For Zero Mostel

I do love a good tradition. For the most part I no longer write nor read blog memes but, since this one is only once a year, I keep up with it. I like it, actually. Seems especially fun to be answering it on the very last day of the year. Thanks to Aunt Becky for answering this year so I could copy and paste for my own answers!

1. What did you do in 2012 that you’d never done before?
Visited Italy. Went to Ellis Island. Performed my new cabaret show. Owned an iPhone. Promoted my photography business.

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I do the Life List thing and I sort of count that as resolutions. That and choosing a word for the year. (Looks like 2013 is going to be ASK.) I made progress on the list so I think I did pretty well. I also finished up my 365 project that was started in 2011, so that was good, too.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Apparently. At least one of them I only heard about after the child was born. Such is the nature of the long distance friendship with chronic workaholics.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Sort of. I mean, yes, but it's hard to explain. For example, this summer my next door neighbor, Ms. Hall, died unexpectedly. It's very weird not to see her anymore though we only spoke generally as neighbors. A few similar connections were severed this year and they all sucked.

5. What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012?
More performance opportunities, more photographic opportunities, more writing opportunities, more naps.

6. What countries did you visit?
Italy!

7. What date from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why:
September 9 was the day we came back from Italy. Not sure why that's the date that sticks with me but it does.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting my new cabaret show up on its feet. I've been working on it for more than a year and, as we took off for Italy, I thought it wouldn't happen this year and I despaired. Apparently a couple of weeks in a foreign country can change things.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Not taking my mom in that gondola. I will always regret that.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I was sick for about 6 months with vague respiratory ailments that sucked donkey dick. Let's not do that again.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
iPhone. Time with an Accompanist. Tickets to Italy. All the food in Italy. All the prosecco in Italy. So much dog training.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Everyone who pitched in after the superstorm (and every other disaster).

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Pretty much every politician ever. There are exceptions but so few it seems it might be a jinx to name them.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Cabaret-related expenses (vocal coaching, accompanist, music, PR).

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Honestly, so little, even though I do awesome things. I have ridiculous superstitions about not getting too excited in case something doesn't happen. I call them ridiculous but the one huge excitement I remember off the bat is when I met who I thought was the right accompanist. I got so giddy I went home and wrote a whole show and handed it over to him like a High School flirty note when next we met. He read it and shot me down and continued to shoot me down until I'd absolutely given up. I had a lot further to fall.

16. What song will always remind you of 2012?
Adam & Eve by October Project.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Happier
ii. thinner or fatter? Thinner, praise the powers!
iii. richer or poorer? I think about the same.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Writing.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Wheezing. Worrying.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
I did spend Christmas in New England with friends and family eating yummy food and watching my dog be gloriously foolish.

21. There was no #21. I don’t know why there was no 21.

22. Did you fall in love in 2012?
No.

23. How many one-night stands?
Zero (slacker!).

24. What was your favorite TV program?
What wasn't? The Hour, Burn Notice, Raising Hope, Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, Walking Dead...I could go on and on and on.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Let's not use that word but there is one community member that I do wish would evaporate. (Or at least move to Borneo.)

26. What was the best book you read?
Just Kids by Patti Smith and let me tell you that was a surprise for me.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I think it was this year, Susan Werner. I knew of her but then I knew her and I'm in love in so many ways.

28. What did you want and get?
My cabaret show.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Man, this is a toughie. I tried to keep better track this year but I fell down. I can narrow down to three. Either Anna Karenina, Albert Nobbs, or Pina.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I cannot remember what I did on the actual day I turned 43, I'm going to have to look it up. OK, apparently I answered this meme on my birthday last year. If I'm reading the photos correctly that's basically the only thing of any significance that I did on the actual day. I did plenty of celebrating on other days, though!

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Kissing, lots of kissing.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012?
"I can breathe in this so it'll have to do!"

34. What kept you sane?
Writing, even on the internet.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Craig Ferguson. There's probably something very wrong about fantasizing about being someone's fourth wife.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
The entire election. It got to the point where I was honestly terrified of Romney winning, even though I knew I'd survived the second W. Bush term.

37. Who did you miss?

One might think I wouldn't still miss my dog, Emily, enough for her to be in this category but one would be wrong.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
My knitting circle gals are pretty rad. Huge variety of folks and everyone so sweet and weird in the best ways.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012:
Only skimming the guidebook can lead to great surprises and greater disappointments.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
"Only ever really one story/a boy and a girl/ and the end of the world..."