My 80 of 2023
The Best and The Rest
I was going to write a top 100 of 2023 but once I got started, I realized I don’t have a strong enough memory to recall every best thing this year so this is a list that is a mix of my favorite things this year and then other stuff that I enjoyed, but slightly less so. This is in no particular order, and links are to other columns of mine. I trust you can use one of many popular search engines to find more information about these items. I would just ask that, if you decide to buy any of the books online, please shop at bookshop.org instead of Amazon.
I started running again this year, and it feels different than it had in the past. I used a running app called 5K Runner that set easy targets (another recommended app is Slow AF Run Club). I run slower and listen to podcasts instead of music to keep my pace manageable. I haven’t gotten injured, I haven’t felt lonely, and I’m glad running is back in my life.
I did a lot of writing this year. I formed a writers’ group with classmates from a writing workshop and it has been very successful. We are mostly strangers to each other (or were) but we all like each other’s work. I took two scriptwriting classes and worked on a novel and my memoir. I wrote more than 30 decisions. I’ve written a newsletter for 30 straight weeks. Writing no longer feels like my side thing.
I started taking Pilates in September and I have to begrudgingly acknowledge that I like it. Begrudgingly because it’s the kind of thing I am disinclined to like: it’s organized and fit women do it and it’s expensive. But I also feel a lot stronger without the soreness of weight lifting and the fake spirituality of yoga.
Three-quarters of my family went to Ireland this summer for a week, and we had such a great time that it’s a little hard to play favorites here but Inis Mor takes the prize. The best part was riding around the island on a bike.
Visiting the Old SodI thought I would write a quick dispatch from vacation because I absolutely hate breaking a streak, and I’ve been on one for 12 weeks of writing this newsletter. We are visiting in Ireland and it’s been great. I suppose I should say, “It’s been grand,” but if I’m totally honest, I think it sounds corny to adopt phrases I’ve heard as a tourist and act li…
Andrea Dooley
The Summer Book, Tove Jansson
Ragnar Kjartansson: The Visitors video installation at the SFMOMA features nine large video screens around the walls of a black room, each featuring a musician playing their part in Kjartansson’s composition from a different room of a large house in the Hudson Valley. On one screen, a group of people sit on the porch outside, listening. They’re also tinkering with a cannon, and if you’re lucky, you’ll be in the room when they set it off.
Wiser Than Me podcast with Julia Louis-Dreyfuss
Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma, Claire Dederer
After our black taxi tour of Belfast, I wanted to learn more about The Troubles so I read Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe. Highly recommend.
The Great Escape, Saket Soni is probably one of the most thrilling labor tales I’ve come across. If you like thrillers, you’ll like it. If you care about labor, you’ll love it.
A friend who is married to an Irishman gave me a list of books to read before or during my trip. Big Girl, Small Town by Michelle Gallen is so good. The narrator is a strange (i.e. neuro-atypical) young woman who works in a chips shop, shags her co-worker, and tries to sort out her family’s story.
Things I Don’t Want to Know, Deborah Levy
Cost of Living, Deborah Levy- I really can’t recommend Deborah Levy’s memoirs often enough. I didn’t re-read Real Estate, which is why it’s not on this list, but it should be.
I saw Big Joanie open for Sleater-Kinney a few years ago but couldn’t remember their name. Fortunately, Brook stumbled across them a few months ago and has had it on repeat. They rank among the better riot grrrl bands to still be playing music.
Not Too Late, Rebecca Solnit, to calm your climate-freakout nerves.
Okay, this is a weird, non-sponsored recommendation for which I will provide some back story. I have a friend who complained about her hair a lot and I assumed (based on knowing her for more than 10 years) that she didn’t like to spend a lot of money on hair products. I kept getting ads for Prose custom shampoo in my algo so I decided to get some for her birthday. But I knew that she’d feel vindicated if I spent money on something that didn’t make a difference, so I decided to try it first. Reader: It works. It makes my hair feel very nice. My hair does not get damaged. My hairdresser even complimented it. At this point, I am also using their custom skincare ingredients too. It’s not more expensive than other salon stuff so if you’ve also been bombarded by their ads, you have my permission to check them out.
I’ve always loved Lauryn Hill and The Fugees but getting to see them live for the first time in 25 years was an absolute high point of my year. They canceled the tour after the next show (in SF) so I am extra glad that I went.
Trent Crimm: I went as him for Halloween and it made other people laugh, which made me happy.
Me, dressed as Trent Crimm for Halloween My favorite pen is the Precise V5 Rolling Ball (Black) and it has been for more than twenty years. I am thinking about branching out next year though. We’ll see.
I didn’t discover pedicures in 2023 but I did decide that if, like Trump, I were to be a dictator for one day, I would order everyone to get at least one pedicure in their life. The reason is that everyone needs to learn that their toes do not need to look the way they do. There’s a better way, and it’s called proper nail care.
We bought these fantastic light fixtures from David Trubridge and I assembled them and I think they are cool as hell.
The recently renovated upper floor of our beach house. I got a Coin plant clipping, aka Pilea Peperomioides, from a lady in the local Buy Nothing Facebook group and it’s starting to grow (both the plant and the group).
Stinson Beach was already my favorite place in California and by some insane luck, we were able to snag a tiny cottage on the hillside that is already my favorite place within my favorite place in California.
The lobster roll at Fisherman’s Cove in Bodega Bay
All the Italian sandwiches I ate
Ways of Seeing, John Berger
Great advice 1: “No is a complete sentence.”
Great advice 2: “Don’t bite the hook.”
Great advice 3: “All unsolicited advice is inherently criticism.”
Shaken Loose by Ilana DeBare
The Joan Brown retrospective introduced me to an amazing artist whose colors and themes were ahead of their time.
Going away on short trips with friends
In Fair Play, a card game, partners discuss and divide up household and family tasks to create a division of labor that works for both people. It’s not exactly a “fun” game but it’s a very useful framework for discussing topics that are normally, shall we say, “fraught.”
Making quilts
Quilts I completed in 2023. On Instagram: mylothecat does amazing mashups of cartoons and Muppet videos with classic hip-hop tracks.
raylan_the_dog is a mutt who fosters kittens and they are adorable.
cars.destroyed.our.cities shows, well, how cars have destroyed our cities, and how we can rebuild them for humans.
Speaking of mutts, this year, our family started fostering dogs. We were blessed to be the family of Watson, Doxy, Mary Ann, and another dog whose name escapes me. Oops. All of these great dogs found loving forever families and next year, I will make sure to write down the names of the dogs we foster.
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I’ve always avoided this book because of its subtitle, “A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity.” I shake my head with mild embarrassment. But hear me out: it’s good. There are 12 weeks of readings and exercises, and it has a little higher power talk, but there’s a reason it’s been a best seller for 25 years. Reading this book, and doing even just a few of the exercises, can help you make life choices and see your talents in a better light. I feel corny recommending it, but it was one of the better things I encountered in 2023.
Nate Bargatze’s comedy specials. Also, if you haven’t seen it, go search for “Nate Bargatze SNL George Washington” and watch the sketch. Thank me later.
I also like Taylor Tomlinson. She’s very funny.
Derry Girls
Documentary Now is an absolute freaking delight.
I wasn’t sure where The Forgotten would go after its last season, but they pulled it off, even with a slightly less likable female lead. If you like cold cases and/or British mystery, check it out but watch from Season 1.
Special Ops: Lioness is a really good CIA thriller series with a largely female cast. Its end is a little unsatisfying and its violent, but even Nicole Kidman’s unmovable Botoxed face couldn’t turn me off from watching it.
CA-12 candidate Lateefah Simon
Keep Sweet is a four-part documentary about Warren Jeffs and the treatment of young women in his branch of Mormonism. So disturbing but it’s watchable because his victims (i.e. child bride survivors) tell the stories.
The Rest
There are two reasons that the rest aren’t on The Best List: I didn’t finish them or there was some component that I didn’t like. For example, Dead Loch is hilarious, but the scene-chewing by the main character’s partners the wife and the cop) annoyed me. I am more than happy to argue you with you about any of them.
Books
- Yellowface, RF Kuang
- Babel, RF Kuang
- Interior Chinatown, Charles Yu
- The Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit
- The Easy Life, Margarite Duras
- Go Ahead In the Rain, Hanif Abdurraqib
- Station Eleven, Emily Mandel
Movies
- Glass Onion
- Interstellar
- Bullet Train
- Adam’s Rib
- Oppenheimer
- Book Club
- Chicago
- Mad Max Fury Road
- Barbie
- Salt
- Turn the Page
- Inception
- The Last Waltz
- The Old Guard
- The Eyes of Tammy Faye
- Asteroid City
TV
- Keep Sweet
- Station Eleven
- Silo
- Slow Horses
- The Bodyguard
- Queer Eye
- Righteous Gemstones
- Life On Our Planet
- The Lincoln Lawyer
- Dead Loch
