Nothing monumental happened in 2019 (as evidenced by our lame driveway/toilet ornaments). So, most things remain at baseline greatness.
The only thing that’s different is my appearance. Not only did I accept my destiny and embrace my Mom’s hairstyle, I went from 220 to 190. I haven’t been 190 since before I started this blog. Of course I’ve spent Christmas break revisiting every carb I’ve denied myself and poof – six pounds came back in six days.
My health, happily, remains generally the same. Eschewing carbs probably contributed to the single polyp marring my gallbladder. I survived what must have been RSV in March, and I got through the snare drum / fasciculations diagnosis without embarrassing myself too much. I found that brain shadows might be lesions going through re-mylenation, so that’s a good thing. My brain betrayed me in August though: it stopped me at a green light even though I’d lost faith in Gary’s driving after he did the same thing twice in a week.
No vacations, even just to Ste. Genevieve two hours away to see the tigers. Instead, I escaped by going to 26 movies. I’ve seen almost all the Golden Globe nominees … mostly thanks to Netflix or to Friend Anne’s elevated movie tastes. Anne kept me up to date on operas and the like, while Gary kept me conversant in mass popular culture. Gary and I saw Patton Oswalt together, but I attended Kathleen Madigan alone. In fact, I went to three museum exhibits alone and sort of saw an airshow alone too. There were fewer music concerts than average, sad to say. We fell into the Pixies/Weezer tickets and I fell into the Samantha Fish ticket from Friend #2. I also fell into the entertaining Big Box O’ Jerry: that kept me occupied a while.
I wish I could say my painting abilities have improved, but I don’t know that they have. My best painting is the one I did at the beginning of the year: the teacups. I did like how my second stab at Gary’s face turned out, and faces are more challenging than teacups. What I should do is stop experimenting with a new technique with every painting, but that’s no fun. My guitar skills have either plummeted or soared, depending on how you look at it. I can think the C chord and play it while I’m finger-picking a tune, but that’s only one chord out of dozens. But, given how little work I’ve put in on the guitar, I couldn’t expect any more.
In fact, everything’s either plummeted or soared, depending on how you look at it. I shouldn’t look at the last year as status quo, then, should I? I have doubled-down on operas and quality movies, we have a new driveway, and evidently at least one of my lesions is getting a shiny new coat of myelin. I call that a good year.