2022 Year In Review

2022 Year In Review

Thought the year was going to kill us all

It Has Been A Ride. . .

Seems, everything good; is going to come the hard way. If you listen to Beth Wood, at least you know in advance.

Coffee

This year, I’ve had six hundred cups of coffee. Two cups a day, everyday. It is a good thing, that stuff, doesn’t build up in your system. How could you sleep after six months of drinking coffee. You would think, a person could spend the rest of the year being awake? LoL

Things here are about the same as last year. The usual drinks, most all the time. Avoid the tea, and stick to coffee. I’ve consumed, a lot of sprite. It is however caffeine free.

Music

The music, has played almost non-stop everyday for a year. There has been more variety in what I’m listening to this year. I’ve not entirely retired my playlist “Set XYZZY”; However, there are some other artists that I’ve really enjoyed listening to. Some of my favorites this year, have been:

In no Specific Order

• Natale Merchant — Ophelia
• Tori Amos — Ocean to Ocean
• Heather Nova — Pearl, Siren, Wonderlust
• Alanis Morissette — Storm Before The Calm
• Taylor Swift — Midnights, Evermore
• John Lennon — Plastic Ono Band
• Jolie Holland — Wine Dark Sea
• Carla Bruni — Little French Songs
• Christopher Lawrence — Trance Stuff
• Beth Wood — The Long Road, Sometimes Love
• The Pretty Reckless — Death by rock and roll
• Forever Words — Johnny Cash Tribute

Classical
The usual music playing to sleep to:

• Henrik Schwarz — Instruments
• Héléne Grimaud — Bach Piano
• Hillary Hahn

I’ve also experimented with listening to some music in french this year. It has been educational. Not saying which french bands I’ve been listening to, they are in there though.

Things changed a lot. Been listening to different music. And left some of the stuff that was hurting me, in the past. Still like KMFDM, but they have been played much fewer times this year, than years past. Maybe, they will come out with a new album?

Life

This year, I did try to stop smoking; not once, but twice. The problems that I’m smoking, is a problem, and the root causes haven’t been fixed. Stopping smoking, was a killer. Made me really tough to get along with. Since then, I’ve been smoking two packs a day. Stopping, almost killed me.

There were some other issues, that I cleaned up, and worked out. Also, this year I got my teeth fixed. I will say, “dentures suck.” take care of your teeth. This year with having my teeth ripped out, was going to kill me, either way. Not having them fixed, was killing me, and having them fixed with dentures, is about killing me. Seems, to be some double bind, that is a no win situation. Trying to deal with it.

Sleep

They wanted me to change my bed time. They don’t like it when you go to sleep at 3:00 am. I did try to change it, with all due diligence. It has however, not happened. The way things are, it is only good, that I am sleeping at all. All that coffee? I’m not drinking coffee after 5:00 pm.

I’ve had some dreams, some bad dreams in my sleep. I’ve also had some dreams when I was awake, that would knock your socks off. I’ve written about them, if you look at my page on after a fashion.

Writing

My personal journals, have been much less than normal. It has been a really bad year. I’ve only written, 453,226 words this year; and most years, I’ve been hitting 1M words. I’ve published 119 articles on Medium, and have made 136 responses to other peoples stories.

I’ve kind of quit looking at my stats, and just focus on how much interaction I’m getting. This is pathetic. It really is. Not getting much feed back. I write on here, and ask questions; obviously, people think they are rhetorical questions; because no one says anything about any of it.

There is reason to believe, people don’t think, don’t read, and don’t listen.

Photography

Nothing really happened with photography here this year. I took, maybe one good photo all year. That was a month ago. Didn’t try, didn’t do much with it.

Video

Didn’t do much with video this year. Not being able to talk, I’m not able to make video’s like I once did. Need someone else to do the voice overs for me. I would like to make some videos, and if you want to do the voice overs, or help me make videos that would be super cool.

What Takes The Cake

I’ve had some really bad years. This year however, takes the cake. This year has felt and been more lonely than any other year in the past decade. Seems, a lot of people, would agree with me about this point.

Zombie Cat Shit

Most of the remaining time, has been spent living like zombie cat shit. I’ve laid on the sofa, for a year. I do some research, and writing on after a fashion. Not really working on my website, or other projects much.

Did some work, in Perl, and those projects were a success. If you can call that a success. Some might. That is the most success I’ve had this year. After living like zombie cat shit all year, doing some Perl, was a success.

I’ve made some changes to my life. All in all, it doesn’t feel like much has changed. I did stop writing in journals in the mornings. I’ve taken a lot of stuff out to the trash. I’ve thought, about formatting my hard drives, and calling it quits.

I have a shoe box, from last year with this years mail that has gone un-opened. I save the years in shoe boxes. All those letters telling me, nothing much. Why bother opening them? No one writes, or calls.

Speaking of mail, next year; I’m deleting all junk mail. If it isn’t from someone that is writing me to talk with me, all that spam mail, that is trying to sell me something is going in the trash. No one is writing me, and no sense on saving anything that isn’t a receipt. Or a nice message.

Goals

I’ve talked about some of them. Liked the idea of writing one million words on Medium next year. That is given, I can pick 365 topics, and stay on topic, for 3,000 words per article. Some, might call that senseless.

Wanted to start making music. However, with the way that I’m feeling, it isn’t likely to start happening. I have no plans of doing much web design, or print work. Might make some new business cards to give out. No one seems to have responded to the last set of cards that I made. Pity.

Might, make some art. Want to get the truck, painted bright yellow. That would be fun. Not much else going on.

Some things with astronomy are going okay. I’m learning where the planets are, and what time to look for them. As Heather Nova says: “The stars will make us wild.” Liked that idea. Could use some wildness in my heart.

Conclusion

There are some things, that are known. I know some, of what they want. Other things like, how this is going to end, or where it will end; remain a mystery to me.

I know, that we want peace. We want quality of life, and a life that makes sense, and is worthy of living. Those things are possible for everyone, given the right conditions. We want to make those conditions, possible for everyone.

All things are possible with God.

You’re just an empty cage, if you kill the bird. — Tori Amos