Obligatory Year in Review

So I have a dog by my side and I'm figuring out where my last charitable contritubions go, time to look back on the end of a decade. Wait, Black Panther came out THIS YEAR?

(No lie, I had to look that up. Could have sworn it was two years ago. But we've all aged ten years this year.)

Anyway, how did the year go? Mixed at best, but there was hope towards the end.

Started out the year with some serious blows at work—many of my friends left for greener pastures and I had to pick up the pieces. I miss them terribly, even now. Still, I did some good work and hopefully made a difference to some of our clients. Hoping for more of this in the New Year, more on this later.

Work-life balance got a bit better, though I really didn't go to my gym as much as I had the previous year. There were some unforeseen circumstances there. I want to get back into it, there were a few hours a week where I didn't think about politics or work, and I miss that.

Spectacular year for movies, starting with the aforementioned Black Panther and ending with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. I keep meaning to see The Favourite since I love Olivia Colman, but haven't found the time yet.

One of the joys of this year was the movie Thor: Ragarok and the podcast that came out of it: Ragnatalk with Anthony Carboni and Chuck Wendig. Today, Wendig came out with his yearly resolution for writers, and the thesis statement is this:

Writing is hard but you need to do it. Persist.

Which is one of the reasons I'm typing into this box. I miss blogging and I think the new thing is going back to writing content on a site you control. Facespace should be smashed into pieces and the ground sowed with salt for all of the misdeeds it has done, and Birdsite is run by a part-time CEO, which really shows.

I have long given up thinking that a new year will be any better than the previous year—goodness knows we've had a dire run recently. But what if: what if things got better? Pessimism and nihilism are easy choices, giving a shit is the hard part. Persist.