Things that genuinely gave me joy in 2021
I had a long and very melancholy post written, but nobody needs to be subjected to me trying to find meaning in the fact that I've been suffering from vertigo for a month and a half. (Sometimes, my writer brain is insufferable, even to myself.) We're a week from the winter solstice here in the northern hemisphere, which means that
So here's some slapdash bullet-point positivity instead, a list of things that have made what's been kind of a sucky year into one I could suffer through.
Buying clothes that actually fit and investing heavily in pants with elastic waistbands, which did actual wonders for my overall mood?
Mainstream media handwringing over The Great Resignation juxtaposed with glorious shitposts from r/Antiwork
Finally going on HRT...and 4 months in, seeing almost no changes from the low dose I was initially prescribed. I mean, the common side effects at this level are facial hair (which I had covered already, thank you Mediterranean heritage) and some fat redistribution/muscle growth (I was already uncle-shaped). We'll see what happens, I guess?
Texis by Sleigh Bells. According to Spotify, I'm in their top 0.1% of listeners, and this because their music is the soundtrack of Burned and Buried.
Tentatively wading into reading more romance. Standout books this year were KJ Charles's Will Darling Adventures, Morgan Rogers' Honeygirl, and Rebekah Witherspoon's Treasure. I've got books by Cat Sebastian, Alyssa Cole, and Courtney Milan on my radar for future reading, but am VERY open to recommendations for other queer romance authors.
Untentatively wading into more queer horror with David Demchuk's Red X, Eric LaRocca's The Strange Thing We Become and Other Dark Tales, Wendy Wagner's The Secret Skin, and Sam J. Miller's The Blade Between. 2021 books that I missed but am hoping to catch up on are Queen of Teeth and Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy by Hailey Piper, LaRocca's Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, S.T. Gibson's Dowry of Blood, and Lee Mandelo's Summer Sons.
I got into a SEVERE reading funk for most of the year, and discovered the magic of audio books. Listening to Cara Gee narrate Stephen Graham Jones's My Heart Is a Chainsaw was a revelation. I've got Darcie Little Badger's Elatsoe (performed by Kinsale Hueston) and P. Djèlí Clark's Ring Shout (performed by Channie Wait) queued up next.
Seeing DEFEKT go out into the world. A weird little book, but definitely one I'm proud of.
Seeing "The Bad Dad Redemption Arc Needs to Die" get published at Uncanny Magazine, which has long been one of my bucket list magazines.
Teaching, even if I don't feel like I did as well by my students as I usually do. 2021 was hard, and returning to in-person teaching was somehow even harder than switching everything to online. But seeing my students try new things or get excited about their own or their classmates' work remains immensely rewarding.
I'm working on a list of 2022 books that I'm hype for (THERE ARE SO MANY), but will probably wait until after Christmas. If you are going to WorldCon this week, I will be there starting (oh god) TOMORROW. You can find my full schedule here on Twitter or, if you're logged in, on the DisCon site. Hope to see you there, either virtually or at a safe distance in-person!
Postscript:
I found out about 10 minutes before I was about to send this that bell hooks died, which is just...hollowing. Love to her family, and to all those who are mourning today, who were profoundly influenced by hooks' life, teaching, and writing. I'm sharing the quote that I first saw, and the one that got me crying.
