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What was your highlight of 2023?
It can be anything really, just excited to hear about everyone's favorite moments or "wins" of the year.
It can be anything really, just excited to hear about everyone's favorite moments or "wins" of the year.
This is a long one, but hopefully worth it.
So, 15 years ago, my wife and I used to be way more hip and trendy. One night we went out for drinks and ended up listening to this 20 something soulful goth guitar girl. Anyway, I was so taken by her vocals that I bought a CD off her.
I kept that CD in my car until 3 weeks ago, when I inserted it in the dash player and something broke.
Just like that, a CD I'd cherished for 15 years had been eaten. In a panic, I tried to get it out. A few hours of internet searches and a dozen attempts with different combinations of button presses, I had to give up. So I went back to the computer to track that musician down. Well, turns out her life went sideways and she had to get out of music in 2020. She makes jewelry now on Etsy.
So, what the hell, right? I messaged her on Etsy and explained the situation, sent her a photo of the CD case and asked if I could buy a replacement.
She was floored. She wrote me back and couldn't believe I'd kept her CD that long. She talked to me all about her retirement from music and how hard it had been, etc. I promptly sent her $15 for a "burned" replacement as she had long since lost all the originals.
I asked if she was going to ever play again. She said she was playing Friday for her Mom's new interior design studio opening, along with a couple of NYC indie musicians.
I asked if I could buy tickets and again, she was stunned.
So last Friday I showed up with my wife and we watched her play. First, I felt like a damn VIP. It was like having a private concert in your living room. What was even crazier was she'd told the story to the other musicians who wanted to talk to me about my books.
Turns out she'd googled me. So there we were, for a solid ten minutes talking artist to artist. We talked writing, songwriting vs novel writing, stories, etc. They asked me all about inspiration and was amazed that I'd written so many books.
This alone would have been enough, but then, against all odds, it got better.
She asked what my favorite song was, and at the end of the night, played it just for me. Like, legit adjusted her seating and focused only on me.
I didn't quite know how to handle the sheer amount of joy. I was overwhelmed.
That's my win.
It was an evening I'll never forget.
This is so sweet. What a beautiful story!
It's a great reminder that we can never really know the meaningful impact we have on others, and something that we did/said/made long ago can be carried with someone for far longer than we realize.
She was on the verge of tears when we met. Couldn't believe I'd held onto the album so long. I told her I was crushed when the CD player ate it. I'd gone so far as to contemplate taking my dash apart. Yes, as an artist, to have that sort of effect on people is beyond measure.
That was an awesome story, thanks for sharing.
This is a wonderful story, I hope you can include it in a story one day :)
Thank you! It might get a little dark as I write horror, but you never know!
Taking it and twisting it into a horror tale could be a fun angle in fairness! Either way, I'm really glad you got to experience it. Connecting like that with fellow artists is one of the greatest joys in life.
This is a lovely story!
I have a question, but feel free to ignore it if you get asked it all the time.
I see in a later comment that you're an author. My wife just published her first book back in November (contemporary romance, not horror) and it has not done as well as she has hoped. I suspect her expectations were too high for a self-published indy book, but I really have no clue. My question is, do you have any tips or suggestions for new authors? Anything that helped you find enough success to write multiple books? I'm trying my best to support her but writing a book is completely out of my depth.
Happy to help! Took this offline to private messages.
Do you mind sharing the musician's name? It's ok if you don't want to, I figure you omitted it for a reason.
Sure. I didn't want the post to seem like an advertisement for her. I have to admit I don't know all the rules on tildes like I should, so I often error on the side of caution. I'll direct message you her name and FB acct.
I'd also love to give her a listen if you don't mind sharing. Thanks for the story as well.
PM sent!
Thanks! Yes, totally not a "big name." But the whole experience was surreal. It was so amazing to get what amounted to a private set, then to be treated like a fellow creative? Well, like I said, it was the highlight of 2023, without question.
I officiated my friends' wedding!
I don't want to talk myself up too much, but I do have a radio voice, and my job (teaching) involves speaking to groups of people on a daily basis. I think the couple asked me to officiate because of this -- and also because the rest of the wedding party was full of consummate introverts who hate going to weddings in the first place, much less speaking in front of everyone there.
Getting legally married in the US is... interesting. Rules vary by state but, generally speaking, you can either be married by a government official (e.g. a Justice of the Peace) or by a religious minister. If you want a non-religious wedding, as my friends did, and you don't do it at your local city hall, then you have to have recruit a religious minister and who officiates the ceremony and signs the marriage license. It's a weird mix of government and religion that could
probablydefinitely use some untangling.Thus, in order for their marriage to be officially recognized, I had to register as a minister. You're reading that right: kfwyre is officially ordained, y'all!
Here's where it gets even weirder: the organization through which I am a minister exists solely to let people meet the legal requirement to officiate their friends' weddings. Basically, they are a secular "church" that has a core belief that people getting married should have the right to choose their officiant.
In practice, this means I fill out a form online and pay a fee, and they mail me a certificate and give me a reference number. That's it! Five minutes and fifteen dollars and I'm officially ordained. It feels a little ridiculous and definitely cheapens the title of minister to have it be so easy, but the only reason this process exists is because of the strange legal requirement in the first place.
The couple wrote their own ceremony script, and I practiced every day for weeks leading up to the wedding so that I could deliver it smoothly and mostly looking out at the audience rather than at my script. I only had one flub where I started a sentence completely wrong, but I rescued it. My rule for performing is that it's only a flub if the audience knows it's a flub, and they definitely didn't, so all things considered it went pretty flawlessly!
One fun thing I did learn is that wedding officiants are supposed to "dodge" the kiss. It's best if you step out of frame so that the photographer can get better pictures. I felt absolutely ridiculous doing it, but of course, nobody noticed me taking a giant sidestep after "you may now kiss" because all eyes are on the couple. The next time you're at a wedding though, watch for it!
Not only was it an honor getting to do the marriage ceremony myself, but it had additional resonance for me. It was a gay wedding, and as a gay guy myself, there's still a lot of extra meaning and emotion wrapped up in marriage for me. I initially did not want to get married to my husband not because of anything about him specifically but because I was sour on the idea that marriage wasn't offered to gay people.
It took a long time for my bitterness over marriage to transmute into fondness. My friends have also been together since before marriage equality, so finally getting to stand in front of them as they said their vows to one another in front of friends and family, and then to sign the form that says that their marriage is both official and recognized, thawed any remaining cold parts of my heart. It is now only warm and full of love.
I got to reflect on the idea further, when we were at the reception. This was the gayest wedding I've ever been to, and that's saying something as someone who had his own gay wedding. Many of the people there were young(ish) queer couples.
We did a traditional Anniversary Dance at the reception. I'm not sure how common this is outside of the US (someone let me know!) but the way it works is that all married couples congregate on the dance floor. The DJ then starts listing different time benchmarks, and anyone who's been married less than that amount of time leaves the dancefloor, until the longest married couple are the only ones left dancing together.
It usually begins with something cute to knock the newlyweds off the floor first (e.g. "if you've been married less than three hours..."). It then usually goes up by individual years, then multiples of 5.
For the first time, my husband and I got to stay past the dance floor for the five year mark (we got married in 2018). We've been together and mutually monogamous since 2010, so our actual date should be much higher, but that's how long we've been married so that's how we followed the rules of the dance.
We departed the dance floor at the next benchmark -- 10 years. This actually cleared out a lot of people, and it wasn't until I started talking to the guy next to me that I realized why: the Obergefell ruling legalizing gay marriage in the US was 8 years old (that was when the guy next to me had married his husband). I looked back out at the dance floor and, in a very gay wedding filled with lots of gay people, it was now exclusively men dancing with women.
I then thought about how, in 10 or 20 or 30 years, when the Anniversary Dance is done in weddings nationwide, gay people will still be there, out on the dancefloor, holding their partners lovingly in their arms as the DJ keeps ratcheting up the years. It was (and still is!) a beautiful thought. It was a nice reminder that even though gay marriage feels like it has been around a while, we're still only at the beginning here in the US. A marriage isn't just the ceremony -- it's all the years that come after it too.
So, that was the highlight of my year. I adored being able to celebrate my friends and their love, of course. It was an honor, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat (which I actually will get the opportunity to do, as another pair of friends has asked me to officiate in this coming year!). But also, the wedding helped give me perspective on marriage itself -- on how far we've come but also how much road there is left ahead of us. My heart flutters at the idea of standing out there with my husband, swaying together to a love song, as the DJ keeps calling out decades worth of time. Instead of leaving, we just get to keep on dancing together.
That's so lovely, and I'm delighted that a legally recognized celebration of love and devotion is open to all in the U.S. (even if some finagling is still required)! I say this as someone who also got married under the auspices of that unnamed secular "church" with our best friends officiating, and wrote the ceremony with my spouse-to-be. We did a standup comedy routine, baffling family and causing our friends to literally roll in the aisles. I highly recommend this practice.
I love the way you painted a word picture of the anniversary dance and what it means to you, I can only imagine how lovely of a wedding it must have been and wish for you many more that you'll get to be a part of.
After months of hesitation, umming and ahhing, of self-doubt and of fear, on the 11th of May I started taking hormone replacement therapy to block testosterone and increase oestrogen. For years and years I had felt simply wrong, like my body wasn't my own, and that I would never be able to be truly happy. Yet after just one week of taking the drugs I was already so much more at peace with myself and just content than I had ever been in my life. Sure I had experienced happiness before, and some great highs of it. But those moments were always large peaks amongst a consistently low average. Seven months on, and my average is far higher. The peaks are the same, as are the troughs. But the difference is that I know that the troughs will pass, and that regardless of how sad I feel at any given moment, I have finally found the way to fix my years of depression. This has been the best year of my life, and in many ways the first. I'm looking forward to what 2024 brings.
Hey, May 11 is my birthday! So I guess in a way that makes us birthday buddies.
Good for you! As with any big change, the first step is always the hardest. Go you!
I relate to this feeling very much.
I've had depression since ~8th grade (12-14 years old) and have been medicated for 6 years. Life was never woth it for me. I just survived day by day, so that my loved ones can lead a happy life.
I retried therapy again this year for a reason not focused on depression. We could not pinpoint the cause of the depression to any major event. It just arrived on its own.
During this time, I started to watch JammiDodger. I've never been in contact with trans people, so I was intrigued and he had good content (I didn’t realise he was trans the first few videos). Some time passes and I'm talking to my sister about him and then the conversation shifts to if we ever felt like transitioning. She did not, I always wanted to be born again as a girl.
Talking it over with my therapist and a lot of introspection brought forth some repressed memories of the time in my teen years, where my depression started. I was battling with an identity crisis, if I should transition or not. My conclusion was: since I don't get panic attacks from my birth sex, I cannot be trans. And decided to live my life as male.
Jumping back to now. I am most definitely on the trans spectrum and am considering to transition. Since allowing myself to view me as a woman, I don't have the grim outlook on the future anymore and even look forward to the next years of my life. I can even see myself coming of antidepressants in the future, which was unimaginable to me before.
Congratulations! I'm really happy for you :) It's a scary journey to make, but I've found it really rewarding and ultimately life changing. My DMs are open if you ever have any questions or just want to talk about stuff 💕
A game I made (YOYOZO for Playdate) received a GOTY accolade! https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/12/ars-technicas-best-video-games-of-2023/7
Congratulations! This is going to get me to dust off my Playdate.
Also, does it feel surreal to be sharing a page with Baldur's Gate 3? That's wild! You're in good company!
You may not believe it but as somebody who only really plays games on consoles, I have no idea what Baldur's Gate even is! But I gather it's a classic, so I do appreciate the placement. 🤓
It's on consoles! They did a great job providing a console friendly control scheme that's separate from the mouse and keyboard interface. If you like RPGs and games with a lot of player choice impacting the story, it's hands down the best one of those.
Oh! I need to get out more. Hahaha.
I don't have either of the latest consoles, so it had passed my by. It's safe to say I'm more of a "retro" gamer as I don't play many modern games. Out of the 20 in the Ars GOTY list I had played precisely none, but was aware of 14 of the 19 that aren't my game.
I also don't really have any interest in RPG, adventure, or story-led games. I prefer arcade or abstract games with a central skill-based gameplay mechanic. These are also the types of games I make.
Does it require fast twitch reflexes? I enjoyed Witcher games 2 and 3 and dragon age, but certain challenges I had to ask my husband to complete for me because I am not fast enough
It's completely turn-based combat, no fast reflexes required anywhere in the game. So more akin to Dragon Age than the Witcher games.
It's a dungeons and dragons game, but with a ridiculous level of care and polish to try to nail what draws people into the idea of tabletop RPGs.
Cool, thanks!
You may have already checked it out by now, but for clarity's sake, it's much more like Dragon Age in that typical exploration gameplay happens live and you can enter "initiative mode" at any moment where everything (including environmental effects and NPCs going about their business) happens on its own turn.
Combat always happens in initiative mode, but I've definitely gotten myself into scenarios where I trigger a trap that I didn't spot and take more damage than I needed to because I didn't react quickly enough. Typically not a fatal mistake, but does mean burning additional resources which can slow down play a touch. It's also kind of one of the magical parts of the game where something goes very differently than you expected and all you can do is sit back and say "well, that just happened"!
That's an extraordinary achievement, and I say this as someone who seriously crashed their college GPA through arcade game addiction (among other things) and thence never touched a console game. Any hopes for an Android version?
Edit: I don't need a Playdate, but now I want a Playdate, dammit. That retro vibe just woke up the old itchy fingers.
I'm considering what to do with YOYOZO now that it's got some serious attention. First thing is to figure out how to extend the score limit. I assumed people would get around 250M points, I could get about 150M, and of course somebody has legitimately got 2.147B points and overflowed the 32-bit number limit (in fact the game crashes due to a small number formatting oversight on my part). This is the first high score game I've made that I didn't make play itself to verify max score. Lesson learned!
Had a couple of surgeries to get rid of cancer, one final treatment in a couple of months. That's pretty much it, fuck cancer.
(Also got another nephew, I love being an uncle)
Congratulations! I hope you have years of spoiling those nephews and teaching them the things an uncle should!
I feel a little selfish for posting this but we are finally done breastfeeding. My partner had such a hard time over the last 3 years with our son's, and she did her best to tough it out and breastfeed for 8 months after each was born. She obviously had the toughest job here but there was a lot of stress on both of us and our relationship. I didn't like seeing how she was during that time. We had a lot of honest conversations but we knew it was just going to be both of us sucking it up and finishing the process. We are done though and on to other challenges!
That is not selfish at all. Breastfeeding takes a toll on mothers and, to a lesser but still meaningful extent, fathers. The end of breastfeeding gives mothers their independence back. It will take a few months for us to achieve that milestone, and I'm already anxious for that to happen!
It's a pretty silly video, but this recent Try Guys video really opened my eyes to how much work and how exhausting breastfeeding (and breast pumping) actually is: The Try Guys Try Breastfeeding
cc: @Markpelly
This video makes me sad when I realize what women have to go through in countries with no law mandating maternity leave. Nothing against the permission to pump or breastfeed wherever you are, but 3 months would be the bare minimum for a new mother to figure these things out before rejoining the workforce. 6 months would be best, but I really think an entire year would be ideal.
IKR? As if having a baby wasn't difficult enough, imagine being forced to hold onto your career at the same time. Oof. I really don't understand why there isn't far far far more push back in the US over the lack of proper (i.e. paid and sufficiently long) maternity and paternity leave. It seems absolutely crazy to me.
Because labor rights suck, that's really the long and short of it. Really hard to stick your neck out for a cause, especially since you've got that extra mouth to feed.
Friend who works in retail just relayed how one member at his store has not technically been fired, but has 0 hours scheduled for the next 4 weeks. Somehow this is a legal thing that companies are allowed to do.
"Oh Bob chose to quit, we didn't fire him. So we don't need to pay unemployment."
There is something called "constructive dismissal" which means that they made it impossible for someone to keep a job even if they didn't technically fire them. The person this happened to should apply for unemployment anyway and see if there is a legal aid organization in their area that can help them if it is denied.
In a similar vein, their video on cramps is great too
Yeah, I really liked that one and found it enlightening too. I actually even posted it to ~life.women and got some amazingly insightful responses.
Getting married to my now wife and had the honeymoon in Thailand.
In contrast I lost my brother earlier this year.
Looking forward to finally seeing my favorite musician in the world next year: King Diamond
I've gotten to see the King a few times now in the last 10 years. You're in for a treat; He still sounds amazing. Where are you going to see him?
Summer Breeze Festival here in Brazil. It will be Mercyful Fate on Friday.
There is a surprise act they are announcing soon for Sunday and a lot of people are saying it will probably be King Diamond since he will be already here and it's been more than a decade since he came to Brazil, so let's hope I can see both.
TL:DR; I received a kidney transplant in May and I'm feeling 25 years old again (I'm 39). My sister-in-law was the donor and I am endlessly grateful for her. Also, everyone should get their annual check-ups, no matter how healthy you feel you are!!! I always thought I was perfectly healthy and didn't need to see the doctor, but I literally couldn't have been more wrong.
In the summer of 2022, I was suffering multiple debilitating migraines each week. After developing a blurry area in the vision in my left eye, I visited a doctor and we discovered that my blood pressure was insanely high. It measured at 210/130. For reference, anything over 180/110 is "you could have a stroke at any moment" territory. "High" blood pressure is around 150/90. Healthy blood pressure is around 120/80.
I was admitted to the hospital and a battery of tests were done. It turned out that my kidneys were in end stage failure, operating at about 7% of their healthy capacity. A biopsy confirmed a diagnosis of "IGA Nephropathy." In a nutshell, some of the antibodies my immune system makes don't get made correctly and they're too big to fit through the kidney's filtering units (glomuleri). This kills the glomuleri and slowly kills the kidneys.
I started dialysis and got on the kidney transplant waiting list as soon as possible. Dialysis (peritoneal) wasn't great, but it kept me stable and mostly independent. During this time, some of family members underwent testing to see if they'd be a good match for donation. Toward the end of 2022, we got word that my wife's younger sister was a match.
She and her boyfriend flew up from their home in Utah and stayed with us near Seattle for the surgery and recovery. This turned out to be an amazing arrangement as we could encourage and support each other for the most intense few weeks. We'd have amazing family meals and go on very slow walks and try not to make each other laugh too hard.
It was hard to notice at the time, but the gift of hindsight has shown me just how poorly I was feeling for the past 5-10 years. I'd gradually given up on activities that I had enjoyed (dirtbiking, concerts, strenuous exercise), because I simply didn't have the energy. Since surgery, I'm gradually feeling more and more like myself again. I'll always need to be careful of getting sick and other infections because my immune system is suppressed to prevent rejecting the new kidney, but that's a happy trade to make to be off of dialysis and feeling so much better.
2024 is looking to be a year full of enjoyment and gratitude.
I guess the biggest thing for me is that I moved out of my old and musty apartment into a 2 bedroom townhome! I'm still renting and I'm hoping to own a home in the next few years, but I'm so much happier now in a space that feels like a proper home. There are so many things that people take for granted that I now have and didn't before. My garage is attached (which is phenomenal because I'm a hobbyist mechanic), I have my own entry, I have central air, in-unit laundry, good natural lighting, and the list keeps going. It's just crazy how much I feel better on a daily basis having a proper home instead of being stuck in a small 1 bedroom apartment with both my cats. Oh, they love the new place, too, I've never seen them happier!
The other big thing is that I've 99% given up alcohol. Alcohol hasn't been destructive for me for about 5 years now (it used to be in my early 20's), but I still would have a few drinks a week. Between beer starting to trigger migraines for me (apparently food based migraine triggers are a thing?) and with weed now legal where I live, I've had little reason to drink. So I'm down to maybe just having one glass of wine a week and I'm perfectly happy with that, I just feel a lot healthier not consuming alcohol on the daily or every other day.
On the creative front, I started running a long D&D campaign in 2022 that I finished in 2023. I had run campaigns before, but the last big one was in 2015 or so. Since then, everything I've run has been smaller, a few sessions in length, rather than a big campaign. I also wrote much of the story myself after wanting to pivot it from where the adventure path was leading. Well, my players loved it and I'm glad I could provide them a good creative outlet and a great story! I'll be running more campaigns in the future, but for now, I'm happy to take a break from it and be a player instead (I ran that campaign for nearly 1.5 years, meeting twice a month on average).
My twins are finally both potty trained. They are 4 and I felt so much guilt and failure for it having taken so long. Which turned into a lot of frustration on my part. It was rough and we tried everything. Meanwhile I watched kids years younger than mine finish potty training, which just made it worse. But one day it just clicked with my daughter and a few months later it clicked with my son. And for both of them, when it clicked, that was it. Neither of them ever looked back.
And now I'll occasionally find our stashes of pull-ups and it makes me sad. Almost nostalgic because the last of the "baby" things associated with my kids is firmly in the past. But also really angry at myself or having been so worked up and getting so frustrated over something that just resolved itself eventually. Parenting is the wildest emotional rollercoaster I've ever been on!
Congratulations on the last diaper! As they grow more capable and independent, you have so many interesting and fun things to look forward to!
I hope you can offer yourself forgiveness -- you did it! They are healthy and growing and have you to thank for that. We are never going to be perfect parents, but the fact that you are showing up and working hard at it is great!
Definitely working on forgiving myself a lot as a parent. Sometimes I feel like I should have this all figured out as I've been a parent for 4 years now, but that's silly. I parented infants for a while, toddlers for a few years, but preschool age is an entirely new experience for me so I need to allow myself to screw it up a bunch before I figure things out.
I remember trying to put my daughter to bed as an infant. Night after night, I would hold her and rock her, but she would always be awake when I finally put her down. One night, I held her a little differently, and she went right to sleep. I thought, "Alright, you got this figured out." But that hold never worked again, and it was always a struggle to get her to sleep. Turns out she just loves being around people so much that she doesn't want to sleep if anyone else is awake.
That was the first lesson in something I eventually learned: I will always be catching up because they will always be changing. Even when people warned me about what is coming, I eventually realized every child is different, and while I can get advice and help from others, it's still on me to be there every day doing the work, trying to make the best decision in the moment while never knowing how it will turn out.
I think that if we do our best and aren't afraid to say we were wrong, then we'll be all the example they ever need.
I through hiked the Appalachian Trail this year. It's 2198.4 miles from Georgia to Maine. As someone who struggles with insomnia and depression it was a big event for me to finish in October. It was an adventure I'll never forget. I had good and bad days, but goddamn I feel lucky to be in a good enough position to do such a thing.
Congrats from a fellow thru-hiker! How has integration back into "real life" been treating you? Would you say you caught the bug, or was one trail enough? Any desire to hike the other two?
Getting back was a bit of a rough transition. Still trying to find a job, and honestly miss the peace, quiet and outdoors. Right now another 6 month hike seems like too much, but am itching to keep hiking. Probably to the Long Trail and the Colorado Trail before I think about doing the CDT or PCT.
I am in awe. Amazing. I would love to try a small slice of it, is there any portion you would recommend for a weekend warrior?
One of the most scenic and day hikable section would be McAfee Knob and Tinkers cliffs, or Bear Mountain in New York, though that one is normally flooded with people. Honestly, there were beautiful parts in every state, and can't wait to get back out there.
Also, Maine in late September was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.
Congrats on completing the thruhike! Did you have anyone help with resupply stops? Or did you just go into town to resupply?
I want to do the PCT so bad :( I'll make it one day.
The PCT doesn't call to me like the AT did yet, but I am craving another hike. I had some prepackaged food boxes shipped ahead by my parents, but mostly resupplied on my own past Tennessee.
I hope you get your chance to do the PCT! It was a once in a lifetime adventure.
I was thinking of maybe doing one month of hiking a year, and make it a multi year journey. I won't be able to take more than off of work, and I really like my job 😭
I love the PCT because I've hiked very small portions of it. I live like 15 minutes from the southern terminus lol
The AT looks really cool, especially with it's history, but in a similar way to you, doesn't exactly call to me
I totally get that! I personally am looking at shorter hikes I could do in a month and a half or month. The Long Trail in Vermont or the Colorado trail in particular.
After three years of dating and two years of long distance, me and my boyfriend broke up. Theoretically, we were both open to eventually getting back together, but it wasn't likely - we both needed to work through some issues and his visa was due to expire along with his contract, and I knew he was planning to return back home (different continent, 15 hour flight).
We saw each other after four months of breakup, a month before his visa expired. It was bittersweet because we talked it out, we clearly cared deeply about each other, but life had its own plans and it really looked like it just wasn't meant to be.
Then, a few weeks later, he called me to say that he thought things over and that he wants to give it another go. We had a long talk about our fears and sacrifices and the realities of living together, and ended up agreeing that he was moving in with me once his contract expired. I went from being single and talking to people on dating apps to being in a committed relationship with my partner about to move in with me in the span of an hour. I was shocked, relieved, happy, worried, but also weirdly calm for the first time since before Covid.
(Long story short: he moved in, got a job in his field, and six months later, we're both really happy that things turned out the way they did. We wouldn't have lasted without the opportunity to sort our issues out, but I'm really glad we got to try again.)
I finally got into my career field! I work in Wildlife Nutrition at a zoo, and I'm so fucking happy and proud of myself.
I'll admit, I just turned 30 not too long ago, and my 20s were tumultuous, and I never finished my degree. I was able to get into a competitive position at a renowned zoo, beating out people with degrees. My volunteer experience at other wildlife organizations and my hard work in other departments at the same zoo paid off. I'm finally full time. I finally have amazing benefits.
And I'm finally going to finish my degree. Now that I'm benefitted, one of my benefits is that my employer has a tuition reimbursement program. They'll pay for me to go to school, with no limit on how much they pay, it just depends on my grades. If I get straight A's they pay for 100% of everything.
I feel like my life is starting a bit slower than others, but it's so nice to have just one, stable hour, job. Set days off. No more dealing with customers or guests. I get to help wildlife keepers with preparing their diets for their animals.
This isn't my end goal though. Once I get my degree I plan on working directly in a conservation program for birds in the Pacific. Last year alone, we as humans let about 20 species of Pacific avian species go extinct. As someone of Pacific Islander descent, Pacific birds have a special place in my heart and I would very much like to help stabilize their populations on the islands.
This isn't really exciting for most people. I just haven't really had the chance to talk to others about my excitement, hence the wall of text. If you made it this far, thank you for coming to my Ted talk.
I had a personal best improv drumming performance. I was so zoomed up on caffeine balanced with just enough food to keep focus instead of jittering. I was the crazed beat doctor of five and seven.
All my traveling! Visited NYC, Philly, Seoul, and the Laguna Seca race track for the first time this year. Absolutely fell in love with NYC and Seoul (sorry Philly!) and can't wait to go back. Watching races at Laguna Seca was surreal as I'd raced on it in video games countless times over the last 15 years. Those races got me into IMSA and Indycar too.
Looking forward to continuing to travel this year, currently planning on a 2 week trip to Japan in the fall.
I got my first job with a true work-life balance and will be celebrating a year there on Wednesday (that was a big way to start the year last year)!
My partner and I also got a kitten (8 months) about halfway through the year and have been thrilled to watch him (slowly) mature. He's buff with orange stripes and is lucky to have the braincell on any given day. He's a big guy but has the tiniest squeakiest voice and I love him. He has done a not-insignificant amount of emotional support work for us already, seeing as we lost both of our previous cats in the first half of 2023 [natural but unfortunately very early causes]. We're working toward making him comfortable sitting on laps, and he hit a big milestone the other day - ten minutes on a lap. Next step is to encourage him to lap-sit more often. As a person who grew up with a pretty vicious cat, having all of my previous experience turned upside down by the three cats I've known in the last four years has been really rewarding.
Congrats on the job! I feel the same way, I finally landed a job this year too that has a set work schedule, and it's so fucking amazing. Same days off every week, same hours every day. The only downside is that I start work at 5:30am haha, but it is nice getting off work at 2pm and being able to beat traffic or the crowds at grocery stores.
And in terms of the cat, good luck! My little assholes kept me awake last night because they kept chasing each other. I had to grab one of them and use them as a pillow to keep them still
I started a new long term relationship. The last one I was in was several years ago. It's been a new type of challenge vs. being single, but I am really enjoying it. We have communicated really well through challenging events, which has solidified our relationship more. This is my first holiday and birthday season and it has made these landmark days more meaningful.
Am I allowed to say "The end of it?"
Seriously 2023 was rough. Looking forward to a (hopefully) easier 2024. 🤞
Hey, but you fuckin made it dude. I'm fucking proud of you!
Thanks! I appreciate the kind words. I'm too stubborn to let life sucker punch me for too long, so I'm not letting it get me down. Just glad for the hope a new year brings. :)
My partner and I finally flew with our bikes to a foreign country (her first international flight, thanks to many years of covid delays after she got her passport in early 2020) and completed a monthlong bike tour! It was a blast, and though I'll certainly change some things next time (like my bottom bracket, which always gets creaky after it rains), I don't regret any of it. It was frankly awesome to spend prolonged time on a bike outside of the USA, where cycling is rendered bittersweet by a high risk of vehicular manslaughter due to poor infrastructure. I still debate moving out of the USA frequently, so it was nice to add some data points to my thought process, especially shared data points with my partner.
That's amazing! My partner and I did a similar trip in 2017. It was our first bike tour and it was constant learning. Where did you go?
We traveled down the length of the UK, roughly following the Great Divide route, with modifications to spend more time in towns and a little less time ploughing our way through sheep fields. I've been toying with South America or maybe just a central Europe tour next; it was nice to have no language barrier and low cultural barriers in the UK, but now that we have things sorted out a bit more I'd like to go somewhere a bit different. Curious if you have any recs!
The highlight of my year was my brother's belated wedding celebration (rearranged due to continuing COVID-19 restrictions, friends gathering from all over the country, and so on).
Those two loonies are made for each other, and I can't express how happy I am that they're now officially each other's keepers.
I am finishing up my masters!!! I'm done with school for the time being, and if I ever consider phD. Someone please pinch me.
Traveling with my family.
For context, I live on the other side of the planet from my family. My parents retired back to our homeland and my brother was military. Him and his family live overseas near my parents. So I generally get to see them all once a year.
This year was different though for various reasons. Because of that we took 3 big trips in 2023. Year started with the end of a 2022 trip to South Korea. We explored, endured the single digit temperatures, and had a great time.
Next in the summer we went to Rome/Portugal. My mom has always wanted to go to the vatican and see the Pope with her whole family. We were finally able to make that come true. We also went to Portugal for World Youth Day for my nephew/nieces to experience.
Finally, we ended the year in our homeland, the Philippines! I'm actually writing this on the plane before it takes off to leave. I've been here several times, but usually we just hang with all our family around the Luzon. This time we did a bunch of touristy stuff and visited the islands of Palawan & Cebu. Saw one of the New Seven Natural Wonders of the world, rode ATVs, went Canyoneering, and as always got a history lesson of our people. Got to go to our annual family reunion as well.
My parents are old. We nearly lost our dad a couple years ago. My nephew and oldest niece are set to graduate HS in the next couple years. I know this is an extremely privileged thing, but I'm still happy we got to do this before it's too late.