Everything I did instead of reading
& some things I did read, too, of course
It seems that every year since 2016 has been a doozy. I suppose part of it is the fact that these days, the slow lurch towards growing old has made itself more evident; I once read that as we age, it feels as if time moves faster because there aren’t many new things to slow it down. But after uprooting myself and moving to a new country five months ago, I still feel like time moves too quickly. I wake up before the sunrise just to give myself more daylight. I suppose, then, that there must just be something about living in a city that always makes me feel like I have to keep up: there’s always something new, something different, something to do. That, and how I’ve accepted that I no longer need to live in fear of a country-wide quarantine that will stop life as I know it. (I still do fear getting COVID, but less extremely.) This is all to say: after the uncomfortable lull at the start of this decade and the sugar rush of the campaign (and turning 30!) I’ve finally settled into myself, and I can say with much more certainty what I do and don’t enjoy spending my time on.
It wasn’t a great year for reading (and yet, still better than last year) but I like to think that that’s because I chose to do so many other things instead. Like go to art galleries and museums, or go to Japan with my parents, or watch a concert in Singapore and explore Chiang Mai with my friends. I did so many things this year it’s crazy to look back on. But really, more than anything, it explains the shift in my reading habits (which took years to build back up, and like all good habits, fall by the wayside in the blink of an eye).
Books
This year I read 32 books, and back in 2021 when I read 77 books I knew, in my bones, that I’d place that number on a pedestal even though I shouldn’t. And yet here I am, once again moping about how I read 45 more books two years ago and thinking about how I’ll never be that prolific ever again, etc. etc. The fact of the matter is, there weren’t many books that mattered to me this year: reading was, more than anything, a way to spend my time. But I can’t say with confidence that the paltry sum of 32 books accumulated into anything I was genuinely happy to have spent time on.
I read a lot of nonfiction this year because I knew I’d be heading back to school and I imagined that I’d need to reconfigure my brain into reading drier prose. It did help to do some advance reading: after almost a decade out of school, I needed to reacquaint myself with leading perspectives and writers in certain social science fields. But mixing work and play has never worked well for me, and I don’t know why I thought it would turn out differently for reading. Also, the hibernation of my book club affected my appetite for books; as much as reading is a solitary activity, it helps to have people to talk to if a book is good (or, sometimes, it’s better when a book is terribly bad).
Usually, December is spent paring down my list of top rated books. It pains me to admit that this year, there weren’t any books I was confident in recommending beyond what I read in the first quarter of the year, when I tried to stave off the mania of awaiting grad school application results.
My 5-star reads:
Foster by Claire Keegan
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
The Cruelty Is the Point: The Past, Present, and Future of Trump's America by Adam Serwer
Movies & TV
What I spent a lot more time doing this year, compared to other years, is watching movies and TV. During my last month in Manila I watched a movie in a cinema once a week not only because it was a great summer for blockbusters, but also because I knew I would rarely be able to stomach the cost of going to the movies in the United States.
This year also saw the resurgence of my Scary Movie Club, which managed to survive the time difference even if it meant watching Talk To Me at 9 in the morning and before class.
I also watched more TV shows concurrently with friends, ultimately cementing my love language of live reactions to shared media: we may not be together physically but on god you will know how I felt when Kendall Roy shouted “I am the eldest boy!”
Another simple truth too is that movies and TV shows are easy conversation topics, and I found myself bringing them up more and more as I met new people in the second half of the year. That, and that it’s easier to eat while watching something rather than reading—and I suppose there isn’t anything more American than a TV dinner.
Top 3 movies:
Talk To Me
Pulse (this movie came out in 2001 and relies heavily on tech-horror, but it doesn’t feel dated in how haunting it is)
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Top 3 TV shows:
Succession, of course
Andor - I watched this twice in the span of a week, is how insane this show made me. I consider it the best Star Wars media since the original trilogy.
Our Flag Means Death - just. Gay pirates.
Other Idiosyncratic List-Toppers
Best new app I downloaded: Citymapper, which sounds kind of lame but it’s just so much better than google maps!!!
Best addition to my morning routine: Waking up to watch the sun rise post-Daylight Saving Time
Best quality of life adjustment: Loop Earplugs for sleeping and for concerts/live shows.
Best thing I learned to do: Basic econometrics, and I wish I was joking but really. Really.
Best hobby that I got into way later than everyone else did: Tending to plants (!?!?! I get it now, I do, and they haven’t died on me yet!)
Best desserts (this is me, of course there’s more than one)
Mango sticky rice from Coco Mango, Chiang Mai
Soft serve ice cream from Cremia in Tokyo
Honeycomb ice cream from Van Leeuwen
Innumerable hours spent on relationships
I spent a significant amount of time hanging out with friends, both physically and virtually. Looking back at my Google Calendar I’d be hard-pressed to find a week without at least three hours set aside for social interaction (and solely social interaction—not just time spent texting or looking at Instagram stories). I went out with people a lot this year, and in the second half of 2023 I spent even more time on video calls with family and friends. That meant spending time to make plans, traveling to-and-from places, and spending those precious hours with people I love. This year, more than most, I spent nurturing my relationships. Which definitely took time and brain space away from other leisure activities (and most importantly, reading).
I tried and failed to quantify all the time I’ve spent with people - restaurants and bars, park benches and cafes, broadway shows and concerts, zoom links and facebook messenger calls. There are too many to count, and I feel lucky beyond measure to be loved like this.
As 2024 rolls around, it all boils down to time management. There were lots of moments this year when I had to remind myself to set aside for myself, too. Hopefully I’ll have a heftier list of book recommendations next year. Either way, I’ll still be reading.
Snowshoe to Otter Creek — Stacie Cassarino love lasts by not lasting -Jack Gilbert I’m mapping this new year’s vanishings: lover, yellow house, the knowledge of surfaces. This is not a story of return. There are times I wish I could erase the mind’s lucidity, the difficulty of Sundays, my fervor to be touched by a woman two Februarys gone. What brings the body back, grieved and cloven, tromping these woods with nothing to confide in? New snow reassumes the circleting trees, the bridge above the creek where I stand like a stranger to my life. There is no single moment of loss, there is an amassing. The disbeliever sleeps at an angle in the bed. The orchard is a graveyard. Is this the real end? Someone shoveling her way out with cold intention? Someone naming her missing?