Just keep moving on-

Welcome, Year 2014 of the Common Era! The Year 2013 kept me quite busy, and I hope that 2014 does the same – though perhaps not quite as busy. Self-evidently, blogging fell by the wayside as having finite amounts of time to allocate took its toll. I don’t regret any of the things that I did allocate that time to, though. Okay, that’s a dirty lie, I do regret some of those hours playing Marvel Heroes Online. Not all of them. Many of them. But not all of them. But most of those higher priorities were not regrettable things: finishing a thesis, receiving my Masters degree, building my career, being a healthier person, moving to the city of my dreams, learning how to have a social life as an adult who isn’t completely consumed by their work.

I’ll be doing a year-in-review post in my personal journal, but on a whole, I don’t wish to get bogged down in the past. Despite that, there are a few items from the previous year that I still want to share and will thus be revisiting at some future point.

Look forward to my expounding on such topics as:

• How the Les Misérables movie, which I saw about a year ago, still reduces me to incoherent ranting!
• Being a drag king among queens!
• Becoming a professional! Like, really!
• Eating all the food in Minneapolis!
• Doing all the exercise! (Please see previous item.)
• Welcome to Night Vale!
• Welcome to New York fucking City!

But mostly, I’ll be moving on.

Sometime within the first third of 2013, I was eating alone in the cheap-quick-and-delicious noodle house by my office at grad school, and while I usually used such opportunities to watch random episodes of Criminal Minds on the television over the dining area, I was drawn into eavesdropping on a conversation between two young men a couple tables over. One of them was explaining to his friend that each of his years had a theme. That year, 2013, was his year of connection. Things such as keeping in touch with family, setting work aside to go out with friends, replying to personal e-mails, being sure to have quality time with other people – those were prioritized. And when he did things, he tried to remember to ask himself if what he was doing improved connection.

Right then and there, I decided to totally steal his idea. Thanks, random dude.

And so, many months after that, near the end of December, I decided to go at it a little sideways and give myself a mantra, something that I could remind myself of very quickly and easily.

2014: The Year of Action.

Or: The Year of Just Do It Except Without Stepping On Any Trademarks.

Or: The Year of Shit Or Get Off The Pot.

Being true to my word, I actually began enacting my theme before 2013 has even ended. I didn’t let e-mails sit unread in my inbox, just building up anxiety. I entered a contest with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra where you had to submit a video – I can’t remember the last time I entered a contest that required the time and risk of a creative submission. I got myself tickets to a couple of Broadway shows that I really wanted to see but had been hemming and hawing about for months. I wrote that Welcome to Night Vale fan fiction idea that had been bouncing around in my head since November, after not having written any fictional prose in about four years and I’m pretty sure that the last thing I wrote was porn. I organized a karaoke party with friends. I put on my bowler hat. I finished the cover letter for that job application. I finished that bottle of champagne.

I’m here doing this.

And, of course, when I did each thing, I pumped my fist in the air, assumed a superhero pose, and yelled "ACTION!!" like I was about to rush headlong into battle.

So stay tuned: we’re going to get the blood flowing here again.