2KX, In Review (Sorta)

Happy New Year, dearest Internet!

I saw a lot of naysaying about 2010 on the Internet—blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.—and I'd like to respectfully disagree. (And where was that naysaying all of the years I complained? Hmmmmm?) I had a pretty great 2010 (though it was not without its own special stress and angst). In fact...

• I finally wrote out everything I wanted to do...and posted it online. (To less ridicule than expected.)
• I learned to embroider, use a sewing machine, and quilt. And then I made a quilt. A big one!
• I went to two roller derby exhibitions. (One in DC and one in Hagerstown.) 
• I saw Ted Leo twice in one day.
• I got a job, after nine months of unemployment.
• I move to New York.
• I found a place to live, in Brooklyn. In the cutest, charmingest, nicest, house near the subway that ever was. 
• I developed a steadier gate for running at full speed.
• I started eating fried fish, and realized I might like it. 
• I started watching Bones and realized I'm obsessed with it. (Thanks, Js.)
• My niece, the cutest, smartest, sweetest baby ever, was born.
• I taught myself to make more cocktails.
• I spent a long afternoon in the American Museum of Natural History.
• I spent a short afternoon in the Museum of Sex.
• I took my first Bolt Bus ride. I've taken so many rides that I earned a free trip. (Which I then took, and realized how great fried fish is with curry sauce.) 
• YOU GUYS, I GOT A JOB AND MOVED TO NEW YORK.
• I got a passport.
• I shoveled so much snow that I cried. That's bad, but it was an accomplishment. an accomplishment that led to a vow to never shovel again. (And because I wasn't in Brooklyn for the blizzard, I haven't had to.)
• I walked miles and miles and miles every day. I looked up routes on maps and said, "That's only a mile and a half each way. That's fine."
• I rode a bicycle from Bushwick to DUMBO. (AND BACK.)
• I discovered liege waffles, first in DC, and then in New York. I then committed a lifelong love for Waffles & Dinges.
• I went to the Central Park zoo.
• I toured the NBC studios.
• I started doing yoga.
• I threw a yard sale. A yard sale so epic that I invited my aunt, who lives in Indiana, to help us manage it. The yard sale was a bust, so we donated most of it. (Our adventures were not a bust.)
• I helped host a baby shower!
• I started Anne of Green Gables. (I started book three, Anne of the Island yesterday.)
• I learned and perfected Korean pancakes.
• I ate a lot of Korean food, having discovered my love for it in 2009.
• I watched a lot of Lifetime. 
• I joined a knitting group!
• I made a 13+-layer cake.
• I crossed the Brooklyn Bridge...several times.
• And yesterday, I opened a Roth IRA. It wasn't on my "life list" but I've been meaning to open an IRA for a long time. And I did it! YAY.

It's a lot of small, exciting things. This year I'm going to Oregon. Next weekend I'm going to the Guggenheim, and hopefully I'll take the No Pants Ride later this month.

Today I'm going to see Somewhere at the Angelika Theatre, and then I might buy tea in a cafe I loved when I was in high school. I used to fantasize that I'd pop in whenever I felt like it. In 2010 my life became what I hoped it would be when I was 17. Sometimes that's been overwhelming, or disappointing, but mostly it's just been comforting.

Happy New Year. I hope your 2011 is as satisfying as my 2010.