While everyone was moaning about 2016, personally it was a great year for me. But 2017 was pretty dumb. Just before Christmas, Kyle’s grandmother Ruth passed away. We just came back from her funeral in Kentucky. For much of the fall, most of California was on fire, including my own beloved Sonoma County. It looked like the fire might come into Petaluma, where I live, but luckily that didn’t happen. Still, lots of people lost their homes or were otherwise affected by the fires. And other dumb stuff happened too. My dad was sick with various illnesses, many things I tried to do failed, and Kyle had work strife that, while eventually resolved, was stressful. Finally, my friend’s cat Peja died, which doesn’t sound like much, but she was a special cat.
Lots of good things happened too. For one thing, I signed with a literary agency.
And I wrote a number of articles that I’m proud of. Some of these include:
Tight Wires Between Us: On “Difficulties of a Bridegroom” by Ted Hughes in LA Review of Books.
Why Aren’t There More Women Working in Audio? in The Atlantic.
Hollywood Loved Sammy Davis Jr Until He Dated a White Movie Star in The Smithsonian.
How Beatrix Potter Invented Character Merchandising in The Smithsonian.
Bountiful Beach Buffet: Fresh Seaweed Is Making Waves Among Foragers for NPR.
Murmur, a short story in Every Day Fiction.
I was also interviewed by CNN and on XRAY In The Morning in Portland, Oregon. This week there’s a Q&A with me on The Navi Review.
Gideon turned five this year and started kindergarten. Kyle, as I said, switched jobs and is now CSO at Purism. He also published a book, Linux Hardening in Hostile Networks: Server Security from TLS to Tor.
For travel, I went to the snow in Tahoe, which was lovely.
And Sequoia National Park, which was astounding.
And Germany and Austria, which was one of the best trips I’ve taken. I blogged about it.
Part 1: Germany
Part 2: Castles
Part 3: Salzburg
Part 4: Hallstatt
Lots of other things happened. I went wine tasting and saw Laura Marling and Martha Wainwright perform at different points and sailed a blow-up boat in the river and went out to fancy dinners and generally had a nice life. I grew a big garden.
Check out this bread I made. It looks just like bread.
I’m looking forward to 2018 being better. I’m being optimistic. I’m going to read a lot of Shakespeare and paint insects and probably go to Greece. I’ll try to write my best work yet. Our country will … not suck so much … ? Well anyway, we’re going to Disneyland on Thursday, so that’s not a bad way to start the year.
Happy New Year!