It’s the end of the year, and the end of a decade too, so I figured why not list some of the stuff I consumed this past year …that’s something people do, right?

Games I Played

This wasn’t a great year for my backlog; I bought and wish-listed more games than I finished… and even among this short list, many sit waiting for me to pickup a save that will possibly never happen. I will loop back around to several of them (Death Stranding in particular), but others will never get that love. Horizon Zero Dawn, for instance, will sit unfinished forever; it’s too long and I remember nothing of it. What I played was fine, but it never grabbed me, shook me, or demanded to be finished.

• Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
• Death Stranding*
• Eliza
• Hollow Knight*
• Return of the Obra Dinn
• Baba is You*
• Cuphead*
• My Friend Pedro
• SUPERHOT
• Untitled Goose Game
• Star Wars Battlefront 2
• Horizon Zero Dawn*

* Any title with an asterisk wasn’t finished and may never be.

Books I Read

I didn’t hit my GoodReads goal for 2019 (a mere eighteen books), but I always place that goal at 1.5 books per month and can rarely keep pace. Especially during semesters where I teach in the evenings, freetime is at a minimum and most of my spare hours are spent either asleep or catching up on reading/grading for class.

• “Fathers Day” by Mathew Zapruder*
• “Mort” by Terry Pratchett*
• “Radicalized” by Cory Doctorow*
• “No Matter The Wreckage” by Sarah Kay*
• “Guards! Guards!” by Terry Pratchett
• “Medallion Status” by John Hodgeman
• “Good Omens” by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
• “Are You Listening” by Tillie Walden
• “Master & Apprentice” by Claudia Gray
• “American Gods” by Neil Gaiman
• “Urban Tumbleweeds” by Harryette Mullen

* Any title with an asterisk wasn’t finished in 2019 but unlike games, these will be wrapped up before Spring hits Wisconsin.

Albums I Streamed

A good chunk of last year was spent replaying the same albums over and over and over while I wrote and illustrated different zines (eg: the entire Animal Crossing one was written and drawn to the blink-182 albums listed below). It’s a brain-hack that helps me get back into the same flow day after day, or week after week in some cases, but it makes my yearly playlists very boring.

• “[USA]” by Anamanaguchi
• “Para Mi” by Cuco
• “7 EP” by Lil Nas X
• “Neighborhoods” and “Dogs Eating Dogs” by blink-182*
• “Bash Brothers” by The Lonely Island
• “In Fina We Trust” and “Yellow Ranger” by Awkwafina*
• “Into The Spiderverse” Soundtrack
• “Umbrella Academy” Soundtrack
• “Doolittle” and “Surfer Rosa” by The Pixies*
• “Go” by Motion City Soundtrack*
• “From Under The Cork Tree” by Fall Out Boy

* Any title with an asterisk was part of a replay loop that helped me in the making of zines. I don’t think any of them came out recently either.

Movies I Watched

I’m definitely missing things here but that’s because I put on movies to rewatch when doing certain tasks… anything that’s repetitive or almost automated is helped along by being somewhat distracted. I also deploy that tactic to fall asleep at night. Or to just let my mind wander. Anyway, these are the ones I explicitly remember watching for the first time in 2019.

• Paterson
• Steve Jobs
• Loving Vincent
• John Wick 3
• Godzilla: King of the Monsters
• Pokemon Detective Pikachu
• The Shape of Water
• Unfinished Spaces
• Shutter Island
• Wordplay

Wrap-Up

There were also a lot of things I did this year that weren’t related to media consumption that I should probably list out in some fashion because it was a big year for me, and I pushed myself in ways I never have.

• Tabled at 5 ZineFests across the Midwest!
  • Milwaukee, St. Louis, Kansas City, Minneapolis, and Racine
• Started my corporate job as a Senior UX Designer (finally getting into the field I’ve been aiming for since going back for my BFA!)
• Have continued reading, learning, and sharing info about Accessibility and Universal/Inclusive Design at the new job, just like I did at the old one
• Have been seeing a therapist weekly since June (thanks to Talkspace putting some distance between me and their couch)
• Dabbled in freelance work again for the first time in years (my previous experiences were all super bad)
• Tired and failed to keep up a journal (which I’m trying again in 2020)
• Adopted a third cat (Bully!) who has somehow brokered a shaky peace agreement between Charli and Marley.

I’m sure there’s much more from 2019 but these were what I could remember in late December while laid out on pain-meds for another kidney stone attack. Time has a funny way of minimizing past events and making the recent ones seem more important or powerful or something.

In 2020, I plan to write more regularly, read with more veracity, start fewer games so I can finish the ones I start, and take more time to celebrate our accomplishments (the big and small) with my partner / best-friend / biggest supporter (Debbie). We can both get so zoned-into our passions that we ignore things we shouldn’t and they deserve the best I have to offer, not what slivers of time/energy I have left at the end of the day or week.

Here’s to 2020. It can’t be worse than 2019, right? *knocks on wood*