Last year, I paid off my student loans, bought a house, began taking my health more seriously, and started forming some new habits. This time around the sun, I faced difficulty at work, chronic health issues, and grieved. I’m not going to bury the lede, this year was a real bummer.
But let’s start with the good…
Roam about
In April I spent a week in NYC. The first few days with Mae who was traveling there for work and then a few days more in Astoria with Mike and Erin. I was glad to spend a few days at their place and get to know Erin better while Mike was at work.
I saw the Guggenheim, The Museum of the Moving Image[1], and did the whole Brooklyn Bridge at night thing. We ran into my cousin Emily who was in town and got to briefly visit the This American Life offices. Mostly, it was nice to just eat [2] and visit many, many bookshops around the city. We even caught a Tarkovsky movie at the Film Forum, which was a recent bucket-list line item.
I took my Fuji along but didn’t take as many photos as I’d have liked. It rained a lot for the first half of the trip and the second half was pretty low-key in Astoria.
I missed the major eclipse due to a poorly timed flight. I saw partial coverage from the gate and a few glances as we taxi’d.
We spent a handful of hot June days in Texas for my cousin Hannah’s wedding. The heat, rental van, and Dallas roads irritated me a lot more than I anticipated, but it was otherwise a very nice trip with the extended family there to celebrate.
In August, we took our annual trip to Lake Michigan. This time we camped at Muskegon State Park. We’d been to Muskegon before, but not for this long. It was a very pleasant trip. In retrospect, I’m especially glad we went when we did. [1]
I took a lot of pictures, but have edited very few. Looking at photos of Jazz remains very difficult for me. ↩︎
See a show
In February, Mae took me to see the Cleveland Orchestra play along with The Princess Bride. That was a very nice birthday surprise. We took my mom to a ballet performance of Beauty and The Beast in Akron for her birthday.
Otherwise, I only went to 4 shows last year. I saw Fred Armisen at the Grog Shop and Raaaatscraps in NYC in April, The Beths in Columbus in August, and Something Corporate at the House of Blues in Cleveland in September.
Spend quality time (& money)
There were two weddings in June. Earlier in the month, my old high school pal Jared got hitched and I played the role of groomsguy. I got a tour of the land he and Laura are soon breaking ground on and took some pictures on the property in the fall.
I bought another camera in the spring. I love my Fujifilm X-T5, but I can’t carry it with me every day. So I did what all the cool kids are doing and rewarded myself with a Ricoh GR III. It’s pocketable and easy to work with. I use it all the time, even if I don’t publish most of the pictures I take with it. As ever, I’m working on that piece.
That doesn’t mean the Fuji doesn’t get used. As my “serious” camera, I put it to work documenting some important family gatherings this year. Particularly two visitations with Berkley Ruth, our family’s latest addition. I got a lot of shots of her with great-grandpa Ken that I know someday she’ll cherish.
Improve the home
After a trip to Ikea,[1] we finally got my records out of boxes and on display in the living room. This includes the ones I left behind at my dad’s for a decade. For the first time since I started collecting, my full collection is all in one spot and that feels good. Mae found a few pieces to fill the space nearby, so there’s a proper little lounge area to fill what was previously a large empty space in our living room.
I built another, larger set of cubes for my office which I immediately filled. The next step are proper built-in library walls.
We hung a porch swing built by my grandfather’s grandfather. It’s roughly the same age as our home. While I worked on breaking up a blockage in a French drain, Mae did a lot of landscaping work in the front and back. There’s a lot left untamed, but the areas most immediately surrounding our house look very nice.
See more doctors
Here’s where it gets hairy.
Camping in Michigan was, by all accounts, a very nice trip. Immediately following it, I noticed some back pain that accompanied a dull ache in my side. Sure it was stones, I went to a urologist. Three visits and a CT scan later, they ruled that out. Over the next several months, I found a new general practitioner, saw a gastroenterologist, and scheduled myself some scopes to figure out what’s going on. I’ve been taking Prilosec throughout most of this as lowering the acidity in my stomach has helped mitigate the worst symptoms.
At the time I’m writing this, it’s been 6 months of nearly persistent pain and discomfort. I’m a week away from my exams.
Terrible place, this. ↩︎
Mourn some more
In the middle of all of this, on September 25th, Jazz passed away. She was my best friend and I miss her more than I can bear. I think about her on a daily basis and often into the late hours of night when I’m alone with my thoughts. I’ve never had a companion like her and I don’t see how I ever could again.
This loss was compounded by my grandmother’s passing at the end of 2023. An animal lover at heart and a vet tech by trade, she was the person I wanted to talk to the most during the few short days Jazz was sick and for weeks afterwards. I’m still processing both of their absences.
Work it out
If chronic physical and emotional pain wasn’t enough, I was hit with the triple whammy the week after Jazz passed. Professional pain! After nearly 5 years developing the digital marketing space at my company, I was moved without warning to a new team. The people are great, but the work isn't a great fit. I’m the least productive and satisfied I’ve been since my career change. I’m doing my best to figure it out, but it’s been very difficult.
So… that’s a lot.
Yea, it is. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t struggling to keep it together for most of this year, but the last 3 months were really, genuinely unbearable. Unfortunately, the new year hasn’t yet turned any tides.
It’s tough to keep a good headspace when the problems are coming from all sides. But man, I’m tired of hearing myself complain. They say health comes first, so I’m hoping for answers to my physical problems by the time I’m 32 at the end of February. I noticed that my hair is starting to thin. You think it could be related?
How do you cope?
It should be no surprise that I sort of checked-out from a lot towards the end of the year. But I tried to get my mind occupied with other things.
One project that I began last year is my unofficial documentation of Criterion Closet Picks. In May, actor Kyle MacLachlan joined Letterboxd. He made a handful of lists dedicated to films picks of his most notable characters and liked the list of his closet picks on my account—driving loads of new follows. The same thing happened on an even bigger scale when Charli XCX’s account was discovered. She only followed a few accounts. One happened to be mine. I got a few thousand followers every day for a week. Her account continues to drive traffic. Seeing that labor of love take off has felt more rewarding than almost anything else this year, creatively.
Otherwise, I spent a lot of time scanning. I took basically a year off from my digitizing activities. It’s been difficult getting back into it with Grandma gone, so I’ve been involving my grandfather more in the process. It keeps him sharp and engaged. We’ve talked and spent a lot more time together as a result. I even took him to see Sing Sing at the independent theater in Akron.
I completed a box of slides from the 60s (at the beginning of my grandparent’s relationship) as well as a big box of 4x6 prints from my first few years of life. I’ve got them all dated and geotagged where possible, making them searchable in my iCloud Photos library.
Last year, I set some goals for myself. I wanted to read more (than one) books. I didn’t read any. I wanted to write more and I wrote half as many blog posts as last year. I wanted to take more pictures and did, but I posted less of them publicly. Instead I just watched a lot of movies.
Typically I’d write off the year and set some new goals, but just can’t do the self-imposed obligation thing this year. But the movie thing will probably stick. After enjoying it last year, I’m doing another Criterion Challenge as well as the annual group text film draft. A new independent movie theater just opened up downtown, so I reckon I’ll be there a lot this year.
Survive
So there it is—2024. Despite the good, I reckon I’ll be mostly looking back on this year with distain. I’ve got some optimism for this year but, without much on the calendar to look forward to and a lot of questions about my health and job situation unanswered, I’m struggling to maintain that for most of my waking hours. It’s day-by-day over here but that’s okay.
Read More: My Favorite Things 2024