Another week for Sunday Stealing, this time with the questions being about travel. I’ve had travel on the mind for several years now, partly from watching the wonderful shows of Anthony Bourdain and then Phil Rosenthal’s Somebody Feed Phil, and partly from studying photography and seeing the dispatches sent back by the pro photographers. And, yes, from a few small travels of my own. Let’s get to it!
1. Have you traveled abroad? Where have you been? If you haven’t been overseas, which country would you most like to visit?
No, I have not. Places I’d like to see or go? Great Britain, for one. Vienna. Maybe Paris, but I’m not totally sure on that one. Japan…I’ve heard things about Kyoto that sound life-changing.
2. Where did you go on your last trip? Talk about where you went and what you did.
Defining “trip” as “any jaunt out of town that involves a hotel stay of any duration”, it would have been our annual trip to Ithaca last year. When we can we prefer to make a two-night stay out of this journey, but that didn’t work out last year. But basically the usual itinerary is kind of the same: lunch locally on Friday, then we road-trip to Rochester where we stay and have dinner. Then the next day we travel to Ithaca, stopping along the way at a winery and to see some sights in the Finger Lakes before we attend Ithaca’s Apple Harvest Festival. That’s a lot of driving for one day, which is why we prefer to have a two-night stay in Rochester (from home to Ithaca is about three hours). I would just link the post where I talked about that trip and shared a bunch of photos I took from it, but…it appears that I never actually wrote such a post about last year’s Ithaca trip. I chalk this up to the fact that starting in mid-August, and not really ending until just this past January, was a cataclysmically awful time in my life.
Prior to that, we had a long weekend in Toronto last spring, and prior to that was Ithaca again.
3. What is the best place for a vacation in your country? Why is it good?
It depends on what you want, really. If you want a hot city or a cold nature place, or a cold city and a hot nature place…or if you want mountains or seaside, forests or deserts…quiet or crowd energy…I couldn’t begin to say what’s best. I can say why I’ve loved places I’ve gone to, though.
4. What is the longest time you have been away from home? Did you feel homesick?
We were in Hawaii for eleven days. It was not enough. (Though I did miss our dogs terribly. And our cats a little.)
5. How long should a vacation be? How long does it take you to really relax?
Now, a vacation isn’t quite the same as a trip, is it? I think a vacation should be long enough to allow one to fully get one’s mind off work, and there’s no real one-size-fits-all for everybody on that. For me to really be a vacation it needs to be at least five days; anything shorter than that is a long weekend. (And those are lovely, truly! I’ve got one coming up, and I desperately need it!)
I think I read somewhere recently that the optimal length of a vacation is eight days; anything more than that and while you might have continued fun, your mind won’t benefit any more for having not been at work. I don’t know about that, but I do know that for many Americans, including myself, an eight-day vacation is kind of a luxury.
6. What forms of transportation do you prefer to use when you travel?
If I could take a train everywhere, I would. I dislike flying because the airlines have made it unpleasant, though I don’t find it hellish. (Oddly, I love airports! I find them incredibly fascinating places.) Unfortunately, trains are not much of an option these days, so it’s mostly driving.
During our Toronto trip, we stayed in the outskirts of Mississauga, ON, and relied on the GO Train system to actually get into the city. Good public transportation is a wonderful thing.
7. How do you choose where to go? Are you inspired by other people’s travel stories? Or photos? Or advertising?
I love reading travel writing, and watching travel documentaries! We don’t get to travel far-and-wide enough to have to make decisions on where we go, though. That’s the thing about travel: it’s really a matter of privilege, isn’t it? Which I think is a big part of why so many people have annual trips that they take to the same place: when you’re laying out big money for travel, you don’t want to risk it not going well.
8. What’s more important to you when you travel – comfort and relaxation, or stimulating new experiences?
Some of each. I don’t like “on-the-go, all-the-time”, but just sitting in the hotel or lazing by the pool all day for the duration? No!
However, I do also think that traveling to beloved places because you want to do beloved things again and see beloved things again doesn’t get celebrated enough.
9. Do you like to try local foods when you go somewhere? Have you ever had something really delicious?
Always! Part of the whole reason for travel is food! I’m always flabbergasted that people travel to places far away from their homes and then eat at the same chain places. I do not understand that, ever.
Hawaii, just to name one example, was an amazing food experience. Just the garlic shrimp from the shrimp trucks blew our minds.
10. Things can go wrong when you travel. Have you had any bad travel experiences?
We had set up our Toronto trip before it emerged that The Wife was having mobility issues, so that made for some challenges, especially when one restaurant we wanted to go to was seven or eight whole blocks from the nearest subway station…and then it turned out that the trains weren’t even running that far because of construction, so we had to transfer to buses and then still walk the eight blocks there…and then back again. And this was after we’d managed to get lost in Toronto’s Underground City thing. That day as a challenge.
Oh, and the flight back from Hawaii was…an adventure.
11. Do you take a lot with you when you travel? Or do you try to pack light?
I probably pack heavier than I should. I don’t admit to many downsides of overalls, but they take up more room in the suitcase than normal pants. The Wife always makes fun of me for packing tons of clothes, but I’m always like, “I have an outfit for each day, plus one ‘lazy in the hotel room’ outfit!” And when we went to Hawaii, I did not pack an outfit for each day! That would have been absurd. Our suite had a washing machine, which made things easy. Plus I knew I’d end up buying a new shirt or two.
12. Which places in the world do you think are too dangerous to visit? Why are they dangerous?
Honestly, I don’t think I’m educated enough on the world right now to really assess this. Bad things can happen anywhere, and they do.
13. What is the best age to travel? Can children appreciate the experience?
They can, but then you have to tailor a lot of the experience to them. Nothing’s worse than being dragged somewhere with your parents, away from your friends, and having nothing to do.
14. What are the advantages and disadvantages of traveling alone?
No idea! I’ve never traveled alone, except for a training trip for a job I had years ago, and that doesn’t count. I suppose it’s easier to keep track of yourself.
I’ve thought about going on writing retreats in the past, or maybe a photography trip now, but I haven’t pulled the trigger.
15. What kind of accommodation do you like to stay in when you travel?
Hotels, mostly. I really don’t think I’d like the vibe of an Air B&B or an actual B&B. I’m not super-demanding; clean and cool rooms, a decent selection of channels on the teevee, Wi-fi, and near to decent restaurants, and I’m good. The place we stayed in Hawaii was luxurious, and I’m going to have a hard time with not staying there if/when we go back. And we rented a wonderful cottage on Seneca Lake for our 25th anniversary; that was an absolute delight!
16. Do you like to talk to the local people when you travel? Why or why not?
We do, in the course of just being there and interacting.
17. Would you like to go to a big international event, such as the Olympics or an international film festival? What would be good or bad about attending such an event?
I honestly don’t think that would be pleasant at all…but then, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade was an absolute joy to attend, so…maybe?
I took a couple days off from posting here, so let’s get back in the swing with a Sunday Stealing quiz! This one looks pretty benign:
1. Are you double jointed?
Nope!
2. Are you ticklish?
I know I used to be, I don’t know if I still am. Honestly, you reach a point in life where tickling isn’t a thing anymore, and looking back on all the tickling that went on in college, I’m wondering if that maybe shouldn’t have been a thing at all.
3. Cookies, cakes, or donuts?
Yes.
Honestly, the biggest impediment to my health right now is my undefeatable sweet tooth. The only area of life where I’ve really been able to conquer it is coffee: for years I took it with a lot of sugar, but now, I can’t abide sugar in my coffee. But other than that, I love sweet stuff and I have very low resistance to it. Not great. I’m better than I used to be, but I’m nowhere near as good as I should be about it.
Oh, and Roger‘s right about how wonderful pie is! I am always ready to second someone else’s endorsement of pie. And that’s not even referring to pie as facial accessory.
4. Did you go to prom?
No, and I have never once regretted not going, either. I didn’t understand the fuss then and I still don’t get it. I wasn’t one who detested my high school years, but I didn’t see them as a font of Wonderful Lifelong Memories, either, and I was realistic enough to know then that I was unlikely to ever see any of those people much again once high school was over, so…why bother with a dance?
(One thing that I’ve noticed people making a big deal of is “seeing their kids off to Prom”. I don’t really get this, either. I don’t judge it, but I don’t get it.)
(Another thought: when I was a kid, Prom was all about couples, or one boy and one girl going together, even if they weren’t a “couple”, strictly speaking. I know now that Proms can be more about going as a group of friends, without the whole “couple” thing at all if you don’t want it, and if that had been the vibe, then maybe I would have gone.)
(Ultimately, though, not going to Prom felt like an act of rebellion against all the “High school is the best time of your life!” crap that I was hearing constantly back then. I believed even then that if you can honestly look back decades later and conclude that you really did peak in high school, you have made a colossal error or a sequence of errors at some point.)
5. Do you bite your nails?
No. I did as a kid, but that habit went away also when I was a kid. Playing trumpet and piano, as well as typing a lot, always gave me incentive to just keep them trimmed, and as nervous habits go, nail-biting was never one of mine.
6. Do you enjoy dancing?
No, but I think that’s because I’ve never done it enough to get beyond the point that I feel really weird when I do it. Maybe if dancing had been a thing in gym class when I was a kid…well, actually it was, briefly, when I was in third and fourth grade, and we did square dancing. (Years later, I learned that there might have been some less-than-great reasons for square dancing in schools.) But once I got to ultra-conservative small-town Southern Tier New York? Dancing in gym class? You must be joking! Get in there and wrestle, kids!
Now, watching dancing is an absolute joy.
7. Do you forgive easily?
Not super easily, no…it usually takes me a bit of time and distance to get there. I usually do, though.
I don’t forget super-easily, though, and if something happens that requires forgiveness, then once I’ve done the forgiving, I’m still likely to incorporate some extra distance into the relationship.
8. Do you prefer to bathe or shower?
Shower.
9. Does your name have any special meaning?
Not that I am aware of. And now, well, if there was, I’m never going to know it. But I’m sure the subject would have come up at some point. (In fact, it probably did and I just never bothered retaining the information.)
10. Have you ever gone camping?
Yes, when I was a kid. It was our standard means of lodging when we were oot-and-aboot. My parents always owned a camper, and in fact they owned one up until they started downsizing their “estate” in the early 2010s in anticipation of moving to the Buffalo area to be nearer us.
11. Have you ever won something?
Yes, here and there! Winning stuff is nice. The best thing I won is probably the Short Fiction Contest that the Buffalo News used to run every year. In 2007 the subject was the assassination of President William McKinley (which happened in Buffalo), and my story won. You can read my winning entry here!
12. What did you last eat?
A chocolate chip cookie from our favorite local bakery that we visit each Saturday morning. My last meal was the Baja Chicken Penne that I got from Poppyseed, a local restaurant that’s been around forever and there’s a reason for that.
13. What’s your longest relationship so far?
Excluding my father and my sister, obviously, I’m still connected (via Facebook) with people from grade school, including one girl I knew way back in Second Grade when we lived for one year in Elkins, WV.
14. Have you ever been on a diet?
Yes, and I don’t bother with that anymore. It’s a waste of time and energy and they always eventually fail. I do find myself needing to recalibrate my daily eating toward healthier options and mixes once in a while, but I don’t go on “diets” in the sense of “I’m not eating any of that” or “I’m only eating this.”
My favorite dietary advice came from a chiropractor we saw for a while, back in the 2000s. He was anti-diet for the reasons I state above, and what was more, he advised indulgence on small levels. He said to me something along these lines: “If you have to eat chocolate every day, fine! But don’t make it a full-sized mass-produced Snickers bar. Eat one smaller portion of very high quality chocolate. Compensate for the small serving by making the quality outstanding.” I like that advice a lot.
By the way, I have recently decided to restrict my alcohol consumption to only nights where I do not have to work the next day. I never indulge enough to the point of a hangover, so that’s not the issue. But it’s almost certainly healthier–and absolutely less expensive–to cut that aspect of my weekly consumptions down a lot.
I end this topic with a quote from James Bond, in the novel Casino Royale:
“I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold and very well-made. I hate small portions of anything, particularly when they taste bad.”
15. Do you enjoy DIY or crafts?
Meh, not really. I admire everything I see that’s along that line, but never enough to want to take any of it up myself. DIY, in terms of house maintenance, just makes me feel like I’m working because my day job at The Store involves a lot of that kind of thing, so if I’m getting out my tools and stuff at home, I feel like I’m just working more, and nobody wants that. And crafting is a great creative outlet, but for me, writing and photography are always filling my creative outlet needs, so I’m good. I’ll leave the painting and the wood carving and the pottery to others. Give me a pen and a camera!
And that’s the last question. Here endeth the lesson!
I always check out Roger’s answers to these before I decide if I want to do the quiz too–sometimes the Sunday Stealing can be a bit heavy–but this week’s seems fine, so let’s do it!
1. If you like art, who is your favourite artist and why?
One of the developments of this point in my life that I did not see coming was my newfound love of museums and art galleries. I never disliked them, by any means, though I do recall having a limited attention span for such things when I was a kid. But now? I find myself almost obsessing over such places. Like, all I want to do is travel to other cities and see museums…and when we’re not traveling, I want to hang out in the museums here. I even bought a membership in the AKG Museum for The Wife and I last Christmas!
My favorite artist would probably be John Constable, whose landscape paintings probably play a big role in my approach (thus far) to landscape photography.
I remember seeing several of his paintings reproduced in a high school English text, and I’ve loved his work ever since.
2. If you were able to learn any three skills or talents instantly and with success, what would they be?
Refrigeration repair (this would be exceedingly handy at work and in general), piano playing (I took lessons as a kid and I was not terrible, but I haven’t touched a piano since college), and maybe some kind of dancing–ballroom, maybe?
3. If you were to live in Ancient Times, where – in what country – would you want to live in?
Celtic Britain, I suppose. Though the “nasty, brutish, and short” nature of life isn’t much of a selling point.
4. What is something you’re embarrassed to admit to liking? Whether it be a guilty pleasure show, or unusual hobby, etc.
Sheesh, I have no idea! I mean, I’m a weird dude who collects bib overalls, wears poofy shirts that make me look like I just walked off the set of a pirate movie, and I think it’s fun to get hit with a pie once in a while. I collect Toby jugs and I have a lovely little collection of toy spaceships. I’m honestly not sure what’s left!
5. What is the worst job you’ve ever had?
Beer delivery. This was right after college. I rode around in trucks and helped deliver beer to stores and bars in the Southern Tier. Lots of heavy lifting, and some of those places were really hard to get into. Also, I wasn’t very good at it, and the manager guy decided to can me, but he didn’t have the guts to do it face to face, so he told me to keep calling every day to see if I was needed. This went on for two weeks before the sumbitch finally summoned up the intestinal fortitude to tell me I was done.
The company was called Allegany Beverage and his name was Hank something. If you know him, tell him I said he was a gutless weasel then and I stand by that. Harumph. (I turned out fine, obviously.)
6. What is something that you wanted to do as a child that you would still like to do now?
Conduct a symphony orchestra! I coulda been quite something in that arena! And instead, I’m watching Gustavo Dudamel live my life, the jerk. (Maestro Dudamel is incredibly gifted.)
7. What do you hate being judged for more than anything else?
Not smiling enough. Yes, this is a thing. There’s an expectation in a lot of walks of life where you’re supposed to be wearing a permagrin, and if you aren’t smiling at every moment, people assume you’re in a bad mood or, worse, you’re unfriendly and antisocial. This is utter nonsense. Anybody can walk around smiling all the time
8. What is your life’s mission?
To create something worth leaving behind. I’m not sure if I’ve got there yet.
9. If everyone walked around wearing warning labels, what would yours say?
“May contain adult-like substance.”
10. At what age did you first feel like you were an adult?
I have no idea. In fact, it may not have even happened yet. Instead I find myself thinking, “How can I be this old when on the inside I’m just a 12-year-old looking for the next big high?”
11. When did you not speak up, but wish you had?
I wish I’d spoken up more in school against the bullies who surrounded me.
12. What is something that makes your skin crawl?
MAGA.
13. What was the last thing to give you butterflies in your stomach?
I’m getting that feeling a lot when I make videos of myself. I don’t know if I’ll ever warm up to the sound of my own speaking voice. (I am behind on videos because things have taken a few busy turns the last month. I’m getting back into it very soon, I promise! It’s on my list of goals for June.)
14. What’s your favorite type of media to work with? (Paint, clay, pens, etc.)
Photography! Always photography. One of the things that makes me most happy about this particular new journey I’m on is that I feel like I can finally do something meaningful in the visual arts. I was never good at drawing or painting as a kid, which was unpleasant because that was in the days of teachers refusing to admit that maybe a kid just wasn’t good at something, so I had a few art teachers in school do the whole “You can draw if you just try harder” bullshit, which I now know to be complete and utter nonsense.
15. What question do you hate answering?
I can’t think of one specifically, but I dislike political “gotcha” statements that are phrased as questions, but are clearly not intended to gather any information of interest to the person asking, if that makes sense. Like telling people I live in New York State, and being asked something like, “Huh, do you like all those taxes up there?” I find that annoying. Also non-political versions of that, like “So whaddaya do with all that snow?” when I tell people I live in Buffalo.
Oh wait, I can think of one, but nobody has asked it, or any of its related versions, in a long time. Maybe that’s because I’m old enough that it’s not a thing anymore, but I used to have to brace myself for this, after I told people that we have a daughter: “Just one? Why’d you stop there?” One time I waited a few seconds, said “We didn’t,” and…left it there.
It’s early and I’m on my first cup of coffee, so I figured I’d do one of these occasional quizzes from Sunday Stealing. (The quizzes are weekly, it’s my participation that’s occasional. Roger participates every week!)
Here we go!
1. What was the best toy you ever owned?
Goodness. You know, I oddly can’t recall a favorite or “best” toy. I did have some great stuff as a kid, though. There was something called, I don’t know, Treehouse Family or some such thing; it was a big plastic tree where the leaf canopy (basically a big inverted green bowl) lifted up to reveal the “house” inside, and you could then play with the little people in their treehouse lives. Or the battery-operated mine car thing that ran on a track and picked up “coal” (little black plastic balls) and dumped them off elsewhere on the track.
You’d think I had a ton of Star Wars toys as a kid, but I didn’t, really…just a few here and there, though I did have more space toys with which I supplemented my Star Wars play. Yes, in my 6-year-old 1978 head canon, there was a ship in Star Wars that looked a lot like the space shuttle.
2. When in your life have you felt the loneliest?
Wow, that took a turn for the serious. I’ll answer 2007, and I’m not going into why.
3. What is your strongest emotion?
OK, after the toy question, this quiz has gone uber-serious on me. I find that sadness is always lurking in the corners, and I’m hoping that’s not just a creeping-age thing that gets worse. We’ll see, said the Zen master….
4. When were you the most disappointed in yourself?
2007. Not going into why.
(Interestingly, Roger took the exact same approach to this question.)
5. Which law would you most like to change?
Lifetime tenure for Supreme Court judges. Oh, and to hell with the Second Amendment.
6. Who is the person you have hated the most in your lifetime?
I really don’t like admitting to hate. That said, I find myself pining for the day that our 45th president can only be spoken of in past tense, and I make no apology for that. The man has done nothing at all in his years on Earth but pervert everything he touches.
7. What has disappointed you the most?
The formation of a gigantic cult around our 45th President.
8. What’s the best possible attitude toward death?
It’s gonna happen, why worry about it? (I try to maintain this attitude. I am not always successful.)
9. What’s been the longest day in your life?
November 28, 2005.
10. What is the biggest coincidence in your life?
Honestly, I’ve no idea.
11. What’s the oldest you’d like to live?
If I can reach a relatively active and dementia-free mid-80s, I think that’s good.
12. Who is the most amazing woman you know personally?
That one. [points at The Wife]
13. What was your best experience in school?
I joined Band in 5th grade, mainly for kicks because the band teacher (Mr. Beach) asked me to. I didn’t take it seriously at all, and it showed in my effort and results…until sometime in 7th grade, and I don’t even recall when this happened, when I decided to start taking it seriously and work at it.
14. What’s the most meaningful compliment you’ve ever received?
A boss of mine once had to sit me down for a real “Come to Jesus” moment, because I had genuinely been kind of rudderless at best and spiraling downward at worst. (To my credit I had already recognized this and was already striving to turn that shit around, but it hadn’t really manifested yet outwardly, and a single individually-mild screw-up on my part was sufficient for the “WTF is wrong with you?!” discussion behind a closed door.) Less than a year later he sat me down again to tell me that I had really turned that shit around and to keep it up. This happened more recently than I like to admit.
Also, a few times in my life I’ve had people who I know to be better writers than me tell me that I’m a good writer. That always feels good.
15. What is the most you’ve spent on something really stupid?
Well, I’m really glad that it didn’t turn out to be the camera that I dropped a chunk of money on last year! It might be a pair of overalls that I paid honestly more than I should have to discover that they didn’t quite fit, despite the sizing tag. There were also a couple of computers I’ve bought, one a desktop and one laptop, that I bought out of necessity when a previous machine died, neither of which I was really happy with. I suppose it’s good that while I do spend more money on stuff than I should, I don’t tend to blow it on shit.
OK, that was way more introspective than I expected!
Not particularly. I mean, I do “believe” in things that we don’t know yet, but I do not attribute “unknowns” to anything supernatural. Neither am I particularly given to mysticism, though I do enjoy thinking about mysticism and the supernatural.
2. How do you tell time? Do you use a watch or your phone, and why?
Phones and wall clocks, generally. I like watches, but none of mine are currently functional. I should see to this.
3. How do you stay cool in the summer?
Air conditioning inside, though it increasingly feels “tinny” to me, if that makes sense. Every year we have a long stretch where the windows are closed for a week or more, and eventually the air inside starts to feel kind of gross when we do that. Generally I go for loose-fitting clothing, staying out of the sun, and drinking lots of fluids and doing as much cooking outside as I can.
I have found, though, that as I get older, the heat bothers me less and less and the cold is starting to bother me more. This is a development I wasn’t prepared for, and I hope it doesn’t go too far. I have little desire to move south because I’m cold all the time.
4. Egg yolk or white?
Both. I love eggs!
5. What is your current on-repeat song?
I don’t stick to one song or piece for very long; there’s just too much music out there to listen to to really lock on to something a lot. But I will note that I’ve been greatly enjoying the soundtrack to La La Land, which may end up being my favorite movie of this year. (Well, favorite movie that I see this year, anyway.)
6. What is your favorite sound in the world?
Frying bacon? A cello singing away in its mid-range? Train wheels? Skates on ice? A book being closed? A pen scratching on paper? So many sounds! Church bells? A pipe organ? A match being struck? The shutter release on a camera (even if that clicking sound is often fake now, if you’re using a phone or the electronic shutter on a camera)?
But the best sounds are probably made by water: a rushing stream, a waterfall, or lake waves lapping along a rocky shore, or ocean waves breaking on a sandy one.
7. What’s the must-have-items in your bag?
Heh! Now that I’ve embraced photography and am consuming all manner of photography content online (mainly via YouYube), I’ve seen tons of videos similarly titled: “What’s in my bag”, which translates to, “Here are the current contents of my camera bag.” And I suppose I’ll need to do one of those myself one of these days. For now, what I carry daily if I’m leaving the house is three items: keys, wallet, and phone. On work days, I take with me a few extra items: pen, index card for notes, digital thermometer (refrigeration is a big deal in my line of work), folding knife (I should probably just start carrying the knife always), and flashlight. A dedicated flashlight, as I do not like using the flash LED on my phone for this function.
8. When dressing up, which one do you put on first: pants or tops?
Well, when your pants are almost always overalls, you get used to top first. It’s hard to put on a shirt when you’ve already fastened your overalls up!
9. what is the one thing you wish you could take back?
Not getting too personal…if we could have the 2016 election back, that would be great.
10. what is your pet peeve?
Bad driving, in all its forms.
11. have you ever been ashamed after buying something frivolous? What?
There was one time when we were in a financial hole and I bought something frivolous for myself because I didn’t realize that we needed something important for The Daughter.
12. what dessert would you eat even if you were beyond full?
If I could conquer my sweet tooth, that would be awesome. It’s probably the single biggest factor in my health not being what it could/should be. (I’m not in bad shape, health-wise, but it could be better.)
13. sweet or spicy?
Sweet, even in savory applications…but I do love spicy! I have dialed down my heat levels though, over the years; pure burn for me tends to kill the flavor profiles in foods, so I want heat in addition to flavor. Heat is a part of flavor, not a thing in itself for me.
14. Which website do you visit most often?
My “big three” social medias: Facebook, Threads, and Bluesky. Also YouTube; I always have multiple tabs open to various YouTube things I’m either watching or intending to watch. I have a small roster of comic strips that I read every day, as well as a small list of blogs I visit daily. (Roger’s is one!) And, of course, this site! Yay!
Now, I should probably visit eBay and Etsy less….
15. Which countries/states have you visited, and which one did you like the most?
I really do love my own state, New York, best of all. It’s got everything I want, in terms of cities and nature. I’m not wild about its government, but I don’t dislike it enough to want to go live someplace I’d find hellish. But for states I’ve visited, it’s actually faster to list the states I haven’t visited: Rhode Island and Connecticut, Delaware, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Alaska. I’ve been everywhere else. Hawaii is flat-out amazing and I think every day about going back, but I don’t think I’d want to live there.
Countries: Just two, outside America. I’ve been to Canada and Mexico. Honestly, though, my entry into Mexico was when I was so young that I have literally no memory of it, so I’m not sure I can even count it anymore. I love Canada, though; Toronto is one of my favorite places on Earth, and my dream vacation right now is a trip there for a week of museums, food, and street photography.
I haven’t done one of these quiz-things in a while, so why not? Roger did this one, and now I’m going to appropriate it. (The quiz is from a blog called Sunday Stealing, so the fact that I’m doing this on Monday is right on brand for my “Rules? There are no rules here!” self.)
1) What is your favorite thing about winter?
Snow, I suppose…within reason! In truth, I love winter for being able to wear sweaters, and in general having more options for how to dress; dressing in summer isn’t as flexible because of the need to stay cool and the fact that minimizing layers is best.
I also love darker nights, the winter stars, and the hot drinks (coffee, tea, buttered rum, Tom&Jerry’s) hit better in winter than they do in summer.
2) What is your favorite winter sport?
To watch? Figure skating, I suppose. I also like hiking in winter, and though I haven’t done it in many years, I remember enjoying snowshoeing quite a lot.
3) What is the best winter treat?
I suppose hot chocolate, though I don’t have it very often.
4) What is the earliest time in the year it ever snowed where you live?
To the Google! Apparently in 1956 it snowed on September 20. The earliest I can remember is the October “Surprise” storm, which I believe was somewhere around the 13th or 14th in 2006.
5) What is the best way to stay warm in the winter?
Layers and warm beverages. Hats and gloves. Always hats and gloves!
6) What are your favorite things that are paper?
Books, obviously! But I also love writing on blank paper. And newspaper is great for starting charcoal aflame.
7) What are your favorite things that are cotton?
I assume all of my pairs of overalls are a cotton-based fabric.
8) What are your favorite things that are leather?
I have a pair of gloves that my mother got for me, made to measurement, from a glovemaker in Florence. They’re gorgeous.
9) What are your favorite things that are floral?
The Wife has a growing collection of orchids! She loves orchids to the point that we go to local orchid shows at the Botanical Gardens.
Also, I wish I could find a nice floral print shirt, but everything I ever find in that vein is a Hawaiian shirt, and I don’t want one of those, to be honest.
10) What are your favorite things that are wood?
I have a fountain pen made of wood! And my set of nesting dolls that I got when I was five or six. My bookshelves. And the trees that make up the forests of WNY!
11) What should you do if you think your house is haunted?
I have no earthly idea. BUT, I am acquainted with a local ghost-hunter, so I’d probably DM her and say, “Hey, wanna meet a ghost?”
12) When should you investigate a strange noise in your basement?
Immediately. Any malfunction down there that is significant enough to make a sound you can hear in the main body of the house can not be a good thing. And if it’s the sump pump, you need to get moving fast.
13) How do you know if an abandoned building is safe to visit?
You don’t! That’s the fun of it!
I’ve never actually been one to enter abandoned buildings, to be honest…but construction sites? Those, I’ve been known to explore, though not so much anymore because I’m more keenly aware of what can go badly wrong. But in college, they built a whole new music building, and I explored it in quite a few phases of the construction…including one ill-advised walk along the length of a single support beam with a drop on either side….
14) How do you decide whether to solve a problem as a team or split up and go it alone?
Well, at work I am used to working alone, but sometimes I sense the need to seek help. Now, sometimes it’s plainly obvious that I need help, because I can’t physically do the job by myself. I mean, I only have two hands, and if it’s obvious that the job needs three, then it’s time for help. Another factor, though, is the time factor: sometimes I ask for help because I can do the job myself, but if I do, it’ll take me a really long period of time. Help is necessary for efficiency sometimes. (Now, there are times when I badly underestimate the amount of time needed to get a job done, but that’s a different issue…I think….)
15) Where do you store your knives, and where would you look if one was missing?
We have a drawer where we keep most sharp objects, although we do have a set of knives in a block on the counter. If one’s missing, I look around the kitchen counters and in the sink, I suppose. (Don’t leave knives in the sink, folks. Not a great idea.)
I haven’t done one of these in a while, but I’m going to do one now, just because. So there!
1. What is your favorite book?
Fiction, author no longer alive: The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien.
Fiction, author still with us: The Lions of Al-Rassan, Guy Gavriel Kay.
Non-fiction, author no longer alive: Cosmos, Carl Sagan.
Non-fiction, author still alive: These Truths, Jill LePore.
2. Are you afraid of the dark?
Not particularly, but I don’t like pitch black. I need some light.
3. Are you mean?
I hope not, but I know I have it in me to be so, at times.
4. Is cheating ever OK?
Not sure what we mean by “cheating”. Marital cheating? Likely not…though my wife’s grandmother, when she was a widow, had a close friendship with a man whose wife was still alive, but deep into Alzheimer’s, to the point she couldn’t even recognize the nice old man who visited her frequently. Was that wrong? I have a hard time saying it was.
Cheating academically? Again, mostly bad…but even there I can see some wiggle room. I had a math teacher in high school who delighted in assigning problems 1-50 every night for homework. To this day I don’t really feel bad about occasionally getting the answers to numbers 34-50 from a classmate.
Incidentally, I saw this video making the social media rounds this week, for what reason I can’t imagine, but I remember my reaction when it first went viral and thinking about how that particular professor was going about things one hundred percent incorrectly, and how laughable his bluster was. (The video embed seems to be futzed on my earlier post, I’ll see if I can fix it.)
5. Can you keep white shoes white?
I don’t even put myself in position of trying. With all the hiking I do, and the nature of my day job? Nope.
6. Are you currently bored?
Right this second? Nope! I’m doing this quiz! I am also thinking about going downstairs to fetch a quick salty snack, but I have made no decisions yet at this time.
7. Would you change your name?
At this point, nope. I’ve come this far, I might as well see it all through.
Mass transit
8. Do you like the subway?
I love the subway, and light rail, and commuter rail, and long-distance passenger rail. Rail-based public transportation is a wonderful thing and I don’t understand places that don’t have it. Our centering of the individual automobile in our country’s transportation policy over the last, oh, 70 years or so is one of the worst decisions we’ve ever made.
9. Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with?
Probably The Wife.
10. Dumbest lie you’ve ever told?
I don’t recall specifics, but I’m sure it’s some BS I tried deploying to get myself out of chores when I was a kid.
11. Do you sleep with your door open or closed?
Open, so the cats can come and go. The dogs aren’t a problem; Hobbes sleeps crated and Carla sleeps with The Daughter.
12. Favorite month?
October. No contest. (But the runners-up are the other months ending in “-ber”, followed by February. And while everyone else worships at the altar of July, for summer months I find August to be the bee’s knees.
Yes, I used “bee’s knees” unironically.
13. Dark, milk, or white chocolate?
Dark, White, and Milk, in that order. White can be touchy–when it’s not great, it’s really not great. Milk is perfectly nice and usually more consistent, but it’s still never my preference.
14. Tea or coffee?
Coffee more often than tea, but I do love tea! In fact, my personal “Tea Season” is coming very shortly. Weirdly, I can drink hot coffee year-round, but hot tea is not a thing for me until autumn arrives. I’m not big into iced tea.
15. Night or day?
No preference! Both have their strengths and I am glad of each. That said, I’m glad that even though we’re still on DST, the realities of Earth’s progression of the seasons has moved nightfall back to a point where I can feel the refreshing nature of the new darkness. Late June and most of July do a number on my circadian rhythms; I am simply not built for full light at 10pm.
Yup, it’s time to steal another quiz from Roger! Huzzah!
1. Who was the last attractive person you saw?
The Wife, obviously! As if there’d be any other answer!
2. Do you have a tattoo? If not, are you going to get one?
I do not, and I have no current plans to get one, though I don’t rule it out completely, either. It’s not really a “bucket list” item, though I have occasionally thought that having a dodecahedron figure somewhere, maybe an arm or shoulder, would be cool given that shape’s prominence in my Forgotten Stars books. It would have to be visible to be any use, though, and I never go sleeveless.
3. Have you smoked a cigarette in the last 24 hours?
I have never smoked a cigarette at all, full stop. My only smoking experiences are the crappy cigars two or three guys gave out years ago when they found out they were baby-daddies.
4. Do you believe everyone deserves a second chance?
I’d like to believe this, but I’m not sure. (It also depends on what we’re talking about here…does a man who cheats on his wife deserve a second chance? Does the guy who is currently in the criminal justice system in Buffalo for shooting up a grocery store deserve one? I will say that I do not believe in the death penalty.
5. What is your favorite number?
No idea. I’m honestly kind of confused by the idea of a favorite number. Nine, maybe? I dunno.
6. What time did you go to sleep last night?
I’m not sure; the bedroom’s clock is on The Wife’s side of the bed, so I have to lift my head to see what time it is, and I didn’t bother last night at sleep time. But I’m sure it was later than I would have liked, because Guy Gavriel Kay’s new novel came out last week and I’m now reading it.
7. Are you one of those people that always answer their phones?
Absolutely not. I’ll answer The Wife and The Daughter, and my parents and sister, if they call, but I have long long LONG since rejected the idea that a ringing phone is something that automatically gets my immediate attention. This sometimes gets me the stinkeye at work, but really, when did we decide that we MUST answer a ringing phone? People say with great indignance, “You didn’t answer my call!” My general response is something along the lines of “I was not in a position to answer a phone call,” for whatever reason. (This is often true.)
But when some push the idea–and there are folks out there who cannot comprehend the notion of not answering a ringing phone at all–I will sometimes say something along the lines of, “What makes you think that the fact that you are in possession of a phone gives you the right to appoint yourself as my highest priority at any time you wish?” This usually results in sputtering indignance, but when you insist that someone is required to answer the phone when you call, that is exactly what you are saying: “I expect you to drop whatever you are doing, no matter what it is, to talk to me when I decide that I need to talk to you.”
Yeah, no.
8. If you died today would your life be complete?
Sheesh, talk about whiplash: from answering the phone to “If you died right now….”! I’d guess, no? My books aren’t done and I want a lot more years with The Wife than the 25 I’ve already had. I’m selfish.
9. If you are being extremely quiet, what does that mean?
Most likely I’m into what I’m writing or reading. Also, check my ears: I may have my earbuds in and am cheerfully listening away to something.
10. Do you know what high school your dad went to?
Huh. I do not! It’s in Pittsburgh.
11. Last time you had butterflies in your stomach?
Probably my last doctor appointment, because I’m at the stage in life where some numbers like to go up, up, up. Luckily, mine are either holding steady where they’re supposed to or they’re going down, like they’re supposed to. Yay, my numbers!
12. Where is your cell phone?
Right here on this table, next to my computer. I’m using it to listen to music, and it’s also doing its wifi-hotspot thing for my current laptop, which for some reason simply does not get along well with our house’s wifi router. (I actually don’t like this computer all that much and am constantly trying to decide how much longer I have to go until I can feel like replacing it wouldn’t just be a luxury purchase.)
By the way, overalls-wearers of the world, if you carry your phones in your bib pocket, how do you do that? I mean, not how, because it’s obvious, but I try it once in a while and that’s just a big hunk of plastic-and-metal to be weighing down the bib. Drives me crazy!
13. What is the nearest purple thing to you?
That is a surprisingly tough one to answer right now! I’m sitting on my deck and there’s nothing blatantly purple in my line of sight. Huh! I’m sure there’s something in the kitchen or in the laundry room that’s purple.
14. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
To come out here! I’m sitting on the deck! First writing session outdoors in 2022! Huzzah!!
15. What is the last thing you watched on TV?
Actually on a teevee? Probably an episode of Jeopardy! that was on when we hung out with my parents one night last week. All of our “teevee watching” happens on my laptop, via streaming. We have a bed desk that I bought when The Wife has laid up after a procedure last year, and that’s what we use for the computer while we watch things. The last thing we watched at all was a movie called Self/less, which we watched just last night. (It’s a sci-fi thriller starring Ryan Reynolds and others. Not a bad movie, with one of the more satisfying “Bad guy gets his in the end” moments I’ve seen of late.)
I guess that’s it. Time to write in the novel, I guess.
Roger has a quiz-thing! Remember those? They used to be so common in the high days of blogging, and they were always–well, usually–fun and reliable ways to generate a bit of blog content if you were hard up for inspiration. So, let’s do this!
1. Do you like your handwriting?
Not especially. Over the last few years my day-to-day scrawl has become even worse, so I have to remind myself to write more slowly if I want to be able to read my own stuff. I have given some thought, and even made a few small efforts, to revive my cursive, but wow, that’s hard now. I’m going to have to dedicate energy to that, if I want it to continue. Luckily, it gives me a good excuse to use my fountain pens.
2. Do you like roller coasters?
I haven’t been on one in forever, so I’m not sure anymore! But I used to like them quite a lot, though with two provisos: 1. I don’t like being flipped upside-down, and 2. I don’t like coasters in the dark where I can’t see what’s happening.
3. Do you like scary movies?
I love the horror genre, but I don’t like too much gore, and I prefer my horror in print or viewed on the small screen, with lights on.
4. Do you like shopping?
Depends on what! Antiquing? Books? Vintage clothing? That’s all a blast, as are souvenir shops in places I’m new to visiting. Art and craft shows, too. Trips to Target/Wal-mart? Ewww, no. And if I’m looking for something I have to have–say, a showerhead breaks and I need a new one–that’s a drag.
5. Do you like to talk on the phone?
I do not. I’ve been this way forever. When The Wife and I started dating and I returned home to WNY in summer while she stayed in our college town, I didn’t call her enough and my phone calls were of the grunted-reply variety. It took her a bit to get used to my distaste for talking on the phone. Later, I got a telesales job where part of our performance metric was how much cumulative time we spent on the phones. It’s no surprise that I got fired from this job. (That was part downsizing, part “This guy sucks at this”, and we ended up moving a month later so I would have quit anyway, so I honestly can’t hold a grudge.)
6. Do you sleep with the lights on or off?
Off, but I need a bit of light somewhere, be it the light from outside through a window, or a tiny nightlight, something. I get freaked out when I try to sleep in complete darkness.
7. Do you use headphones or earphones?
When I walk doggos around the neighborhood, or sometimes at work when I’m doing something repetitive. Or when I’m at home working, or I’m writing someplace out and about. I actually like headphones a lot and I have several. My favorites now are my Bluetooth earbuds and a pair of Bluetooth over-the-head headphones
8. Do you have tattoos? Do you want any?
No. I do think about it once in a while, but it’s nowhere near a priority for me to get one.
9. Do you wear glasses?
Yes! I’ve had glasses in one form or another ever since I was in first grade. Ask my mother about the time I stepped on my glasses! She loves that story! (I don’t think she likes that story, actually.)
10. What is your strangest talent?
I’ve honestly no idea.
11. Have you ever been in the hospital?
No. I figure that string
12. What color mostly dominates your wardrobe?
Blue, because of the overalls collection.
13. What’s your most expensive piece of clothing?
A pair of Hickory-striped vintage Lee overalls. No, I will not divulge how much I paid for them.
14. Have you ever had braces?
No, thank God. As a trumpet player in school, braces would have been an absolute curse. I seem to recall a dentist who wanted to put me in braces, but my mother put the squash down on that idea.
15. Have you ever been on TV?
Yes. In college, one year our annual Big Christmas Concert was recorded and televised on Iowa Public Television. A while back, a college friend who was also in that concert digitized it and put it online. Ye Gods, how I hated my hair back then! Since then I have not been on teevee to my knowledge, unless it was a crowd shot at some event I visited.
That was fun! More quiz-things, I say! [bangs ale flagon on the table]
It’s time for my annual wrap-up quiz. Warning: I’m writing about 2020 here. Trigger warnings galore! And some political bluntness, for which I’ll say, if you disagree with me, well…I do not care. For a taste of how I’ve been seeing the year just gone by, consider this tweet:
A lot of folks acting as if 2020 has just been a string of bewildering bad luck, rather than what it truly is: a concentration of widely and reliably predicted and interconnected disasters that advanced nations of the world could have mitigated or prevented but chose not to.
It’s been my view for some time that everything going wrong for America and for the world, all of it, consists of self-inflicted wounds, and I have seen nothing to make me think otherwise for even a second.
But now, on to the quiz.
Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
My resolutions never change much: “Read a lot, write a lot, eat healthier, walk more, listen to more music.”
As these go, not bad! The toughest one is “eat healthier,” which is a back-end kind of thing: I have no problem finding newer healthier foods to like. It’s staying away from the less-than-healthy ones that tends to trip me up! This is something I need to work on big-time.
As for the rest, it was a decent year. I wrote a fair amount (though a lot of my writing time this year was spent on editing existing manuscripts, so drafting was on the backseat for a chunk of the year). Reading was a constant, and I really have made effort to listen to more music!
Did anyone close to you give birth?
Nope.
Did anyone close to you die?
I suppose it’s almost miraculous that in the Year of COVID, my answer to this is, No. But I know of people who have died, and people close who have suffered a lot of loss (and not all of it COVID driven, since the rest of Death didn’t exactly go on holiday because of the pandemic).
What countries did you visit?
In my mind? Tons.
What would you like to have in 2021 that you lacked in 2020?
A Federal government that isn’t led by a delusional authoritarian grifter whose appeal is distressingly wide.
What was your biggest achievement of the year?
It was 2020. I got to the end of it without having contracted COVID-19 as of this writing. This was not a year for grand accomplishments, I suspect…though I did get a book ready for release, and more! Detail to come in another post.
What was your biggest failure?
I took entirely too much random delight in chucking rocks at online trolls.
What was the best thing you bought?
I probably bought way too much stuff this year–adding to the overalls collection and purchasing books, of course–but the thing that’s brought the most direct happiness to my ongoing existence is the pair of Bluetooth ear buds I picked up in June. I had watched a YouTube video that was randomly recommended by that platform’s algorithm (why, I’m not sure, it was just someone’s “day in the life” video diary thing), in which a person put on earbuds that had hooks to go over the ear, and I thought, “Wait, they make those?” A bit of Googling turned up my Soundcore buds.
Whose behavior merited celebration?
Anyone who wore a mask and socially-distanced themselves, no matter how hard it may have been to do so.
Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Not even my skills with the English language can convey my disappointment at how much farther the Republicans can descend in this country. As I write this, a bunch of them in Congress are gearing up to “object” to the certification of the Electoral College results, based on zero concrete evidence of any “fraud” whatsoever. It’s pure banana-republic dictator shit, this business of “We respect the election as long as the guy in charge wins” and it’s just appalling. Add to that the QAnon lunatics, the science deniers, and the ones who refuse to wear masks or maintain social distance because of “FREEDOM!”, and you’ve got a deeply dangerous state of affairs in this country. We can’t long survive this large a percentage of our citizenry being completely off its collective rocker.
I’m also disappointed in what I see as America’s rejection of collective thinking and its growing lack of imagination, but that will have to wait for another post.
Where did most of your money go?
Books, booze, food, gifts, and vintage overalls. And I paid down some debt, which was nice.
What did you get really excited about?
In 2020? Day trips to Ithaca and Letchworth and the Finger Lakes area. New flavors I’ve tried. I’ve made green tea a part of my daily routine of late, and I’m loving it! (I also discovered just this week, when the last of my Christmas gifts came in the mail, just how much tea is in a pound of the stuff. Note to self: order the stuff 8oz at a time, moving forward.)
Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?
Oh, who the hell knows. On a personal level I’m pretty happy and doing fine. When I start thinking societally, though–ugh.
On a political note, I’m really increasingly disappointed by my country. Maybe I’ll write more about this later, but re-electing the Joni Ernst’s and the Susan Collinses and the Mitch McConnells of the world is a staggering failure of citizenship, and the fact that more than 70 million of my fellow Americans looked at the current state of affairs and decided that they were fine with it is horribly depressing.
Thinner or fatter?
A bit thinner! No idea about the poundage, but I own overalls for which I have never been able to fasten both sets of side buttons–and now I can. This amazes me. Now, my progress in that regard has probably taken a small beating the last few weeks, but I did develop some healthier eating habits in 2020 that won’t be hard to replicate. I can still do the “gluttony” thing on occasion, but I’ve finally reached a point where doing so is fun for a very short while, but then my brain goes, “Oooog, gimme salad and fiber and lean protein, please.”
Richer or poorer?
I’m doing better than a lot of Americans. And we all should be doing better, shouldn’t we? I really hope I live long enough to see this country finally start to pivot away from the trickle-down, “If we just let rich people have more and more money they’ll eventually rain it down upon us all” bullshit that’s been the economic wind in America’s wings since 1981.
I’ll say this for American conservatism: when it managed to convince most of America that the major factor holding them back was what government was taking out of their paychecks instead of what their employers were never putting in their paychecks in the first place, it won a rhetorical victory for the ages.
What do you wish you’d done more of?
As always, reading, writing, and walking. (Same as last year.)
What do you wish you’d done less of?
Chucking rocks at right-wing trolls online. Yeah, it’s fun to mute them and watch them reply anyway, but still…it’s not a terribly productive use of time!
How did you spend Christmas?
With family. We used FaceTime to include my sister, which was…well, obviously it’s not the same, but it was actually a fun way to manage to include someone who wasn’t able to be around due to circumstances and shit. Other than that, Christmas was what it always is for us: a quiet time spent with family. I don’t come from a large and close extended family, and The Wife’s family lives far away as well, so Christmas has never been about large gatherings and traveling around to multiple houses to put in appearances. It’s always been about home, and I expect it always will be. I hear people complaining about how their holidays were ruined by COVID, or how they were going to defy the Big Bad Government to go to their giant get-togethers, and I reflect anew on the degree to which this particular crisis has forced an awful lot of Americans into my lifestyle. I haven’t yet figured out to what degree their reactions to this amuses me or depresses me, but it’s definitely some of both.
Did you fall in love in 2020?
She’s from the Niagara Falls area, you don’t know her.
(Yes, that’s a quote from The Breakfast Club.)
How many one-night stands?
Come on. I never had one-night stands when they were an option.
What was your favorite TV program?
ABC canceled Bless This Mess, which was a hilarious fish-outta-water sitcom about two NYC liberal hippie-types who inherit farmland in Nebraska, so eff you, ABC. (The show was not about “Let’s make fun of the hicks!”, if you’re thinking along those lines. It was a collection of zany weirdos and full of character-driven comedy that was some of the funniest stuff I’ve seen in years. If you watch it, the short first season–only six episodes, if I recall correctly–is mildly amusing, but the show didn’t take off creatively until the second season, which was sadly the last.)
ABC also had a cool detective show called Stumptown, set in Portland, OR, that I liked a lot. They renewed it for a second season…and then when COVID shut down production, they ended up canceling it instead. Curse you, ABC!
CBS has a sitcom called The Unicorn which we like a lot. This follows a widower as he starts to emerge from grieving; he has two teenage daughters and a wonderful support system of friends around him. This show is in its second season and is worth checking out. It’s sometimes bittersweet, but it’s never depressing.
Oh, and we like The Mandalorian a great deal. We’re slowly watching Season Two now, rationing it out for maximum enjoyment. Of course, the Internet has already seen to it that I’m spoiled and know what happens at the end, so thanks, Internet. Sheesh.
Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
I really don’t like hatred and I try to avoid it.
What was the best book you read?
I refer you to my Books Read in 2020 post from the other day, where my five-star reads are highlighted in bold.
What was your greatest musical discovery?
Oh, music! Music might have saved me this year, to the point where this blog was almost exclusively a music blog for a whole lot of the time. Aside from my year-long deep dive into Beethoven, I also did a lot of listening to the work of Black composers, which often featured in my semi-regular Tone Poem Tuesday posts. This was a partial response on my part to the Black Lives Matter movement, because surely one way we can start to acknowledge the importance of the Black lives that we whites have for so long completely marginalized and ignored is to engage with Black art. This will remain a focus of mine, moving forward.
As far as specific Black composers go, I’ve really become a fan of Florence Price, whose music I featured several times.
Non-classical? Well, none of these were “discoveries”, but I’m discovering a real fondness for ELO, which I am starting to consider one of the most underrated bands in history, and Taylor Swift, whom I am starting to consider simply a genius.
What did you want and get?
President-elect Joe Biden.
What did you want and not get?
A United States Senate not ruled by Mitch McConnell, whom I believe to be the single worst American of my lifetime. (Though, if Georgia voters manage to come through, I still may get this.)
What were your favorite films of this year?
2020 was the first year of my life that I never set foot in a movie theater, and I only watched a single movie new to me, courtesy of Netflix. That was Enola Holmes, which I enjoyed greatly.
I love film and I wish I had more time to watch them. I suspect my retirement, when it finally comes, is going to be a big film-fest.
What did you do on your birthday?
I don’t remember specifically what happened on my birthday, but my sister was in town and we did some antiquing and visiting comics stores. The next week was our annual trip to Ithaca and the Finger Lakes, which took on a very different tone given that the annual Apple Harvest Festival was canceled due to COVID.
How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2019?
It’s a struggle, every morning: “Which shirt do I want to wear with which overalls?”
What kept you sane?
Books and music and dogs and cats and overalls. Walks in the woods and by the water. I cope best when I’m allowed to focus my energies inward.
Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I’ll give a shout-out to author and podcaster Dana Schwartz, who is a fine writer and the host of the wonderful podcast Noble Blood, which focuses on the sordid and grim side of history. There have been episodes on each one of Henry VIII’s wives (not all of whom were beheaded!), and a particularly effective episode about King Leopold II of Belgium and how he spearheaded some of the bloodiest acts of African colonialism. My favorite episode focused on one of my favorite stories from the history of science, the life of Tycho Brahe. Schwartz focuses that episode on Brahe’s life, instead of coming at it from the standpoint of Johannes Kepler, as most commentators do.
What political issue stirred you the most?
God, so many to choose from…but Black Lives Matter remains staggering to me. That a cop could just casually kneel with his knee on the throat of a black man until he died is one of the most appalling things I’ve ever seen, closely followed by the ability of so many white people to argue that there was really nothing at all wrong with this.
And there’s also my country’s response to COVID-19, a response so perfect in its malignant incompetence and rejection of science that it truly makes me believe that whatever greatness lies in store for humanity, America will no longer be much of a factor in driving it.
Who did you miss?
The geeky people who frequent the local cons! I was just starting to get comfortable with the idea of hanging out at local conventions and trying to market myself there (I was even going to release Book Four of The Song of Forgotten Stars at Nickel City Con in May), but that’s gone. I miss festivals–Ithaca’s Apple Harvest Festival, the Sterling Renaissance Festival, various others that we like to frequent. I miss some favorite local restaurants that we pray manage to hold on long enough for the vaccine to finally start beating back this virus.
Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2020:
The same ones as always:
Read a lot, write a lot. Listen to music. Go for walks and look at sunsets. Take all the pictures you want. Learn new things and try new stuff. If you have a dog, take him for walks. Buy books for your daughter, even when she complains that she likes to pick her own books (let her do that, too). Nothing fits your hand so well as your lover’s hand. Eating out is fine, but learn to cook things, too. Have a place to go where they know you and what you order. Don’t be afraid to revisit your childhood passions now and again; you weren’t always wrong back then. Overalls are awesome, it’s OK to wear double denim, and a pie in the face is a wonderful thing!
To all of this I would add something that wasn’t really a lesson I learned in 2020, but which I saw illustrated in events so stark as to have it all be writ large in the fiery letters in the sky: The United States of America desperately needs to re-embrace rational and collective thinking, and ditch its mythologies about rugged individualism and the eternal wisdom of “the Founders”.
I’d sum it up with a quote from the afore-mentioned Enola Holmes: “Our future is up to us.”
If you take selfies, post your six favorite ones:
Yeah, I’m doing eight, because I can.
Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
Boy, have I been dreading this question. A song that sums up 2020? How could there possibly be a musical expression of how this awful year was and the effect it had…but maybe, just maybe, 2020 was sufficiently calamitous to provoke at least a beginning to a long-needed reassessment of the American paradigm of life, business, and profit?
This made me remember the last episode of House MD, which ended as Dr. House, having faked his own death, took off on a motorcycle trip with his best friend Dr. Wilson, who at this point was dying of cancer and had only months left. As they motor off into the hills, this song played out the end of the show, and if this is a bit morbid (and maybe sexist in one verse), well…these are the times in which we live.
So here’s Guy Lombardo.
You work and work for years and years, you’re always on the go You never take a minute off, too busy makin’ dough Someday you say, you’ll have your fun, when you’re a millionaire Imagine all the fun you’ll have in your old rockin’ chair
Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think Enjoy yourself, while you’re still in the pink The years go by, as quickly as a wink Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think
You’re gonna take that ocean trip, no matter come what may You’ve got your reservations made, but you just can’t get away Next year for sure, you’ll see the world, you’ll really get around But how far can you travel when you’re six feet underground?
Your heart of hearts, your dream of dreams, your ravishing brunette She’s left you and she’s now become somebody else’s pet Lay down that gun, don’t try my friend to reach the great beyond You’ll have more fun by reaching for a redhead or a blond
Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think Enjoy yourself, while you’re still in the pink The years go by, as quickly as a wink Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think
You never go to night clubs and you just don’t care to dance You don’t have time for silly things like moonlight and romance You only think of dollar bills tied neatly in a stack But when you kiss a dollar bill, it doesn’t kiss you back
Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think Enjoy yourself, while you’re still in the pink The years go by, as quickly as a wink Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think
Let’s make 2021 better, shall we? I’d love to be able to post some optimistic and more cheerful answers to these questions in one year’s time. Remember Ms. Holmes’s quote above: Our future is up to us.
