See previous year in review posts.
My view from the end of all things 2022:
(Not visible: the buffalo plaid pocket square accompanying the bowtie.)
The biggest thing that happened to my family this year was trying to have a second child. It was a long and demoralizing journey that ultimately ended successfully (due in late May), but it’ll take more than a bullet point to say why.
Beyond that, we just kept on livin’. Here’s what that looked like this year:
- Got to see our cute, curious, cuddly, (sometimes) cantankerous 3 year old:
- get familiar with the neighborhood birds, including hawks, cardinals, herons, woodpeckers, and blackbirds
- get his second-ever haircut
- get COVID (was basically fatigued for a day then back to his usual self)
- take classes for t-ball, gymnastics, tap/ballet, and various other sports
- giddily explore a few different children’s museums
- “play” Connect 4
- behold clouds
- recreate iconic memories
- draw and erase
- Enjoyed my brief stint as a bookfluencer
- Started a monthly newsletter
- Relished a few kid-free breakfast dates with my wife
- Took a road trip to Toronto to visit family
- Made several visits to family in Wisconsin and Michigan
- Continued attending a semi-weekly book club with my dad and his friends
- Continued having semi-monthly virtual chats to stay in touch with my closest friends
- Attended Zoom author events with Madeline Miller and Nick Offerman/Jeff Tweedy
- Went to a climbing gym for the first time as an adult
- Appreciated things like:
- Dispensed wisdom about:
- Left the library world for a new job
- Encountered lots of great books and movies
- Read 22 books and saw 62 movies
- Saw these movies in the theater: Barbarian, Nope, The Fabelmans, The Banshees of Inisherin, Avatar: The Way of Water, and Babylon
- Added these cheap used DVDs/Blu-rays to my collection: The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Apartment, Arrival, Brick, Brooklyn, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Cast Away, Casino Royale, Do the Right Thing, Hell or High Water, High Noon, In the Heights, The Irishman, Looper, The Matrix, Ocean’s Twelve & Thirteen, Out of the Past, Paris Texas, Red River, Remember the Titans, Roma, Titanic, and The Usual Suspects
- Added these (not cheap Christmas gifts) Criterion Blu-rays: 12 Angry Men, The Night of the Hunter, The Lady Eve, and WALL·E
- Helped launch Cinema Sugar, where I wrote about:
- my top 5 high school, horror, noir, and Christmas movies
- the high school movie party
- lessons from film noir
- Determined the greatest films of all time
- Pondered many great quotes
- Kept up several ongoing series:
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