Back in January when this year first started, I expected that it was going to be one of those "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times" years, but it kind of ended up being a "just keep swimming" year. Here's why:
Why was it the best of times?
With my current job, I think I've finally triangulated upon the role I want to play. You may recall that I'd thought my earlier job was the best one I'd ever had -- and it was, until it stopped being wonderful. This new job, however, is better. It has a lot of the same advantages of my earlier job, without some of the disadvantages.
I don't want to go into too much detail about my job on a public-but-not-professional blog, but I'll just say that it's a job that requires a very particular and unusual set of skills, and that I happen to have a particular and unusual set of skills that matches amazingly well. Not to pat my own back too hard, but they were also lucky to find me. They'd had people resign from this position during the trial period in the past, and my predecessor (who did the job for 3 years), had only ever intended to do the job temporarily.
If this coming year goes well too, I'll post more details about it in next year's "state of the me". 😁
Why was it the worst of times?
With Trump's re-election, the US's descent into fascism is dropping to horrific new lows, with people getting randomly rounded up and sent to gulags with no due process, etc. and the hegemony and military might of the United States makes this bad news for everyone.
And how were these pillars of good and bad tempered over the course of the year?
Regarding my job -- even though it's what I want to do, it's really hard work, and it has cost me more time and energy than I would like. I've gone back up to working 80% -- and I know that I have one day off per week -- but it hasn't been enough to get the projects done that I want to get done.
As I said last year, the #1 thing I wanted to do in 2025 was to get back to work on my comic book again. I really want to be spending my free time on artwork again, and -- while I did succeed in laying some of the groundwork -- I still haven't succeeded in getting to a place where I can wake up on a Wednesday morning and just work on the drawing some new panels. I'll explain below what I ended up doing instead. But really getting back into drawing my comic book is now my #1 personal goal for 2026.
The "worst of times" was tempered in a different way.
As I wrote back in 2016, I had hoped since the days of G.W. Bush that people would react to the terrible job that he did by working to turn things around. Instead I learned that there is no rock bottom, and that no matter how incomprehensibly broken the US political system seems at any given point it can get worse.
When G.W. Bush and co. faced no consequences for war crimes and extreme incompetence, that paved the way for Trump to take it to the next level in terms of stupidity and just openly looting the country. Then, after a brief pause of the Democrats thinking that things could just go back to normal by pretending like everything is normal, that monster got elected again on promises to do worse than he'd done the first time.
But the weird and unexpected part is that I think the US finally did hit rock bottom. I have absolutely been avoiding an "accelerationist" strategy because I didn't believe in rock bottom anymore -- but it actually looks like after watching this past year of Trump and the billionaires take a chainsaw to what's left of the US, the tide may be turning and the pendulum may swing back in a real way.
That may just be my social media bubble telling me what I want to hear, though, so I'm not counting any chickens yet....
But Trump has succeeded in ending America's dominance over the rest of the world. As I said earlier, Trump is so dumb that he doesn't realize that he's throwing away something valuable. His ego depends on his skill at deal-making, but his only deal-making strategies are trying to charm or bully people.
By taking the mask off of kindly old Uncle Sam, Trump has shocked the rest of the world into realizing how dangerous it is to cede so much power to the US. And by picking a fight with every country at the same time (aside from an handful of fellow despot/criminals), he has given other countries the motivation and ability to reclaim some economic and military sovereignty.
So I guess that means that instead of "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times," I was in "just keep swimming" mode. I actually thought I had used this phrase before in a "State of the Me" (to describe a year of just trying to make incremental progress on my goals for the future), but this post is the closest I could find.
But now that I'm in my 50's, I'd like to mix up my metaphor a bit. My new motto is more in line with the famous saying:
Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water,
After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.
Naturally I want to stay goal-oriented, but one of my intentions this year has been to appreciate my day-to-day life more.
Every morning I get up at 6 and do my "morning chores" -- which is usually just making tea and loading and/or unloading the dishwasher on days when I have to go to work, but also includes laundry, prepping the garbage/recycling, and light gardening, depending on how much time and stuff to do I have. This is a time of quiet reflection and of physical activity that gets me going, and is almost meditative. (Coincidentally? there's a word in Japanese the means both relaxation and doing laundry...)
(If you're wondering where my wonderful husband is in this picture, he generally does other chores, like loading/unloading the dishwasher in the afternoon and making dinner.)
To that end, one mini-project that has eaten some of my project time this past year was to make compilations of old songs that I wanted to listen to -- ones that take me back. In the beginning of the year I made a set of "hits by year" (which still needs some work, but it was a good start), and then more recently I made a database of all of the tracks of all of the Christmas albums I've collected over the years. I had last done this in 2002 (back when we burned the compilations onto physical CDs). It was getting to be time to do it again (just copying collections onto a hard-drive this time).
The problem with Christmas albums is that they invariably have a few tracks on them that I do not like -- and more commonly it will be that an album has a handful of good tracks but the rest are unlistenable. And, no, I do not trust any streaming service to do this for me. To any reader who is mentally screaming "No!!! I hate Christmas music!!!" -- I hear ya. I hate a lot of it too, but I love a lot of it because of the variety of musical genres represented, and especially because of the connection with the past.
Anyway, I made a database of all of the good tracks (of which I have about 350), including tables of the songs (about 130) and artists (more than 160), plus language/instrumental and a rating system. I then wrote a quick algorithm to mix them up by song/style/artist and automatically copy and normalize them into 31 sets -- an "advent of music" as it were -- so I can listen to them all without hearing a track I don't like.
Maybe sometime I'll write out an update to my long-ago post about the carols that I like. My current list has been influenced by my kids -- we also have a special family Christmas song compilation which is mostly funny Christmas songs that we've all found over the years.
Then there were a couple of other projects that I hadn't really planned to spend as much time on as I did.
First on that list was Totally Normal Town -- as you'll know if you follow this blog (if anyone does...).
I did not anticipate how many months it would take me to make all of those buildings. And it's still not done!! See here and this video:
But focusing on Totally Normal Town was partially inspired by my new "Chop wood, carry water" viewpoint because this time in which my kids are available to do creative collaborations with won't last forever. And Nico had done such a clever job of writing and directing the Totally Normal Town story series, that I didn't want to miss this opportunity.
Both Nico and Leo have been working on some amazing creative projects of their own -- I can't link to them because they're not public, but you would be impressed!!
Then there was the whole Japan thing (which I will fold into my usual "language learning" category).
For a few years we'd been planning a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Japan, which we took in March. Emmanuel was the one who most wanted to do this, but of course we all have stuff we love from Japanese culture: sushi, video games, fast trains, Totoro, etc., so we were all happy to make the trip -- and we had a fantastic time!!
It was so much fun that Emmanuel wants to now do it again -- which we're planning to do in 2027 (but not take the kids this time). Emmanuel also made a lovely set of photo albums of our trip as a family Christmas present. I just wish we'd been making photo albums more often for the past 25 years. My kids have (ironically?) seen way fewer photos of their memories growing up than I did of mine as a kid, back when photos were physical objects rather than data sitting on some filesystem...
We also spent a bunch of time learning Japanese -- and didn't stop after the trip ended. I actually thought 2025 was going to be my year for really making progress on Schwitzerdeutsch, but the problem is that this little Renshuu app for learning Japanese is so much more fun to do while lounging in bed (sometimes before, sometimes after my morning chores) than any of my Schwitzerdeutsch materials. But 2026 will be my Schwitzerdeutsch year for sure!! (Or maybe 2027)
Speaking of the past 25 years, we had two lovely weekend celebrations for our silver wedding anniversary -- one to see an opera at La Scala in Milano, and another in which we visited friends and family in Paris.
As usual, I haven't done a lot for Main Street Plaza this year, but I'm pretty psyched that a major ExMo podcast has been promoting the Brodies this year, so I hope we'll have a really great year for awards -- and maybe even get some good conversation going again.
But my biggest goal for 2026 (aside from all of the goals discussed above) is to help my two boys to make progress on their own long-term goals. I don't want to go into too much detail here since it's not my story to tell, but I hope to have some good news about their progress for next year's edition!!
Happy New Year, and here's looking forwards to amazing things in 2026!!!
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