2022: 2020, pt. 2?
What a year! Every year I wonder “Is this trite? Overdone? Am I really going to write another blog post about the past year?”1 I guess so, yeah. I’m going to do it. One of the less attractive features of my inner monologue is a propensity to judge myself for not being original enough… if anyone is ever all that original, anyway. Away we go with an entirely uninspired retrospective of my thoughts on the previous year!
The vibes are off
In 2008, I began my first year of high school. My memories of the last recession are not so much about me or my family, but about what I was told and was hearing. One of those things was from a math teacher, who told us about how recessions are kind of like a game of telephone, where some people start saying “I think we’re going into a recession” to each other, and eventually it spreads and happens. I wasn’t sure if this was a naive take at the time, but as I’ve become a more rabid news consumer and learned more about that nebulous body, The Economy, I can’t help but think he was really telling us a great truth of the world. This year it seems to have manifested as The Vibecession.
The vibes are off, man. This year I get the sense that everyone is just tired and it would be good to move on now, please.
A discussion of some high points of the year
At the very end of 2021, Miranda and I left for a week and half in Maui and a few days in Los Angeles, and I rang in the year at a resort. It truly was all down from there!
In April, we got cats! And COVID. Here is my cat Threepwood, currently on my lap, and making it slightly difficult to type this. Fortunately, the cats stayed, and the COVID did not.
In June, I flew to Chicago to meet my best friend, and we saw Dead & Company at Wrigley Field. The day was marred by the fact that reproductive freedom died in America that morning, but the band turned out a great show on a wonderful night.
Some sanctimonious media recommendations
- I keep coming back to a 2017 article from Vox called “Those who leave home, and those who stay.” I’ve shown it to approximately everyone I’ve had even a slightly related conversation with. This year was my ten-year high school reunion, and I didn’t go, which made me think of it all the more.
- As a rule, I think of myself as someone that carries a lot of shame and guilt, and that applies in a broad sense to “being a fortunate, decent-looking white man.” I am proudly progressive, and often that means the issues I vote for are not specifically for me, because why would they be? I am very fortunate already. The episode of the Prof G Pod - Failing Young Men - With Richard Reeves” provides an interesting insight into how we can systemically think about what masculinity means and how to raise men that aren’t… terrible.
- The Sold a Story podcast was an absolutely fascinating look at how kids learn to read and how the education system has worked against that for the past few decades - and importantly - how it’s slowly changing to get better again.
- It’s been a tough year. In a normal time, when I’m not in a class, I’d say my mental health is mostly okay and I credit a lot of the really tough I work I did on myself over the past few years with that. I listened to a podcast called “Dear Old Dads” about mental health (part 1, part 2) despite not being “dear,” “old,” nor a “dad” and it was an expression of something that I very much agree with: it’s not your fault but it’s your responsibility to get your own house in order, because your mental health affects the people around you, too. I don’t always succeed in this myself, but I always try.
That playlist you’re all here for
Enjoy!
2022: 2020, pt. 2 (Spotify)
- Sixteen Tons - Jerry Reed (Hot A’ Mighty)
- Bigmouth Strikes Again - The Smiths (The Queen is Dead)
- Southbound Again - Dire Straits (Dire Straits)
- King Harvest (Has Surely Come) - The Band (Live at the Academy of Music 1971)
- Arrange and Rearrange - Pete Seeger (If I Had a Hammer: Songs of Hope and Struggle)
- Oh, Atlanta - Little Feat (Feats Don’t Fail Me Now)
- 10.21.03 - Daydreamer (10.21.03)
- Back in the Goodle Days - John Hartford (Aereo-Plain)
- One by One - Billy Bragg & Wilco (Mermaid Avenue)
- Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man - Bob Seger (Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man)
- Gypsy - Kitchen Dwellers (Ghost in the Bottle)
- Half a Person - The Smiths (The Sound of the Smiths)
- Dirty Work - Steely Dan (Can’t Buy a Thrill)
- Anniversary Song - Cowboy Junkies (Studio)
- Just Like Heaven - The Cure (Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me)
- Killed by Death - Motörhead (The Löst Tapes Vol. 4, Live in Heilbronn 1984)
You’ll note that the venerable Grateful Dead did not make the list, and frankly, the is because I listened to the Dead about 4x more than the next closest artist. It just wouldn’t be a fair fight!
Finally, the unedited, full-length list.
- Here’s what GitHub CoPilot (kind of like ChatGPT, but normally for code) suggested I write for that first paragraph:
