something something good enough: 2015.

I went to a holiday party a couple of weeks ago (the only one I’ve been to this year, which may or may not say something about me) and there were, as entertainment, tarot readings. “Jacqui,” one of the hosts said, snagging me as I left the kitchen, “we need people to sign up for readings! Will you do one?”

“Sure,” I said, game for most metaphysical exercises, and then I sat down with Jim. The reading was good, pretty positive, though of course I don’t remember much of it now. One thing has stayed with me: “You’ll achieve [maybe he said ‘get’?] 95% of what you want, but you won’t be satisfied with it.”

It’s not really a prediction for the future so much as it is a true thing about how I’ve been. I wrote a lot this year and thought a lot and read a lot and watched a lot of TV. I got a White House press pass! I had a lovely month at a writers’ colony. I connected with wonderful people. A review of mine made it onto LARB’s most-read list; I was invited to write a year-end thing for The Awl that I’m very happy with. And yet it’s December 24 and I’m not on your longreads list and no one has asked for my recommendations or my Year in Reading and I haven’t sold my book yet and I’m annoyed about all of that, and I’m annoyed that I’m annoyed about it, and I also just want to be thrilled for my friends’ successes, too. But I, probably like you, am a petty perfectionist, so here we are.

And yet. There’s a lot to appreciate, to feel proud of & grateful for. The 95% is, I think, pretty wonderful. I have some amazing forthcoming stuff, too, which I hope I can appreciate as “enough.”

Book reviews: I love writing book reviews, and they also take me forever. I guess that’s good, because it means I consider things carefully, and authors deserve that, but I end up working myself down to pennies per word. Oops. Anyway, I reviewed Jon Ronson’s So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, Andrew Hartman’s A War for the Soul of America, and Richard Beck’s We Believe the Children.

Food writing: I’d also never done any food writing before I took some assignments for Jason Diamond at Men’s Journal. Food writing is really fun! I don’t know that I have much more to say about it than that? I wrote about & reviewed seltzer and whitefish salad.

Police & policing: I covered (and am still working on writing about) this year’s International Association of Chiefs of Police conference. So far, I’ve finished a piece about the links between the War on Poverty & the War on Crime.

History: I dug up the story of a shocking academic murder for Chronicle Vitae. For Lapham’s Quarterly, a piece about Andrew Carnegie and the communities that refused his philanthropy.

Media history & television: My favorite piece this year is this history of the television show Kukla, Fran & Ollie. I love that it is very tender. I was delighted to write about the history of ABC Family (sorry, Freeform), something I’ve wanted to do for a while. And here’s a Top Ten Shows of 2015 list I did for MensJournal.com

Personal: An essay on patriotism for Pacific Standard, which is (like almost everything I write) about my mother.

Miscellaneous: Snuck some radical activism into the local alt-weekly’s Best Of issue.

Wonderful people I’ve worked with (or am working with now): The dudes of AwlCo, Railan Brooks, Esther Breger, Jason Diamond, Reyhan Harmanci, Evan Kindley, Dan Kois, Helen Rosner, Angela Serratore, Doree Shafrir, Ted Scheinman, Greg Veis, Karolina Waclawiak, & always Allison Wright.

Kind friends who have read drafts for me or otherwise been roped into my mishegoss: Martha Bayne, Eiren Caffall, Monique Daviau, Eva Hagberg Fisher, Elon Green, Evan Kindley, Amelia Newburg, Eve Crawford Peyton, Katie Rose Guest Pryal, Choire Sicha, & Jes Skolnik.

Also, I got another cat, made coffee for myself at home almost every day, traveled a lot, cried to the Fun Home soundtrack, ate burgers with Jes most Wednesdays, and said, out loud, to my therapist, “You know, not being loved enough hasn’t been my problem for a really long time.” This little life (P.S. didn’t care for that book) of mine is sweet and funny. It’s a pleasure to be awake to it.

If you want to find me on Twitter or sign up for my dumb ol’ Tinyletter, please do. Happy New Year. I hope you get everything you want—all 100 percent of it.