One of the downsides to not blogging for four and a half years is that I’ve kind of lost the rhythm of thing, and my perspective in the present is often wildly different than what it was over the last batch of posts. When I left off in early 2021, I wasn’t going out all that much, I hadn’t been traveling, and I didn’t know all that many people in my new adopted home city, because I moved up in the middle of a pandemic, and things weren’t consistently open everywhere.

Obviously all that’s changed, and life is wildly different than it was then. Which brings me back to my perspective from that time period- the last time I did an end of the year post was “Good Riddance, 2020.”

In the 2020 recap, I talked about the shattering of my 2020 goals by the pandemic, and resolved to not make new goals. Let’s recap-

One of my 2020 goals was to change apartments or escape Florida.

Obviously, I did that one successfully, because I was writing the 2020 post from my new apartment here in the DMV. I’ve changed apartments twice more since then, both times remaining in the same building. I spent my first year on the 14th floor, and when my lease for that one ended, I snagged a 20th floor apartment. Instead of my view being the building across the street, my view now looked over the top of that building, toward DC. I could see part of the National Mall, the Washington Monument, the Capitol Dome. I could see the National Cathedral and the Jefferson Memorial. The Fourth of July fireworks were spectacular across up the entire horizon. And on a clear night, I could see the floodlights that indicated the Commanders were having a home game.

After the first year, new construction two blocks away killed my view of the National Cathedral.

Being on the top floor meant I had a great view, but it also meant that I got direct sunlight year round. Since my apartment also had crappy insulation and seals, I absolutely baked in the summertime and I lost heat in the wintertime. After four years of being miserably uncomfortable despite the spectacular view, I resolved to change apartments again, and this time I got one about halfway up the building on the north face. My view is once again a building across the street, but I have significantly less direct sunlight and my electric bill dropped immediately. The newer apartment also has hard floors instead of carpet, which is better for allergy stuff, so that’s pretty cool.

One of my 2020 goals was to be healthier – eat better, sleep more, and get out of the house more/exercise a little.

Once we got further into 2021, things began to open up and I started going to stuff in DC. When I go into the city, I usually take the Metro instead of driving (unless it’s one of those places that you can’t easily access with public transit), and that means a lot more walking. On escalators, I usually climb. It’s not the same as a regular workout, but it’s something.

I also started to make new friends, and some of those friends encourage me to make healthier food choices. I still eat like a twelve year old who’s been left home alone most of the time, but I try to fit in a salad at least once a week, so that’s something I guess.

As for sleep, I get my required six hours a night. I could do better, but I tend to be more active at night than in the early hours and I find it difficult to get myself into bed before midnight. I’ve been like this for as long as I can remember, and I don’t think it’s likely to change any time soon.

One of my 2020 goals was to travel more, at least three out of state trips and one international trip per year.

In January of 2021, I noted the postponement of my cousin’s wedding on the West Coast – that trip finally happened in October of that year, and it was lovely.

I also noted my failure to make it to DragonCon in 2020 for obvious reasons. Because people were still skittish from the pandemic, I was actually able to get a room in one of the main DC hotels in 2021, so I went that year. I haven’t been back since, because the hotels are a huge pain in the butt, and I keep having conflicts that weekend anyway. Also, I’ve realized in the intervening years that I don’t enjoy conventions any more – I used to go to Megacon in Orlando each year, and I still try to pop out to Awesomecon here in DC, but neither of those required travel. I lived close enough to go to Megacon without needing a hotel, and now I live close enough to Awesomecon to need to fly anywhere. I have a difficult time justifying airfare and hotel costs for an event that I don’t really enjoy. The only thing that makes me consider going back to DragonCon is that so many of my friends go, but then I think I should just find easier ways to see my friends than at a giant expensive crowded convention.

I did finally get back to international travel, just this year. I spent a week in London around Thanksgiving, and a few days in Toronto this summer – I’ll talk about those in other posts in the near future, because I really do intend to write more here.

I still haven’t made it to the Waikiki Spamjam. Maybe 2027 is my year for that one.

One of my 2020 goals was to feed my inner introvert – to spend more time reading books and less time on little screens.

I still spend far too much time on screens, but I have been reading more overall – I have two library cards and a Kindle and I do a Goodreads challenge each year. I don’t read as much as some people I know, but reading for pleasure is still a marvelous thing.

One of my 2020 goals was to write at least 52 posts in the blog, one per week.

I made it in 2020, but then in 2021 I managed to post just nine times in 2021 before I just sort of drifted away. I came back in November of 2025, got six more done, and then lost steam again. It’s a new year, and I intend to do better. I’ve got some gaps to fill in.

One of my 2020 goals was to listen to more music, live or otherwise.

I checked my stats, and in the years before the pandemic, I was generally seeing 14-26 shows a year. In 2020, I managed only seven. In 2021, things began to reopen and I hit 43.

I snagged season tickets as soon as I was able to the Kennedy Center’s broadway and National Symphony seasons, the National Theatre’s broadway series, and the Shakespeare Theatre Company. I’ve been to dozens of different show venues in the intervening years.

And then I massively overcorrected from the leaner show years.

Some of that has to do with being in a place where there are simply more shows available, but in 2022 I saw 176 shows. In 2023, 179. In 2024 I hit 158 shows. And in 2025, I made a conscious effort to slow down a little and only saw 129 ticketed shows.

I’m trying to find a balance, to not have many times where there are four or five or six shows in a single week, but my instinct is to always go. I want to see all the things. I always have.

For 2021, I resolved to not set goals.

We all know that “New Year’s Resolutions” are terribly stupid- they always start with good intentions, but they rarely survive their first encounter with reality. As soon as I figured that out, I changed from “Resolutions” to “Goals” but I realize now that relabeling a stupid thing doesn’t automatically make it any less stupid.

With that in mind, I’m going to just start off 2025 with a few guidelines, not so much resolutions or goals as just good ideas that I’m going to try to stick with.

1) I’m going to do my best to keep writing in this blog. I enjoy writing it and I feel guilty and angry at myself when I don’t. This is an easy fix; I just have to DO it. I waste more than enough time on other mindless things, I can find the time.

Besides, talking about the last year, or the last four and a half years, is going to require a bit more than just this one end of the year wrap-up post. Especially since this post didn’t wrap up ANYTHING about the last year.

2) I’m going to try to push myself to eat healthier a little more often than I do. It doesn’t matter how good something tastes if I feel awful an hour after I eat it, right? I can do better. I just need to find a way to make salads more flavorful. Maybe chocolate chips?

3) While I’m not going to stop going out to concerts, I am going to try to slow it down a little bit, and to be more mindful of when I’m overscheduling a week or two. I’m also going to be a little more selective with my season subscriptions; sometimes there’s a few I can miss. (And right now, the Kennedy Center is hugely problematic- I’m not loving the idea of renewing those subscriptions until certain organizational issues are resolved.)

and lastly,

4) This was the last year I’m going to make that dumb “see you next year” joke before New Year’s Eve. I’ve been saying it for decades, and I’m finally tired of it.

Did you make any New Year’s resolutions?

1/52

The “Roaring 20s” have, thus far, been a giant wet fart.

For the last several years, I’ve wrapped up each year with an end of the year post. I typically list some of the cool stuff that happened in the preceding twelve months and look back at how I did on the goals I set for myself the previous year. The “cool stuff that happened” part of this post would barely fill a thimble.

As for my 2020 goals, they were written before we had any notion of the pandemic that would eat the heart of the entire year. Still, it’s worth looking back to see just how horribly Covid destroyed my goals this year.

2020 goal – make a firm decision about changing apartments and/or getting out of Florida.

This is the only goal that I can say was a resounding and intentional success. I escaped Florida over the summer and began to make my home in Northern Virginia by August.

2020 goal – Be healthier: Eat better, sleep more, and get some damn exercise, get out of the house more.

I’m going to call this a big failure. Lockdowns, comfort food, doom-scrolling, stress-based insomnia, and pandemic isolation were the watchwords this year. While I have tried to go outside on a regular basis, there’s only so much that I could really do.

2020 goal – Travel more. (Three out of state trips and one international trip.)

I didn’t make it out of the country again this year, but I managed to meet the domestic travel goal on a technicality despite the pandemic. One New York trip for work in March just days before lockdown began, one round-trip flight up to Virginia in late June to lock in my apartment, and then a train ride with my car when I moved up to Arlington in August. I had planned a few other trips for the year, but they all got kicked down the road:

• My cousin postponed his west coast wedding celebration over this summer, and theoretically, we’ll give this a go next summer.
• The Nashville concert got bumped to 2021, so that whole trip was nudged as well.
• For the first time since 2003, I planned on going to DragonCon in Atlanta. I’m pretty sure this is the reason we had a pandemic, actually. My 2020 D*C membership was rolled over to 2021.
• I still don’t know when I’m going to make it to the Waikiki Spam Jam.

2020 goal – Feed my inner introvert: Spend more time with books and less with little screens, whether they be my phone or my television.

I backslid mightily on the tv watching this year, but so did almost everyone. We were all stuck indoors so much that the screens became much more necessary. I did make my Goodreads reading goal despite having tremendous lapses in concentration. I cheated though, and many of my read titles were comic books instead of prose.

2020 goal – Write at least 52 posts in this blog, one per week.

This goal came about because I only wrote four blog posts all year in 2019. I thought that setting a more explicit goal than “write more” would help me out. In the beginning, it did- I managed to go a few months on the one-a-week path, but then the ennui of the pandemic took hold a bit. When I was sitting at home and every day was like the day before and the day after, I ran out of steam.

I decided on a whim to do NanoPoblano this year, and that’s why there are thirty posts in November. Taking part is NanoPoblano is the only reason I managed to meet this goal. Without the thirty posts in November, I wouldn’t have even completed half.

2020 goal – Listen to more music, live or otherwise.

In any normal year, this goal isn’t a hardship for me. I’m already compelled to go see live music. I managed to go to six live music events by March 1st, and then the lockdowns began. I watched show after show after show get erased from my calendar, either refunded or pushed off to the future. I’ve watched many, many livestreams of music, and I’ve started watching DJs do their thing on Twitch on a regular basis. I also had a bullet point goal about seeing more live Shakespeare, but the local Shakespeare theater has remained closed. I made up for it very slightly by watching some pre-recorded plays online.

For 2021, I’m not going to set goals.

I figured out a few years back that “New Year’s Resolutions” are terribly stupid- they always start from a point of good intention, but they reek of homework and most resolutions don’t really survive their first encounter with reality. As soon as I figured that out, I changed from “Resolutions” to “Goals” like the ones in my last few year-end recap posts.

If there’s anything I’ve learned from the Covid-19 pandemic grinding 2020 to a halt, it’s that even well-intentioned goals are not feasible when the rest of the world has to stay home. I’m not going to set specific goals for my health, my sleep, or my travel- I’ll do what I can, but setting a concrete goal just seems pointless and disheartening.

I realized last year that setting a goal for concerts was useless- if there’s a chance for me to go see live music, I’m going to do it. Music is life. This way of thinking applies to several of my previous goals, as it turns out- setting a goal to do something I’m probably going to do anyway is just silly.

There’s one exception to my “no goals and no resolutions” stance, though- I’m going to try to do at least a blog a week again this year. I enjoyed NanoPoblano last month, and although I don’t always have much to say every week, I do enjoy writing here. I don’t want this blog to regress back to my 2019 levels, where I only yeeted out four posts in twelve months.

That makes this post 1/52. Here’s hoping that life returns to some semblance of normal in 2021.

Happy new year! Do you have any goals or resolutions this year?