2017 was a watershed year for me. Roughly in chronological order, I:
Went to therapy for the first time in 5 years
Got over a case of prostatitis
Got a Nintendo switch, which is dope; Zelda: BoTW is clearly one of the best games ever made
Drifted away from close friends and romantic partners in the Palouse which I feel guilty about
Presented my research on ab-initio Raman spectra of liquid nitrogen at the NNSA-SSAP conference in Naperville, IL
Left physics academia, probably permanently
Bleached my hair white and colored it blue several times
Moved away from a partner and two cats in Pullman whom I miss and love very much
Moved in with another partner in Manhattan whom I love very much
Spent a lot of time at the Recurse Center, met very cool folks there and worked on great things that piqued my interest and eventually helped me to transition my career into the tech industry
Joined a fiction book club
Went on NY basic health extended medicaid while I was unemployed and very thankful for the safety net
Ate at no fewer than a dozen vegan spots in New York City
Reconnected with many old friends whom I haven’t seen in a long time
Got to see a lot more of my family than I have in 3 years
Was pretty broke, living on savings for half a year, while also helping to support two partners near and far, but it worked out pretty well, all things considered. Found out I’m a really good homemaker
Went to a squirting workshop, which was one of the best ways I’ve ever spent a Friday night
Learned shibari to an intermediate level
Got hit by a car while riding a citibike, which was shitty, but I didn’t break anything so, not that bad in the grand scheme of things
Joined the DSA and started doing some political organizing things around town, mostly in a technology-related realm like algorithmic transparency
Listened to more podcasts than music
Went to Catholic Mass for the first time, in the context of my aunt and uncle renewing their vows for their 40th anniversary
Went to a Jewish Renewal service for the first time, which was actually pretty great and reminded me of Lungfish
Got bitten by the functional programming bug
Met a lot of new dogs
Started going to spas/bathhouses, which I can’t believe I haven’t done previously
Did major upgrades and interior design work for my apartment on the cheap
Got two most excellent tattoos from a shop around the corner from my folks house which is now probably my favorite shop
Read the Three Body Problem trilogy by Cixin Liu, which is now my favorite book series I’ve ever read
Saw the Total Solar eclipse in Lake Cascade, ID, holy shit
Got Moviepass, which is ridiculous
Conducted a ~3 month long job search (and collected some unemployment during it) that ended with a dynamic and interesting role that will develop my career as a data scientist
Did not make a zillion dollars in crypto and that’s fine
Got domestic partnership’d for health insurance
Walked a great many walks and got familiar with NYC in a brand new way
Saw several awesome shows in NYC: Wire, Messthetics, Oxbow/SDF, The Make Up/James Chance/Martin Rev, Juana Molina
Did a lot of vegan outreach
Re-joined Facebook, mostly use it to cross-post from Twitter and IG, but feel pretty all right about it
Read more books in a year than I have in a very long time, which I hope to continue
Still straight edge as hell
Realized I need to call people close to me on the phone more often because talking to humans feels good
Realized I should probably write more
Realized I should probably finish some of the fun and thought provoking projects I started so that I can have some interesting things to write about
abehmiel 