2013, hi

by

This year was a lot of things to me, and as a battle cry against or maybe precisely because of that, I turned out to be a lot of things this year. I was a dreamer and a doer, and then I was a decider, because that is what grown women do and I am in my effing late twenties, bitchez; I was a planner and a listener and a smart spender and a healthy eater, which were all good, but also a worrier for silly stuff and a torch-carrier for silly people, which really weren't, and which I held on to for far longer than anyone deserved to. 

Let's see, this year I: survived my first fourteen months in this marvelous, terrifying job; traveled to Hong Kong for Valentine's with one of my best friends and months later braved the Bangkok heat with my lovely ladies; got lost in Singapore because I am a walking talking Pearl and the Beard song; dropped my jaw at Jeet Thayil's Baudelaire confessions at a writers festival; met Michael Cunningham; shook Michael Cunningham's hand; cooked dinner for one a lot of times, then cooked dinner for two, once, on a quiet Saturday evening with Jason Schwartzman in the background; waited patiently at the lobby of my college dormitory, where my only sister now lives——nothing has changed yet perhaps everything has; agreed to be maid of honor to the girl I always remember when I think of that college dormitory; published a book and hosted a reading; went on road trips with the funniest four-year-old I know; drank too much cheap wine and dark beer; listened to plenty of good music; listened to plenty of crap music (give it a rest, Psy); cried a lot and then laughed a lot because I am an idiot but also because I am human; and refined my romantic timing, which is as sweet and glorious and surprising as it sounds. There may have been other things, too, but that's what Facebook Year in Review is for. 

Thanks for sticking with me all the way through. Here's what we'll do: we'll carve out our names in the brightest of lights and watch them dazzle and dance across the sky tonight. Happy new year, darlings.