Is it still 2023? Sunday Stealing has a summary of the year quiz. And Kelly has one, too, which I’ll post early in 2024. But I figured out how to answer both questionnaires: give different answers! Neither response is false, just what I thought of at the time. I did this one second, so I’ve avoided replication to the best of my ability.
1. What did you do this year that you had not done before?
When I participated in the Ironweed reading on November 1 along with five dozen other people, I felt astonishingly Albanian in a way I had not felt in the more than 40 years I’ve lived here.
2. Did you keep your New Year’s Resolutions/goals for the year, and will you make/set more for next year? What are they? What are your new ones?
It wasn’t exactly a New Year’s thing, but I offloaded being in charge of the Black History Month activities for 2024, after tacitly being in charge of them for over a dozen years.
3. Did anyone you know give birth? Or get pregnant?
I don’t think so.
4. Did anyone you know die? Or have a serious illness?
Yes, to the first. And a LOT of COVID this fall.
5. What places did you visit?
Two Eiffel Towers.
6. What would you like to have next year that you lacked this year (doesn’t have to be a physical thing)?
I’ve been working regularly on a cloning device. I have not mastered it yet, but soon!
7. What date from this year will remain etched in your memory and why?
8. What was your biggest achievement this year?
I didn’t scream at anyone online.
Ouch
9. Did you get sick or injured? Anyone you know?
As I noted recently, my left knee is particularly uncomfortable. You know, the problem with having a seasonal sore throat, and I do, is that NOW I wonder if it’s COVID.
10. What was the best thing you bought?
Whatever I got for my baby sister and her daughter for Christmas, which I bought in mid-December. I purchased almost EVERYTHING I bought for Christmas between the 12th and the 20th of December.
11. Where did most of your disposable income go (money left over after you pay for food, transportation, and shelter)?
This is true: I would have a much better cash flow if I could get it together to finally fill out the tedious reimbursement forms for my medical expenses.
12. What song will always remind you of this year?
Buried by Brandy Clark, mostly because I flew from New York to Paris this year, albeit not first class, and without the drama.
13. What do you wish you would have done more of?
Sleeping.
14. What do you wish you would have done less of?
I am waking up in the middle of the night.
15. What was your favorite new TV program? Movie? Album/Songs? Or if you didn’t pick up any new ones, what are you still watching/listening to?
I don’t do much new TV. What was I watching before the strikes? Finding Your Roots, Abbott Elementary, Grey’s Anatomy. Movies: Past Lives and The Holdovers. Albums? I make a point of getting through at least 80% of my vast music collection once a year. I just wrote about music here.