january 7th, 2022
Two of my middle school friends were in the news last month. One was fired as a school lunch cook for writing “LET'S GO BRANDON” on a wall calendar. The other was in a NYTimes story about Planned Parenthood and its inadequate on-the-ground protection for abortion, especially with respect to women of color. Planned Parenthood, and my middle school friend (now a fairly high level comms director for them), believed in the power of the Roe precedent.
Did the shabbiness of our middle school experience translate into shabby adults? Could i have ignited reason and courage in my friends, and by now read news about them that would make me proud?
Of course i'll never know all the people who've followed my example and stood up to a bully, to a sexual harasser, to an authority figure of poor character.
i've found grace by letting myself believe that polarized and shabby quality of thought is a function of lead-poisoned water, lead-poisoned minds.
january 1st, 2022
Five or six years ago i took the 6 bus from downtown Chicago to Hyde Park and sat next to a middle-aged duo talking about climate change.
“I'm not afraid,” said one. “We'll just grow oranges in Montréal.” That's what climate change meant to them: that the equator would get inhabitably warm and we'd shuffle ourselves closer to the poles in a calm and orderly fashion. Enjoy the novelty of Hot Canada.
i think about that couple on the bus a lot. i think that the people around me won't really understand what climate change is until there isn't food at the grocery store.
And with that! How'd i do on my 2021 goals ??
goals for 2021
- get the COVID-19 vaccine
Did this in April and May of 2021, and boosted in November 2021.
- run again
No. Although i had two periods of daily cardiovascular workouts, one in January and the other in April.
- celebrate nine years of sobriety
Yes!
- prioritize eight hours or more of sleep per night
Most nights, yes! Damn, yes! i look tired and i am tired. But i'm disciplined about sleep!
- prioritize drinking 96 ounces or more of water per day
Damn, yes! Yes i do this!
- finish a first draft of ECCENTRIC, my next feature project
No, not even a little, not even close. i *thought* about ECCENTRIC and read a spiritual sister screenplay, Marie Antoinette.
- improve my charisma
Didn't move the needle on my charisma, but i got a new therapist in September and am confident that she finds me extremely charismatic, or at least pretends to as a theraputic technique.
- keep up with my diary, keep up with my comics
Yes! The diary remains a lifeline, a vital way to avoid time dilation.
- read twenty books
No, not even close. Read The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw. Read *some* of Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. Read The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet by Eleanor Cameron.
- hang out a lot with Vlad and our roommate
Yes obviously, yes inevitably.
- ericadreisbach.com and Wordpress code refactor
Got to 100/100 on Google Lighthouse for my raw PHP build on ericadreisbach.com. And am getting close to 100/100 with a basic Wordpress build, altho am discouraged about working much more on it having seen that certain CDNs can essentially buy a near perfect score.
- watch and understand Romanian cartoons
Moved the needle from understanding maybe 30% of the average cartoon to understanding 50%.
7/12
Not bad!
goals for 2022
- do some mycoremediation - link
i'll start with oyster mushrooms in the basement, see how much of the heavy metals in a typical sample of our backyard soil that they can clear. What i'd really *love* is to get hold of strains that break down plastic and use mycoremediation to eat up our plastic waste instead of Terracycle Zero Waste boxes.
- learn more about Chicago recycling
i have a lot of questions about the recyclability of edge case materials. Paper that's smaller than 8.5"x11", for instance. The ring left around the bottle neck of plastic twist-off bottles. Clean metallic to-go containers. i want to know about their downstream recycle life! Different, but related: combination paper-bubblewrap mailers … can anything be done with them aside from re-use? i'm still working toward zero waste life. Maybe 2022 is the year we finally visit Dancing Rabbit.
- go to the beach a lot
What's “a lot” i dunno, twenty times?
- create some TikTok channels
One that's just close-ups of me peeling labels off of my plastic recycling,
one that's close-ups of me freehand drawing maps,
and one for unsolicited advice
- prioritize eight hours or more of sleep per night BUT EVEN MORESO than last year
- celebrate ten years of sobriety
- develop more charisma
And make some new friends this year!
- avoid despair
Therapist Catherine will be vital toward this one.
- write more
Even if nothing comes of it. Write more (write gooder)
August 2021
February 2022