Leona wants to see a list of my 2006 accomplishments. So here they are.Things I did in 2006:

Published in many magazines and newspapers
Moved to a new house in Petaluma
Started a writing group with Marcia called the Word Pirates
Went to Italy
Went to Victoria, Canada
Paid off my credit card
Kyle got a big raise
Kyle published a book (which he co-wrote) called Ubuntu Hacks
Planted a garden
Went to my first football game
Knitted my first sweater
Turned 30
Watched friends turn 30
Went to a lot of exciting parties
Went to literary events, from LitQuake to the Book Expo
Went to a Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament
Saw Sleater Kinney’s last concert in Portland, Oregon
Played trivia with the Glitter Ponies
Launched this website

Here is a year-end survey about 2006. You should do it too:

1. What did you do this year that you’ve never done before?

See above list.

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I kept some and let others slide, which is unusual for me. I will make a few new ones.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth this year?

Among the many people who gave birth this year, Kyle’s cousin Tonya, also maid-of-honor in my wedding, had a little girl, Emma Lyn Palumbo.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Both of my grandparents died.

5. What countries did you visit this year?

Italy and Canada

6. What would you like to have in the next year that you lacked this year?

I would like some things to happen in my career that didn’t happen this year. Other than that, I’m good.

7. What date from this year will remain etched upon your memory - and why?

December 14, 2006– the day I turned 30.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

I suppose my biggest achievement was to continue to publish in newer and better markets. I also finished my novel draft.

9. What was your biggest failure of the year?

Not completely finishing my novel. Oh, and I never did learn how to make the perfect loaf of bread.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

No.

11. What was the best thing you bought this year?

Man I love my new black dress.

12.Whose behavior merited celebration (a public or private personality)?

My husband continues to impress and amaze me with all he accomplishes.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

The President appalls and depresses me.

14. Where did most of your money go this year?

Eating out. Taxes. And some of it actually went into a savings account.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about this year?

Word Pirates!

16. What song will always remind you of this year?

Eh?

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
- happier or sadder? same
- richer or poorer? richer
- thinner or fatter? same

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

I wish that I had hiked more. I don’t know why I lost interest in nature this year. I wish I had worked harder. I wish I had kept a reading journal and read more in general.

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

I probably socialized too much this year, although it was all fun. I also ate out too much.

20. How did you spend the holidays?

New Years–A lovely dinner at Willi’s Wine Bar with Troy and Krista

Valentine’s Day — Made Kyle a buffalo steak, which we ate picnic-style in front of the fireplace of our new house

Anniversary — Kyle and I went to Monterey for the weekend.

July 4th — We celebrated Oh Canada Day in Victoria BC with Kyle’s dad, and then watched a baseball game in Tacoma, Washington.

Kyle’s birthday — Snakes on a birthday!

Halloween — Had people over and watched Evil Dead II and ate junk food.

Thanksgiving– Went up to my parent’s house in Grass Valley.

My birthday — Kyle and I went out for French food and he gave me a ruby necklace. Various relatives and friends took me out to eat. Then we had a party to celebrate.

Christmas — My mother-in-law came from Kentucky and spent a week with us. My parents came over, and I made fancy food for everyone–Cornish game hens for Christmas Eve and leg of lamb for Christmas.

21. Did you fall in love this year?

I am already in love.

22. How many one-night stands did you have this year?
Yuck.

23. What was your favorite TV program for the year?

The Office, followed closely by Heroes.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Hate is poisonous.

25. What was the best book you read this year?

Good question. Right now I’m going to go with The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, but since I didn’t keep a reading journal, it’s anybody’s guess.

26. What was your favorite film of the year?

As in, movies made in 2006? I guess Stranger Than Fiction. Marie Antoinette was also a pretty little film.

27. What albums did you like this year?

This was a great music year! I like the new albums by Neko Case, Regina Spektor, Cat Power, Beck, Jenny Lewis, The Decemberists, The Shins, and Tom Waits. I also discovered Lauryn Hill, Nellie McKay, and DJBC’s Wu Orleans Mash-up. I am still sad Sleater Kinney broke up.

28. How would you describe your personal fashion concept this year?

I tried to dress up more by wearing more skirts and make-up. I got my hair cut short and discovered I liked it. I also started wearing sunscreen.

29. Whom did you miss this year?

All my friends who moved away.

30. Who was the best new person you met this year?

I enjoy the Word Pirates. They are good people.

31. What are some things you would like to do in 2007?

I would like to go to Peru or some other interesting country, hike more, save a lot of money, shoot a gun, get a pedicure, finish editing my novel and start a new one, see an opera, give a reading with the Word Pirates, discover where the hot springs are in Calistoga, celebrate my fifth wedding anniversary, and go to Kentucky to see Kyle’s family. If possible, I would like to see the Kentucky Derby too.

The world is merging from the Christmas hibernation. Families go home. People stop eating so much chocolate. There are no more gifts to open.

But just when things should return to normal, there is one last hurrah: New Year’s Eve. More drinking and partying and over-indulging. More days off work. More traditions and “meaning” and blah blah blah.

This year, I’m not into it. This was a great Christmas, maybe one of the best. It was also one of the best birthdays. I just don’t feel the urge to continue on for a Home Run with New Years. I am feeling homey. I want to read. I do not want to see people at all.

This year was an exodus. People died. And boy did people move away. I would say 8 or 9 people I know moved, mostly because they are young and I live in an over-priced area where they can’t afford a home for their family. And for some reason, everyone equates success with owning a house, so away they go, to other areas where they can afford the housing costs, or to new jobs where they can save up the money for a house–and other things.

I moved too. I moved from Sebastopol to Petaluma in February. I’m done moving. I love it here. So if that means that I have to wait to afford the half-million it takes to buy a house here, so be it. Good things are worth the wait.

Since I was very young, I wrote down New Year’s Resolutions and kept them sincerely. But you know, three things really matter to me in this life. Somehow, I both obsess over those things and do nothing about them. Maybe it is time to really focus in a daily way, instead of some yearly grand statement of desires. At least, not a public one.

The good news is things are looking good for 2007. I have pinpointed some things that were dragging me down have rooted them out of my life. On top of that, several big problems worked themselves out on their own without me doing anything.

And, if nothing else, I have clarity now. That is important in life, don’t you think?

It is the holiday season. That means parties! In particular, my 30th birthday party, which we held here at our house. Most of the people I wanted to come came, which made me happy. There were good appetizers and good conversation and also, presents. Here are some photos, taken by party guests, probably Troy and Justin.

Kat, Krista, and Leona

Front: Kyle, Luther, Avi, Me. Back: Kat, Eric, Paul, Sasha

The side of my head, the back of Marcia, and Laura in the corner

Tony, Kyle, and Paul

Justin, Tony, Stephanie, Mark, and Krista

Me, opening presents.

Kara Jesella and Marisa Meltzer, former writers from Sassy Magazine, are publishing a book called How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time. Apparently, the book will discuss Sassy’s rise and fall from 1988 to 1994.

I was in high school during the end of Sassy’s heyday–1991-1995. A friend introduced me to the magazine and I quickly became a subscriber. I loved it. For one thing, the magazine was spot-on when it came to pop culture. They had Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love on the cover, they had advice columns written by Billy Corgan, and they printed hilariously sarcastic interviews like this one with Tiffani Amber-Theissen from Saved By the Bell, which basically implies that she’s an idiot. An excerpt:

I ask if she [Tiffani] wants to attend a real, actual college. “Yeah. I’d like to major in English literature,” she says enthusiastically. I ask who her favorite English writer is. “Oh, Maya Angelou!” she bellows. “She is great,” I say, nodding my head, “but she’s from St. Louis.” Tiffani is silent. “I know, but I’m just trying to think of somebody,” she sniffs. I press on. She says she likes a lot of Shakespeare’s lesser-known works. Like what? “Like Hamlet,” she proclaims excitedly. Oh, I hadn’t heard of that one.

Beyond all that, Sassy was informative. One article I read explained how to drink alcohol. See, Sassy didn’t bother trying to convince kids not to drink. Instead, they explained how to drink responsibly by taking you through how you feel when you have a few alcoholic beverages and how to know when to stop. I didn’t drink at that age and I wasn’t going to start by reading an article–kids are not that dumb, people–but it was fascinating to be told the truth about how alcohol affects you.

Sassy was full of stuff like that. Another article went over the ins-and-outs of kissing, which was extremely useful at the time, believe me. And that’s why the magazine was so cool: It didn’t patronize or lie to me. And although somtimes I was annoyed by the insider stuff, like how the writers would interrupt each others’ columns and use their first names like I was supposed to know who they were, I can’t deny that I wanted to work for Sassy. In fact, I bet most Sassy readers wanted to work there. After all, what teenage girl wouldn’t want a job that requires living in New York and writing about pop culture and celebrities the way we all want to write about them–raving about the good stuff, snarking about the bad?

Most of all, Sassy prized individualism. They put girls in the magazine simply because they were interesting; girls of all different colors and shapes who had their own style and defined interests. The message was do your own thing, be strong, be interesting, use your brain and your talent and explore who you are as an individual. Lots of magazines try to give teenage girls that message, but Sassy actually communicated it to their audience. And that was inspirational.

Then the magazine was shut down. It’s no wonder, really, with articles like, “My Brother’s Gay. Big Whoop” and “One American President’s Lame Drug War.” It was sold to someone else and one day, I picked up an issue of Sassy and found that it was like any other teen magazine out there–generic, dull, and vapid. I quickly lost interest.

To this day, Sassy remains one of my all-time favorite magazines. And all those articles I read still pop up every now and then. The other day I was putting my hair up, and I realized it looked like a Sassy cover shot from a prom issue. On it, a girl’s hair was pulled up in a sloppy grungy way, and then covered with white rosebuds. As a 16-year-old, it seemed downright radical to have sloppy hair for prom, but I also thought it looked pretty cool. As an adult, looking at a similar style (sans rosebuds) in the mirror, I thought my hair looked really sloppy–but I also thought it looked pretty cool.

It’s my birthday. I have to clean the house and go shopping and do some interviews. Grown up! Tonight we’re going to dinner in San Francisco. I may or may not wear my new dress.

My main problem with all this birthday stuff is that my 20s are now over. They are in the past, a historical period of my life, no longer an ongoing thing. It seems impossible that I have lived 30 years, that I have aged enough that my body is showing signs of age–tiny signs, but signs nevertheless–and that if this were medieval times, my life expectancy would be about up.

But whatever. I did what I did in my 20s. I didn’t waste that much time; I accomplished stuff. I got married and published and earned two degrees and visited seven countries and 19 states and ate a lot of good food. I made friends, moved 10 times, owned 4 cars, and one cat. I worked as a reporter, a waitress, a sales clerk, a dish washer, an editor, a teacher, a secretary, a medical receptionist, a mail clerk, a delivery driver, and a website designer. I climbed several (small) mountains and interviewed celebrities. I saw wonders of nature, skies filled with shooting stars, large colorful holes in the ground. I visited most of the major museums of Europe and saw most of the wonders of the Western cultural world. I was given Kyle. I started my own business, of sorts.

And I learned a lot. In fact, my 20s may have been more about learning than anything else.

Honestly, now that I think about it, the only thing that really bothers me is that I didn’t publish a book in my 20s.

Crap.

I had planned to do that. Hmmmm ….

Oh well.

Me Age 20.

(I am holding money in the second picture because my parents had just given me some cash to spend on a trip to Washington DC. )

Sometimes it overwhelms me how many people want to write. Who are they? Are they all as passionate about it as I am? Are they more passionate? Or do they just want to write because of all the “fame” and “money” involved?

I blame Hemingway. I really do. Maybe Jack London. Those writers in the early 20^th century who created macho myths about being writers because they didn’t want to look like nancy boys who liked pretty delicate verses.

Or maybe I blame Gertrude Stein for launching the first wide-scale publicity campaign for a book when she came to America promoting The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. Or maybe Shakespeare for getting cozy with royalty. Or maybe all the kings and queens themselves who wrote–and published–for vanity’s sake.

Or Madonna. For thinking she can write children’s books.

In any case, someone, somewhere, made writing look like the intellectual equivalent of being a rock star. Writing became about being really smart, really rich, and downright legendary. Maybe a good sentence isn’t as sexy as a good guitar chord, but by golly, the idea of that sentence is.

Because of this, there is an entire industry telling people what they can do to! get! published! It’s something akin to the weight loss industry–lots of promises about finding that one magic trick to shortcut to the goal. And of course, the truth is, to get published you must employ discipline, drudgery, and faith for a long period of time. Just like you must do to lose weight.

In a perfect world, there would be a far smaller pool of wannabe writers than readers. In the 1930s, for example, more people read than wanted to write. Now, it seems like more people want to write than read. I have talked to plenty of creative writing majors who complain when they have to take an English class because they hate to read.

Here’s what I think: You have no business wanting to write a book unless you deeply love to read. Books have to be your life or you simply won’t succeed. This sounds harsh, but it is a practical suggestion. You have no idea what has been done–what is cliché, what is new, etc.–without reading. You have no layering of language and vocabulary in your subconscious to draw upon in your own work. So if you want to write and you don’t read, my advice is to write for your own pleasure and leave publishing up to people who do love books (and therefore know something about them).

Also: Writing is not going to make anyone a rock star. Steven King or Salman Rushdie are not rock stars. Oh yeah, I can see how someone might be confused. Rushdie is married to a supermodel and gets written up in Page Six. King is wealthy and famous and in a band with Amy Tan. But I bet they don’t feel like rock stars when they are sitting down at the keyboard. Writing is just too mundane and boring for that.

So when should you be a writer? When you feel that you haven’t experienced anything until you have put words to it. When you have so many thoughts and ideas that you will go nuts if you don’t put them down on paper. When it’s fun to be inside your imagination, and you think other people would agree. When you love language so much you can sit for 20 minutes debating which of two synonyms sound better in a particular sentence. When you have read much of the great literature out there and still, somehow, feel that you could have something to contribute to the conversation.

But most of all: When you can look at the fact that you will probably never be a Salman or a Steven, and in fact, you may just modestly publish your entire life and die forgotten–and yet, still, you want to get up every day and engage with words on the page. Because you have to. Because you aren’t really good for much else. And because without it, you wouldn’t know your own life. You wouldn’t even recognize yourself.

Do you think people would be as fascinated with what Famously! Reclusive! Writer! Thomas Pynchon looks like if they knew that he is a perfectly ordinary-looking middle-aged man who wears red baseball caps? (Or was 10 years ago anyway.)

Based on this guy’s obsessive analyzing a short video clip of Pynchon walking down the street, I guess not.

Pynchon’s new book came out this month. I’m not likely to read it. I’m just being realistic here: I still haven’t read Gravity’s Rainbow and only got one-third of the way through Mason and Dixon. However, The Crying of Lot 49 still remains one of my favorite books.

Thanks to Bookninja for the link.