Month January 2023

New Year, New Intentions

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I don’t know why I keep making these damn New Year’s resolution posts when I so rarely wind up accomplishing much of what I set out to do. It feels very performative, more about who I wish I could be or who I want you to think that I am than it is about my true self. I even considered not making this kind of post this year at all, but, well, as you see, here we are. It’s as if by making these grand statements I’ll magically become a better person, or at least convince you all that I am one, the words a beautiful incantation that’ll make it look like I really have my shit together, but it’s all just a farce. If nothing else, we are here because I am a creature of habit and blogging some goals is what I do in January in time for my birthday at the end of the month.

Usually in these annual posts I try to look back on my intentions for the previous year and evaluate how I did, but fuck that. I don’t remember everything that I wrote, but I have a sense that I perhaps didn’t do very much of it and will only feel guilty and disappointed in myself if I go down that road, so we’re only looking ahead here this year.

I’m not focusing so much on goals in the realm of traditional “adulting,” like changing my job or moving out for a few different reasons, one of which being that I don’t want to set goals that require the input/decisions of others to succeed, because I could put in a lot of effort and still come up short and it feels unfair to put that pressure on myself.

But what do I want to do this year?

A. Write 12 blog posts: In 2022 I posted 10 blogs, which is very respectable, but of course it would always be nice to hit that one per month marker. I do feel like I’m improving as a writer and like I’m more often able to make my weirder concepts work in a way that I’m pleased with (even if I don’t think they’re totally perfect). I also don’t cringe nearly as much as I used to when I reread posts months later, which has to mean something, lol. In addition to my usual kinds of blogs, I posted a long bit of fiction this year about one of my D&D characters and I’d like to do something like that again. If I have to pick just one favorite post from 2022 to point you to it’s probably the avocados one but I’m quite pleased with my output overall. (And you can easily reach them all from my archive page!)

B. Watch less YouTube and watch more of the movies and shows I’ve saved to my streaming service watch lists: Self-explanatory, I suppose. I frequently say “oh I want to watch something, but everything’s too long for the time that I have” so I never watch anything. But, like, it’s okay to watch things in more than one sitting if I have to, so I should just do that!

C. Play more finishable video games: This is a similar situation to the previous point. I have a decently sized backlog of games that are contained experiences with a set endpoint, but instead of playing those I play open ended games like Groove Coaster or Fall Guys or Minecraft. One of the reasons I love games is because I love stories, and I love that experiencing a story via gaming is so different than experiencing stories in any other medium. I want to get back to stories.

D. More movement: I started following a bunch of plus sized influencers on Instagram in 2022 because I had a sudden rush of feeling that I wanted to see more people who looked like me on my social media feeds. Reading their posts has got me reframing some of my mindsets. This includes reframing the idea of exercise as a depressing chore used for intentional weight loss and “health” (which don’t even get me started on how loaded that term is when it comes to body size). Instead I’ve been thinking about it as the general idea of movement, of choosing activities that bring me joy without a focus on weight loss. For me this might mean getting out into my local woods more for walks, maybe trying to find online Zumba class because I miss dancing, or doing yoga routines off of YouTube because who doesn’t love a good stretch after being hunched over a computer all day? I don’t care about losing weight and frankly I don’t want to because I don’t want to spend money on a whole new wardrobe or worry about the loose skin I’d have if I had significant weight loss. But I know more movement will only benefit me, even just from an “endorphins make the brain happier” standpoint.

E. Journaling: I searched for a planner-type journal with calendars in it, but couldn’t find one that I like. Why are they all so focused on elaborate goal setting? All I want is big dated blocks to write in with calendar grids between each month so I can jot in things like doctor’s appointments and my friends’ birthdays. (No, I don’t want to do a bullet journal so I can make my own layouts. I tried it for a year and it’s not for me.) Instead, I’ve just been using a regular notebook. I give myself grace for missing a day or two, but I try to not let much more than that go by without writing at least something about how my days are going or how I’m feeling. I don’t have any mental goal in mind for journaling; it’s not a mindfulness thing. I just would like to have a record of my life, because I often get to the end of a year and wonder what the hell even happened.

F. More self-indulgent photoshoots: This is just a little thing I’ve done a few times over the past couple of years, and I want to do more of it. The pictures in this post are an example of this. I’d never done photos like this outside because I feel self-conscious, but I said screw it and brought a tiny tripod to the beach with me and got some images I really quite like! I have ideas for some more concepts that I’m trying to flesh out. I still don’t really know what to do with my face or poses, but it’s a fun creative outlet. I’m the friend who always remembers to take the pictures at events, and I feel awkward asking other people to use the camera so I can be in some of them, so it’s nice to have some recent pictures of me that aren’t just phone selfies.

So those are my intentions for the next 12 months. Let’s see if I can pull any of them off so that when we’re here again this time next year I can feel like less of a fraud. (Maybe.)

My Top 5 Reads of 2022!

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(Holly Black books not pictured because I borrowed them from a friend.)

The only reading goal I set in any given year is just to keep reading in general. For me numerical reading goals put too much pressure something I do as a pleasurable way to pass the time. However, for the past two years I’ve kept what I call a Media Journal where I make notes about the books that I finish (as well as movies/shows I’ve watched and video games I’ve played). I only make an entry when I’ve finished something, or if I’ve spent a good amount of time playing a game that technically isn’t completeable, like my beloved Groove Coaster. I know that I’ve sometimes forgotten to write something in (for instance, I know I played Man of Medan this fall, but it’s not in the journal), but it’s at least a mostly complete record of what I’ve filled my brain with over the year.

If you’re interested in cold, hard numbers I kept a count of everything as I went along, just curious about where I would wind up. In 2022 I watched 30 movies/tv shows and noted down 7 games (this number feels way too low, but I mostly only noted games I finished and I’m notorious for starting games and forgetting to finish them). I finished 40 books and 25 manga/graphic novels. I split up my reading counts because manga/graphic novels are far quicker reads for me, to the point where the reading experience feels different enough to separate them out.

So with all that preamble out of the way, here in no particular order are my 5 favorite reads of the year (using “reads” and not “books” because there’s a few series on the list)! I read a whole range of things in 2022, but if there is one unifying theme for my favorites it’s “I finally got to this popular thing I always heard people talk about and really enjoyed it myself,” lol. I’m keeping this as spoiler-free as possible, so read on with little fear:

1. The Folk of the Air books (aka The Cruel Prince trilogy) by Holly Black: This was a recommendation from two different friends of mine, and one of them graciously loaned me these. They were right to tell me to read these. This series ticks so many of my boxes. Enemies to lovers. Set in a fae realm. Melodrama and intrigue. I unfortunately have the kind of brain that easily predicts stories, but the plot in this series constantly surprised me. I had a feeling that everything would eventually end happily, but I wasn’t sure how it would get there. I also was surprised at the amount of sex in these books considering that this series is for teens. It’s not terribly explicit or that frequent, but it’s right on the page (as opposed to “fading to black”). However, I do think sex can have a place in novels for teens so they can learn about the different forms sexual relationships can take, and I would say these books have some healthy examples in them.

2. Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater: I finally got around to the Ronan-focused follow up to The Raven Cycle, although I did only get to that series in 2021 so I guess I’m not that long overdue. Ronan makes a great point of view character, and I love how his brothers get fleshed out in this book. Matthew’s story is heartbreaking and I even somehow started to sympathize with Declan, which is something I never saw myself saying. There are great new characters and the unfolding mystery is engrossing. Jordan in particular is an addition to the cast that I really enjoyed. One of my favorite notes in my journal is, “Please let Declan kiss Jordan in one of the later books, as a treat,” lol. Getting my hands on Mister Impossible, and eventually Greywaren when it comes into paperback (because I need to own a series all in the same format), is definitely on my to do list for the future.

3. Gideon the Ninth/Harrow the Ninth (aka The Locked Tomb series) by Tamsyn Muir: Another series that I was late on, but oh how I loved these books. All I knew going into the series was that there was magic and lesbians and that it had a lot of buzz on my corner of the internet. So I was surprised that these books have a sci-fi setting and that the magic really just boiled down to necromancy, but not in any ways that I had thought about necromancy before, and it is presented in many different ways in these books! I do feel that sometimes there are problems with the pacing and a couple of times I managed to spot huge twists way before they came out in the text, but these things didn’t detract from my enjoyment and engrossment with them. I like that even though there are a lot of characters, especially in Gideon, they all feel unique from each other. The development of the connection between Gideon and Harrow is lovely. A third book came out towards the end of 2022 and I will be getting it for sure when it comes out in paperback (because, again, my books need to match, lol).

4. Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller: Hello, it’s me, being very, very, very late to the Song of Achilles party. The writing is somewhat simple, but often poetic at the same time. It’s sweet and sad (because if you have even a little bit of familiarity with Greek mythology you know how it ends). Also, this book is very queer, and the development of the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus is wonderfully written. It isn’t very long, and I got through it very quickly even though I knew when I got to the end it would probably hurt me. And it did. And that’s good, sometimes I like a story that will break my heart. Not everything has to end perfectly happily.

5. House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas: I don’t know what possessed me to impulse buy this extremely thick paperback, besides that I’ve mostly enjoyed the two Maas books I’ve read so far (the 1st two ACOTAR books). I found that I prefer the grit of Crescent City way more than the woodsy frills of ACOTAR. I was drawn very deeply into Bryce and Hunt’s investigation, and while I did correctly guess a few of the story beats I found myself frequently surprised. (It’s such a long goddamn book, I’d hope I can’t just predict the whole thing, lol.) I love a good mystery thriller and I also loved the way the enemies(ish?) to lovers romance develops between Bryce and Hunt. It was refreshing to read a book like this with a supportive big brother character instead of a love triangle (because so many books like this have a goddamn love triangle). I wasn’t sure I liked Ruhn at first, but he grew on me. There is a sequel hook at the end and a second book in this series has already been released, but honestly this book stands pretty well on its own as a complete adventure, which I appreciate because it’s exhausting how everything is at least a trilogy nowadays.

An honorable mention is something that’s not a book at all, but is a visual novel so it kind of counts, and that is Disco Elysium. This is SUCH a great game. It was equally fun to aimlessly explore the rich world of Martinaise as the detective Harry as it was to really dig into the plot, talk to all of the fascinating, impeccably voice acted characters, and try to solve the mystery at the heart of the plot. Also Kim Kitsuragi is my best friend and I never want to do anything to disappoint him.

And finally, here are some quickfire, zero explanation recommendations of things that I watched/rewatched in 2022: the Interview the the Vampire show, Anne of Green Gables (Meagan Follows version), Our Flag Means Death, Crimson Peak, What We Do in the Shadows, and The Great.

Here’s to all the things I’m going to read, watch, and play in 2023!