The Ten Best Days of the Year (2023)
Some years, the world changes; some years, you do
I’m about to say something that will sound stark-raving bonkers: it feels like nothing happened in 2023. If you’re a regular reader of my newsletter, I assume you have some base level of knowledge of who I am / that I’m wrong. Objectively wrong! Not only did things happen this year, but also, I did things.
Oh, 2023? A year in which I changed jobs and moved apartments? The year in which I published my first book, and went to Europe for the first time? The year in which two of my closest friends got married, and two of my favorite people came with me to visit my parents in Missouri? That 2023? The year in which my brother turned 21 and we went to Vegas and we saw Wayne Newton? THAT 2023?
Hmm no doesn’t ring a bell! I must have been asleep! Sorry!!! Zzz! Don’t remember!
Of course the reason is obvious. Much like my computer, which daily alerts me I have “run out of application memory” and cannot do anything else at all, my brain ran so many programs in 2023 that it Ctrl + Alt + Deleted essential functions. There is a constant sensation of something somewhere I am forgetting, and all I can do is hope it’s not important.
I know enough to know that 2023 was a good year. As I was telling someone last week, “It feels like I did a ton of stuff this year, but none of it was what I’d planned to do.” For example! On New Year’s Eve, my mom and Myles and I went to the mall, because we wanted to bungee-jump on the indoor trampolines. I don’t have a better way to explain this – see photo below – but I must tell you, it was well worth the effort and the $10/3 minutes (thanks mom!). I cackled with joy! I did a backflip!!!!!!
We went right back home after that, intending to get dressed up for our New Year’s plans, which included a night out and bowling and champagne and karaoke. Instead, Myles and I spent five hours at the emergency vet with Dottie. She’s fine now, having completed a ten-day round of antibiotics, and learning that if she drools profusely it’s way harder for me to force a pill into her mouth.
Despite all this, it was a good end to the year. After watching the football game in the waiting room at the vet, after freezing my ass off in the Whataburger parking lot, after changing into a hot-pink gown my mom once wore to a cat wedding, I sipped a cocktail on the couch, laughing hysterically as we did living-room karaoke on the microphone my brother got me for Christmas. We went outside at midnight and yelled and cheered at the fireworks, then went back inside, loyal to Carole King and Limp Bizkit, staying up and singing til 2 am.
This is to say: goals are helpful, expectations are not. There’s a lot I planned to do in 2023, like finish my effing novel. I did not do that. But I did a lot of things that were, in retrospect, more important. I ran around New York in a “naked dress,” I watched the Barbie movie at a drive-through, I bleached my little brother’s hair, a few times. Most of the year was not what I’d envisioned, and I’m happy. I liked 2023. I like surprises.
In last year’s entry, I wrote, “Along with the writing, there’s the living.” And this year, along with the living, there was the writing. I composed some of my all-time favorite poems this year. Many of them have been published, or will be soon; several of them, by design, will never be seen by anyone but me and the recipients. I worked hard on this newsletter, finally putting pen to paper on many important topics like asthma and perfume and failure and music. This year, I have a few general resolutions, and some writing-specific goals, and I intend to prioritize the latter. I think this works, for me, alternating “the writing” and “the living,” year after year.
To piece together my year, and decide on the very best days, I scrolled through thousands of photos and came away with many honorable mentions: watching Kansas City win the Super Bowl, again, at my friends Sam and Gabby’s party; going to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony because Willie Nelson is a nonrenewable resource; doing karaoke with Rebecca and Gigi and assorted former colleagues during happy hour at RPM; sitting through a Maundy Thursday reading of Dante’s Inferno; Rosa’s bachelorette party and Chloe’s bridal shower; seeing Taylor Swift, again, with my mom and Sophia; chopping off my hair; the first half of New Year’s Eve. They all came close. They weren’t in the top 10.
Before I tell you which were the best days of 2023, let me tell you how last year started. I was sitting in a church listening to an organ concert. After an anguished New Year’s Eve journey back to New York City, courtesy of Southwest’s cancellations and Jet Blue’s ersatz heroism, I had my first Big New Year’s Night Out in NYC, which was everything I dreamed. My boyfriend and my friends and I went to “A Concert to Usher In The New Year” at St. Bartholomew’s, a performance by the lovely organist Paolo Bordignon. If you want to get dressed up and go out on New Year’s Eve, but you don’t want to spend infinite money just to get puked on, I recommend it.
The concert was timed to conclude just after midnight. As 2022 ended and 2023 began, I sat in a pew in a velvet dress, listening.
When I was growing up, my Gram Cracker had a clock that chimed every hour. I don’t know how, but I went most of my life without knowing that the ubiquitous little melody her clock played was the Carillon de Westminster. I learned this fact at the stroke of midnight on January 1st, 2023, looking at the program in my hand, learning the name of a song that has been part of my DNA since I was a baby.
It was a year that started and ended: with people I love, with songs I recognize. I look back in amazement and gratitude. I look forward the same way. It was a good year. Everything happened.
The Ten Best Days of 2023
10. April 16 – In April, I accepted an offer for a new job. To celebrate, Myles took me to my favorite museum, the Cloisters, and took sneaky photos of me in the sunshine, and admired all the bees and flowers in the courtyards, and bought me whatever I wanted from the gift shop. After, he took me to a bar that served chicken nuggets and boasted multiple pinball machines. In the bathroom, there was a tiny tiny piece of ballpoint graffiti that read, “I love being alive :)”
9. July 3 – My brother and I had a “sibling day.” We went to the mall, and he didn’t even mind when I wanted to go to Build-a-Bear and get a big plush Cinnamoroll. We came home and I bleached the bottom layer of his hair for the first time. My publisher sent me photos of my poetry book, the first copies of which were printed during this time. My family and I went to Chili’s and I ate a steak and made fun of Yellowstone on the bar TVs. Then we went to an outstanding fireworks display at the Elk’s Lodge, of all places, piled up to watch in the back of my dad’s truck.
8. April 30 – On this weekend, Rosa and I went down to south Jersey and stayed with Chloe, because early on April 30 we went to Philadelphia. Our friend Amy was in a race. I’d never watched a race before! It was so cool! Everyone was SO excited! We made a sign and waterproofed it, and held it up in the rain. I had a hot dog for breakfast. We cheered and cheered. After lunch with John and Amy, Rosa and I wandered around Philadelphia, then we got on the train with our customary large beers. It was a new twist on a half-decade-old tradition, plus I saw the Philly Phanatic.
7. August 26 – In the morning, I roller skated. In the evening, Tristan and Giuliana came over. I think they are the first guests that Myles and I had in our new apartment together – in the pictures, there are our camp chairs. Tristan, who I hadn’t seen for almost 10 months, wore a jumpsuit. Without planning, so did I. We talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked.
6. September 11 – My first-ever trip to Europe was a work trip, so I didn’t have a ton of time to explore Austria. But on the very last day, Myles presented me with an abridged “everything you need to see in Vienna” tour, and in the scant hours before flying home, I saw butterflies and horses and palaces and art and itsy-bitsy miniature copies of Moby Dick that retailed for well over $100. It was everything a European vacation should be (picturesque, educational) but truncated to the length of a nice drive upstate. On the plane home, I ate a strange vegan curry, a bunch of rolls and a delicious miniature sacher torte. And – because Austrians love this! – apple juice.
5. July 9 – This was a really good week, during which Sophia came to Kansas City for the first time. Soph and my mom and I saw Taylor Swift, and we ate barbecue, and we shopped, and our friend Cassie came over to shoot off fireworks in the driveway. But on July 9th, we woke up and our flight back to New York was canceled. This ended up being the best day of the trip: mom took us out for shaved ice. We drew on the sidewalk with chalk. We all re-watched Napoleon Dynamite as a family, and I sneaked a photo of Sophia and my brother laughing hysterically at who knows what scene.
4. September 30 – My birthday! I turned 29. Myles, who I love so much, once again understood the assignment of “maximum fun in minimum time frame.” We spent the weekend in Lake George and stayed up until midnight on my birthday so I could open a present at 12:01 (an extremely large plush cat who I’ve named Longfellow). I got more presents in the morning, before we left the hotel for the World’s Largest Garage Sale. After shopping around for souvenirs, including a baseball bat and a filigreed silver locket, we went to pirate minigolf. Then we went on a steamboat dinner cruise and won the dance contest, because the boat accidentally went through a portal to 1959. Back at the hotel, I hopped on FaceTime with my family to open even more gifts – all of which Myles dutifully loaded/unloaded into the car multiple times so I could open them on my birthday. I preened over my presents like a dragon. We ate a little cheesecake. We fell asleep watching the same episode of The Office that’s always on at a hotel.
3. December 30 – The day my family actually met Myles for the first time, and he got to see my hometown. I woke up, showered, tidied my room and put on all my most-scented lotions. He left the balmy weather of Hawaii to brave snow, slush, and empty bottles of Fireball in Missouri. He brought my little brother a chain wallet. We all went to dinner at my hometown Mexican restaurant, then went home and chit-chatted til bedtime. A perfect Saturday.
2. July 22 – Myles and Tara organized a launch party for my first-ever book of poems. Myles rented the back room of Planet Rose, a karaoke bar I love, and all my New York friends came to listen to me read poems and sing Linda Ronstadt in a twirly dress. My family and my friend Molly sent in sweet funny video messages that made me cry. It was Tara’s birthday, so we ate a cake with both our faces. I didn’t drink a drop, favoring cranberry-sprites all night, so I remember every second, including our late-night dumplings and painting my nails on the train. I took prom photos with Amy. Rebecca made me a tiny perfect mug. And my hair? My hair looked so damn good.
1. October 22 – On our third day in Las Vegas, my brother Teej and I woke up early, slathered on sunblock, and went to the When We Were Young fest. It was a sixteen-hour day, we saw 19 bands, neither of us ran our phone battery completely down, Teej only got kicked in the head by crowdsurfers a couple times, and we had the wherewithal to forgo Green Day for pizza (But, for honesty’s sake: that’s mostly cause we already saw Green Day a few years ago). My brother has been my best friend since the day he was born. Somehow, seeing him grow up makes me feel younger. It’s like we’re both kids again, equals, on a big stupid adventure with detours that become inside jokes. In Vegas, even after hours in the sun and a long day of mosh pits, we didn’t bicker. We agreed on all the bands we wanted to see. We gossipped in line at the merch tent, and ate fried chicken sprawled out in the grass. He knew every word to every song. I’m very proud to be his sister. I’m grateful he still likes hanging out with me.