2015 in Review

2015 was a Year of Tremendous Ups and Downs for me, more so than any in the past ten or fifteen years (2011 comes close). As I do at the end of every year, I try to pass along the best and worst of what I’ve read, saw, heard, and experienced.

Best book read (nonfiction):

The Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda (and no, I didn’t become a Hindu, but the book was an incredible and moving read)

Runner-up: (tie)

Watching Baseball Smarter by Zack Hample

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

Best book read (fiction): (tie)

Read nothing truly outstanding this past year. A lot of good stuff, but everything seemed to come with an exposed, swollen Achilles heel. With this in mind, a tie between two masters – Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny and Double Star by Robert Heinlein.

Worst book:

That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis. Hated it. Couldn’t finish it.

Reading notes:

I read 58 books cover-to-cover this year, 21 fiction and 37 nonfiction. Need to read more good fiction in 2016 to balance the scales. This number also includes two self-published books I bought off Amazon (and does not include reading my own!) I also read Fulton Sheen’s Life of Christ (658 pages) three times in the past twelve months. I read it twice before in the early 2000s. Since it is so sublime and meaningful to me, it is exempt from voting this year.

Trends:

Bounced from one unrelated topic to another, to varying degrees of depth, over the course of 2015:

Crusades > Catholicism > Baseball > Working Out > Self-Publishing > Unemployment > Nietzsche > Hinduism > Tom Clancy revisit > Physics revisit > War in the Pacific > Discworld > Gormenghast > Return to Working Out > Return to Catholicism > Arthurian legend > Finnegans Wake

As you can see, I had a very, very diversified year.

Best Trend:

Self-Publishing, without a doubt!

Best Movie Watched: four-way tie

The Interview (comedy)

Happy Go Lucky (indie drama)

Birdman (mainstream drama)

Cabin in the Woods (horror)

Can’t recall seeing any real good SF, but enjoyed Vin Diesel’s Riddick a lot.

Worse Movie Watched:

Mission Impossible V (or whatever the number of the latest incarnation)

Guitar achievements:

(1) Finally learned how to play “Here Comes the Sun” by George Harrison and Jimmy Page’s guitar solo the Honeydripper’s “Sea of Love”

(2) Wrote another album (8 or 9 songs). Have to start writing down these tabs …

Worst (Yet Paradoxically Best) Experience:

Being laid off in May

Undisputed Best Experience:

Hitting the Publish button on my first book, Oncewhere Walked the Whale

Best bonding experiences with the girls:

With Patch (age 6/7) – spending the day together at Van Saun Park

With Little One (age 10/11) – learning Self-Publishing with her at my side

With Both – going to Turtleback Zoo in August

Best family experiences:

(1)   Four baseball games (and taking my two little ones into NYC via bus/taxi):

        May 2, Citi Field: Nationals 1, Mets 0. Sat in highest row behind right field foul pole.

        Jun 22, Yankee Stadium: Phillies 11, Yanks 8. Sat in the first row of the left field bleachers.

        August 17, Yankee Stadium: Yanks 8, Twins 7. Sat 14 rows behind home plate.

        September 21, Citi Field: Mets 4, Braves 0. Sat halfway up behind left field foul pole.

(2)   Weeklong vacation visiting the in-laws in Hilton Head

Song of the Year:

As with last year, dunno. Not been into music much lately. Didn’t buy a single music CD all year. Classical music, once a love, bores me. Opera, once an infatuation, grates on me. Classic rock is … yawn. I need to discover something new. (This happened to me before, in 1998.) Perhaps I need to make it a ritual, when I take the girls to the library every Saturday, to borrow something weird musically and give it a listen during the week.

So, alas, this category must remain vacant for 2015.

Personal Milestones:

98 weightlifting workouts (since May)

147 miles walked (since May)

275 hours worked on the whole self-publishing thing (since May)

Painted Little One’s bedroom purple and light blue in August

Power-washed and restained my backyard deck in September

Family Milestones:

Little One’s grammar school graduation / starting middle school

Patch’s 4 goals scored this past soccer season

Wife’s new job – upward and onward, keeping Battleship Hopper afloat!

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Hwyl fawr, 2015, mai y flwyddyn nesaf fod yn un gwell!