left before The Black Cards even came on.
26. What did you want and get?
Thick wool socks for Christmas. Seriously not kidding, I probably wouldn't even own any socks if my parents didn't buy me socks for Christmas every year.
27. What did you want and not get?
Grant funding. I wrote a lot of fucking grants that did not get funded.
28. What was your favorite film of this year?
Probably The Skin I'm In? I really didn't see very many movies this year. Honorable mention to Breaking Dawn because I've been watching the Twighlight movies for the lolz with a civilian friend who wasn't spoiled for the werewolf imprinting and the jaw-dropping face he made in the theater when [UH, SPOILERS] Jacob imprinted on the baby was Oscar-worthy. Seriously. Cinematic highlight of my year.
29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 29. I had to work. Last year on my birthday, I found out I had to lay someone off, so when my staff came into my office to sing happy birthday, I kind of flipped out with mortification and now they erroneously think I'm someone who hates their birthday. So I spent all day stewing about how I bake cupcakes for all their stupid birthdays and nobody did anything for mine, but I guess it's my own fault.
30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Time machine.
31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
Surprise! This dress used to fit and it now hangs like a tent. What will make it look wearable: a safety pin? a belt? a staple gun?
32. What kept you sane?
V8 Fusion and Kashi Go Lean bars as all-purpose $4 meal replacement: available at a CVS near you! Also, maintaining a pre-work gym routine. I really love leaving the house when it's still dark outside and how peaceful the morning commute is at 6:30am.
33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I know Michael Schur is barely a public figure, but hahah, oh my god, I love him. I love his geek-out mutual admiration society podcasts with Joe Posnanski so much, I can't even.
34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Economic inequality, but perhaps on a more micro level than most. I have no beef at all with the Occupy movement. The Occupy Boston encampment was just a couple blocks from my office in the same square where I picked up my farm share all this fall. I used to call Occupy Boston my "Dewey Square neighbors" in both a geographical and philosophical sense. I think that type of social justice community organizing is important, but it's not how I chose to contribute to the movement. Running programs that provide direct services to low-income populations during this recession has been an incredibly depressing and demoralizing experience. I'm honestly scared to see how much worse things are going to get for the lowest 10% in 2012.
35. Who did you miss?
Co-workers who actually know me. A couple specific people who I once worked with and whose faces I wish I still got to see every day, but also just that general swarm of people I don't even like that much but with whom I've worked with long enough that I don't feel like I constantly have to pretend like I have it all together when I don't. I also missed all my Boston ex-pats, although I got to see each of them at least once this year and even got one of them (imogenics) back.
36. Who was the best new person you met?
Carles, the complete stranger who said, oh, hey, you used to work with my girlfriend four years ago? Sure, come stay in our beautiful apartment in Barcelona, no problem! Let me tell you amazing stories about how rooting for the Barcelona futbol team during the dictatorship was a revolutionary act.
37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
No matter how overwhelming and inconceivable it all seems, you have an inherit ability to figure problems out, and it will eventually kick in. You will be surprised how long it will take, but it will happen. Eventually.
38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
"What makes you think I'm enjoying being led to the flood?"