Mallory's Camera

1. What did you do in 2015 that you'd never done before?

I was about to write, “I started attending wakes,” but it dawns on me that I actually started doing that in 2014. Whatever year it was, it’s a disturbing trend and – sadly – one that I suspect will continue.

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

I didn’t make New Years’ resolutions last year. In general, I don’t make New Years' resolutions. But I think this year, I will make two: (1) Finish the revision of the young Eleanor Roosevelt in the haunted mansion story (still unnamed) by the end of January; (2) Finish the first draft of If You Find This, Take It: It Was Meant for You by the end of May.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Not that I know of.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Define “close.”

My brother Ted died. We were not close. In fact, we barely knew each other.

But, of course, he was blood, and more than that, I knew his backstory. I knew what he’d suffered at the hands of our sociopathic father. I knew he’d constructed a kind of double life for himself. Outwardly, he was a successful real estate developer in Lancaster, California – a really ugly stretch of desert midway between LA and Bakersfield, but close enough to LA to be a commuter community. (No one commutes to Bakersfield.) At least – he was a successful real estate developer till the 2008 recession wiped him out.

He was also an addict.

Some time back in his heroin shooting days, he contracted Hep C. He was treated for it successfully with the same magic drug that cured Ben’s Hep C. But the thing is your liver doesn’t come back. Yes, over time, the healthy parts of your liver will regenerate, but that cirrhotic mass of dead cells stays dead. So, even if you’re cured, the liver that’s left is functioning at a considerable disadvantage.

Either Ted didn’t know this, or Ted knew this and didn’t care.

He OD’d. That’s how he died.

I sent flowers far more expensive than I could afford to the memorial service. All that I could do.

5. What countries did you visit?

Do rural Dutchess County, Ulster County, Sullivan County, and Columbia County count? ‘Cause I did a ton of exploring there during the warmer months. The Hudson Valley is a vastly interesting place.

6. What would you like to have in 2016 that you lacked in 2015?

Money. I’d like to be able to give more to my kids. Support various social causes I like with something more than time. And I really want to travel.

I can’t complain, though. I’ve pulled myself back up into the middle class. It was touch and go there for a while.

7. What date(s) from 2015 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

None apparently.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I’ve done a lot of writing, though most of it’s shapeless stuff that I’m not comfortable sharing. I’ve carved a little social life for myself, made a few new pals and lots of activity partners. No one is in control of their own life, but at least my course is pretty stable these days.

9. What was your biggest failure?

No truly embarrassing fuck-ups that I cringe upon recalling.

10. Did you suffer any illness or injury?

Not really. Minor outbreaks of the Autoimmune Disease occur from time to time. I catch colds more easily than I used to. But I feel pretty good.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Max bought me a FitBit, which I love. I didn’t buy very many things myself this year. Not really into things.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

• Linda: Source of incredibly positive energy. I’m a natural melancholic, and it makes a huge difference to live in close proximity to someone who’s naturally and non-sappily upbeat. Her upbeat personality rubs off.

• Brian B: Generous friend; relentless reality check.

• Max: Great kid. Couldn’t ask for a better son.

• Robin: We still have epic battles from time to time, but on the whole, we are getting along so much better. We’ve always loved each other, but I think we’re beginning to like each other.

• Ben: Considerate, steadfast pal and still my favorite person in the world to talk to.

• Summer: Absolute joy to be around.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Oh, you know. Assholes abound. I have the luxury of limiting my exposure. And it is a luxury.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Rent, food, kids, insurance, travel.

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

I’ve loved exploring this area, those big old drafty Livingston mansions in various stages of decay.

16. What song will always remind you of 2015?

None.

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

a) Happier or sadder? Happier

b) Thinner or fatter? About the same – 5’10”, 150 lbs.

c) Richer or poorer? About the same.

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

Oh, writing. But I’d say that even if I spent 24 hours a day writing.

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

Watching mindless entertainments on Netflix.

20. How did you spend Christmas?

Alone. But more-or-less happily alone. I’m a Jew. Christmas isn’t important to me.

21. How did you spend New Years?

New Year’s Eve was spent at a dinner party eating jambalaya. Then I came home, sipped Limoncello and read Carly Simon’s trashy memoir into the wee hours. Woke up late. Went for a run: It snowed, but the snow didn’t stick.

22. Did you fall in love in 2015?

I’m not capable of falling in love.

23. How many one-night stands?

I had two short-term relationships that involved sex. More than one night of it, though.

24. What was your favorite TV program?

The Affair.

What I liked about this show was not the hookups or the rings of emotional dysfunction orbiting its various characters, but how very well it captured that peculiar tension between people who've lived in one place for a very, very long time and the people who are driving them out. Many of us are familiar with this as an urban gentrification phenomenon, but it's qualitatively different in a more rural setting and more different still in those odd little coastal towns, steeped in history, that dot the shores of the Long Island sound and the New England seaboard.

As it happens, I know Suffolk County very well. I know people who are hugely land-rich but are surviving on $12,000 a year -- somehow and, of course, not for very much longer because their property taxes are going to bury them. This show is spot on in its portrayals of that peculiar set of tensions.

In the finale, we watched two outsiders struggle with that tension. Luisa handles it better than Noah -- when Cherry tells her that it's too bad that Luisa and Noah can't get married on the hill, Luisa says icily, "We'll make our own traditions." She will be successful in wresting Cole away from Montauk, one assumes.

Noah will not be similarly successful in wresting Allison away from Montauk.

The perfect Anna Karenina setup! Two couples -- one that makes it; one that -- from all indications -- will not.

One might argue that Allison behaves awfully in not telling Noah she dropped out of school, in buying the restaurant so quickly, in sleeping with Cole, etc. She instinctively distrusts him. My sense is that's only partly because Noah is an insufferable, self-involved sleaze ball. Partly, it's because she'd distrust anyone with whom she did not have a 30-year history. Because that's what growing up in one of those picturesque coastal towns do to you. It's a kind of geography of emotions as well as a geography of economics. The landscape has a deep pull. Allison wants to leave as desperately as she wants to stay -- which is the source, I suspect, of that character's peculiar trancelike emotional paralysis.

Also, I really admired the whole construction of the 24-episode narrative arc because it’s quite obvious after you watch the finale that the writers knew everything that was going to happen in Episode 24 even as they were writing Episode 1. That’s exceptional storytelling in the TV format where writers generally tend to think maybe three episodes out. That made them unafraid to paint with very small strokes when they had to – which was a major source of frustration for many of The Affair’s viewers. But I like small strokes.

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

No.

26. What was the best book you read?

Nothing stands out. Odd.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Nothing stands out. Not odd. I’m not a huge music listener.

28. What did you want and get?

Security. Contentment.

29. What did you want and not get?

I’d like to get back into drawing again, so a Wacom tablet. Also, iPhone pix don’t print well, and I like printing photographs. So, a camera.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

The Diary of a Teenage Girl

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

L took me out to lunch at Bocuse and then I wandered around Rhinebeck. I turned 63.

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

Money always makes things more satisfying, but like I say, it was a good year.

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

Oh, I dress like a bag lady. Jeans, white boyfriend shirts, hoodies. I keep my nails manicured and painted, and my hair dyed an intriguing shade of aubergine. If I never had to change out of this uniform, I’d be a happy camper.

34. What kept you sane?

Exercise. My lightbox.

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

Seems to me that I did have a celebrity crush this year. Can’t remember upon whom, though.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

Democratic primaries. DNC’s been in bed with Hillary Clinton since forever, and that’s just so unfair.

37. Who did you miss?

Nobody.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

Hmmmm. I met a fair number of people this year, but nobody I wanted to induct into the inner sanctum.

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

Getting old sucks, but it’s the only reliable way to live a long life.

I take leave of 2015 with this adorable photo. What are the odds that with tens of thousands of people on the Commons last night, the Boston Herald would decide to make RTT and The Girlfriend the center of the universe, huh?