2013 In Review

[mallorys_camera]

1. What did you do in 2013 that you'd never done before? 

No entirely new experiences really. Of course, I'm 61 years old now, so if I haven't done it by now, I probably don't want to do it.

2. Did you keep your New Years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don't make New Years' resolutions.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Not that I know of.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Yes. Michael Carpenter – mcarp. Our closeness was of a peculiar variety since I never actually met the gentleman in what we laughingly refer to as "real" life. He was an online buddy of 20+ years duration, a constant presence first on the Well, then through his blog, finally through his "Daily Me" postings on Facebook.

He was a terrific writer and a true north compass point that helped me navigate past mountains of bullshit. He was also a classic curmudgeon who grew more and more curmudgeonly, right up to the point where he was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer. Then his life began to change – ironically enough, for the better.

He collaborated with Rena on a tremendous kindness to me back in the dark Ithaca daze. Still, I was a bit surprised when Rena called me to tell me he was on his way out. "I wanted you to know because he considered you a good friend," she said.

mcarp was so self-absorbed that it was hard to gauge the level of our friendship. I liked him a great deal – at one point, I even had a crush on him – but figured I hardly registered at all in his universe. I would have liked to have had coffee with him at the Red Cup, a place that has assumed mythic proportions for me, but Oklahoma City is a long ways away, geographically and culturally. The circus actually played very close to OK City and I could have visited him then, I suppose. But for whatever reason, I didn't.

mcarp was a longtime local TV personality before I met him. I think he was finally fired because he wasn't photogenic enough, which in the OK City market probably means big hair, Botox and dental veneers. When I read his writing, I always heard his voice in my head as somewhat reedy and nasal. So I was also surprised after he was dead when various of his friends began posting news clips from his anchorman days to discover he had an incredibly beautiful voice – rich, mellifluous, persuasive.

5. What countries did you visit?

Does Poughkeepsie count?

My elevator pitch for Poughkeepsie would be: Mad Max meets Downton Abbey. There is all this glorious 18th and 19th century architecture surrounded by squalor and chaos. There's terroir here, that indefinable sense of place, the almost gravitational pull of a past that infuses the present tense like an underground spring.

Indeed, I like the Hudson River Valley in general far more than I liked Ganeshopolis, Long Island where I started off 2013.

6. What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013?

More money is always a good thing. I'd like to travel. I've kind of accepted the fact that I'm never gonna make it to Mustang in this lifetime, but I haven't given up on Eastern Europe.

7. What date(s) from 2013 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

None apparently.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I worked my way back into the very lowest rungs of the middle class.

9. What was your biggest failure?

You know, I really didn't fuck up all that much in 2013.

10. Did you suffer any illness or injury?

No. I remain very, very healthy for my age. (Knock on wood.) Unlike many of my contemporaries, I take no medications, prescription or otherwise. Even my Autoimmune Disease is mostly in abeyance.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Various video games! Endless hours of mindless entertainment.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Brian B. Dan D.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

No one behaved egregiously badly this year, although, of course, there are always the usual sulks, snits and minor temper tantrums.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Rent, food, paying back various people who generously buoyed me during lean economic times. Gifts. Transportation – I've been going down to the City approximately once a week, and Metro North tickets are at the upper end of affordable.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

I was really, really excited about my VISTA project right up until a couple of weeks ago when it became clear that my parent organization was not going to support it in the manner in which it deserves to be supported.

I'm not really sure what to do about this. The NY Office has given me the go-ahead to look for more compatible postings -- "no blame" in I Ching-ese. But moving in the wintertime would be a logistical nightmare, so I'm really having to recontexturalize this as, Why do you always try to make your life so complicated and hard? Maybe the best thing to do would be to stick it out and see it through.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?

Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Now it's Turkish delight on a moonlit night

Every gal in Constantinople
Lives in Istanbul, not Constantinople
So if you've a date in Constantinople
She'll be waiting in Istanbul

Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it I can't say
People just liked it better that way

So take me back to Constantinople
No, you can't go back to Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks

Istanbul (Istanbul)
Istanbul (Istanbul)

Even old New York was once New Amsterdam
Why they changed it I can't say
People just liked it better that way

Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks

So take me back to Constantinople
No, you can't go back to Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks

Istanbul 

They Must Be Giants version. (In fact, I've been listening to an awful lot of TMBG this year)

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) Happier or sadder? Happier

b) Thinner or fatter? About the same – 5’10”, 140 lbs.

c) Richer or poorer?  Richer.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Gotta say I'm not really too bent out of shape about the way I spent any of this year -- with the exception of how I spent Thanksgiving and Christmas (alone.) Honestly though? Unless Martha Stewart is carving the turkeyduck and has bottles of hand-decanted bath salts waiting for me under her elaborately decorated Christmas tree, I'd probably be melancholy no matter how I spent Thanksgiving and Christmas. I had a dysfunctional childhood, dontcha know, and major holidaze are fraught with problematic memories.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Again, on the whole, the year was profoundly o-kay.

20. How did you spend Christmas?

See above. I spent it alone feeling sorry for myself.

21. How did you spend New Years?

I spent that alone too although I had several party invitations, so solitude was a choice. I read The Inventor and the Tycoon, watched Bunheads, texted my kids at midnight and was quite content.

22. Did you fall in love in 2011?

No. I don't think it's possible for me to fall in love.

23. How many one-night stands?

Depends upon how you define one-night stands. At least four.

24. What was your favorite TV program?

The Good Wife.

I also liked the first half a dozen or so episodes of The Bridge very much.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?

No. Hatred is a completely ridiculous emotion.

26. What was the best book you read?

The Goldfinch, which I'm sure anyone who still reads this (that bell you hear is LJ's death knell) is tired of me ranting about.

Runners up: Kate Atkinson's Life After Life, Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle, Timothy Eagan's The Worst Hard Times.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Don't think I had one.

28. What did you want and get?

A job.

29. What did you want and not get?

I can't really think of anything. Probably all that really means, though, is that diminished expectations is the real secret to happiness -- or, at least, contentment.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

TV definitely trumped movies this year. Offhand, I can't think of a single new film I really liked.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 61. Cassandra and Allan hosted a dinner party for me.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Definitely money. But, as I say, the year was not unsatisfying.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013?

I dressed better in 2013. Part of this had to do with the fact that I started wearing short dresses again. No, not micro-minis. I mean, dresses that come to my knees. When it flared up, the Autoimmune Disease left my legs covered in lesions that actually made wearing tights painful. Now that it seems to be pretty much in remission – knock on wood – I can wear tights again, which means I can wear short dresses again.

I also started wearing loud, day-glow jackets in herringbone prints that contrast interestingly with my daily uniforms of black trousers, black sweaters.

Shoes remain an issue. I have huge ugly feet, and the aftermath of that long ago Yosemite blizzard left me with frostbite. If I don't wear very wide shoes, my distal toes start to ache.

34. What kept you sane?

Books! TV shows! Video games! My pussycats! Max! Jeanna!

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Uh. I think that ship has sailed.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

Probably the federal government shutdown because I had to figure out a way to live for three weeks without getting paid.

37. Who did you miss?

Max. Jeanna. Ben. Susan. Marybeth.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

Brian B! Really a good friend, though we don't see each other as often as I would like.

L'il Jeremy. This one's kind of an odd friendship on account of he's a 25 year old African American male and I am a 61 year old Caucasian female and, as you can imagine, there are huge disconnects in our life experiences. I would never hang out with him electively in my leisure time. But in that odd sort of way that passengers riding a train to the same destination become close, we've become close during our lunchtime rambles.

Dan D. Simply the nicest guy in the world. Plus we share DNA!

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011

Slow and steady wins the race.

Comments

[woobiewoobster.livejournal.com]

You're doing something right to be w/o regular meds at 61. Seems as if everyone has something they take to maintain! : )