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There was great stuff in 2K12! And some more great stuff in 2K13! And now the end of 2K14 is upon us and it’s time to talk about all the great stuff I loved this year!
Like always, we’re starting with the ~jamz~ I loved this year and, like always, we’re talking truthiness before coolness. I am not cool. I am the antithesis of cool. This probably means that the things I love are automatically also uncool by association, sooooo, sucks to be them probably. Here we go!
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5. Iggy Azalea featuring Charlie XCX, “Fancy” – YOUTUBE | | AMAZON
This was a song I listened to basically non-stop for like two months this year and it’d be higher on the list if Iggy Azalea wasn’t constantly saying stupid, ignorant, hateful things. I also really like “Bounce”, “Work”, and “Black Widow” and spent a lot of time jamming to those as well. I love Charlie XCX and her voice and, truthfully, I think her contributions here are really the highlight. At the very least, I bought the album with a gift card, so I feel semi-okay about at least not having spent my own cash on it. Sometimes you have to try to do your best to divorce the artist from their work and give them as little money as possible. A Jam, nonetheless. |
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4. Nick Jonas, “Chains” – YOUTUBE | | AMAZON
I’m 90% sure this was the song I listened to most this year, but since I’m trying to give this list a “Songs I Loved” instead of “Number of Plays” order, it’s coming up a little lower on the list. I like the slow, ~sensual~ thing going on here and I legit laughed out loud when I found out it was Nick Jonas. Don’t get me wrong, Nick Jonas is my favorite Jonas brother, but I mean. Really. I think I really like this because it feels like a sweet-as-hell 90s R&B jam, to be honest, and that’s all I ever really want. |
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3. Shakira, “Empire” – YOUTUBE | | AMAZON
I love Shakira. She was one of the great loves of my adolescence — when she was Spanish-language only! — and though that love remains, I stopped following her music pretty much after Laundry Service but heard this on the radio and fell hard. Her voice is phenomenal here and it’s plaintive and beautiful and I’m just enthralled by the entire thing. So good, such a jam. |
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2. Sia, “Chandelier” – YOUTUBE | | AMAZON
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been running around screaming this for what seems like forever at this point and I’m shockingly, amazingly really not sick of it. It’s got sucha great rhythm and so much great, soaring vocal and her voice is awesome. The song is huge and exciting and bright. I like that Sia’s moved toward a more pop-anthem thing from her gentler, indie-er thing. Not that I don’t love “Breathe Me” and “Moon” and, you know, all that. I’m just into this right now. And this is awesome. |
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1. Paramore, “Ain’t It Fun” – YOUTUBE | | AMAZON
I have never been interested in Paramore before this year. Well, aside from singing along with “Misery Business” whilst playing Guitar Hero. But “Ain’t It Fun” became an instant fave from the first time I heard it on the radio. Or Songza, probably. I also love love love “Still Into You” which is kind of devastatingly romantic, honestly. But “Ain’t It Fun” is fun and dance-y and great. A+ jam, Paramore. |
Honorable Mentions
  
Previously: 2K12 | 2K13
This is a quick update! To report that I am alive and very well!1 and that instead of being wildly busy with being sick and miserable all the time, I am instead very busy with a very boring but fairly well paying full-time job! Where my fiancée is my boss! Which can get kind of weird, but is largely okay!
So, since I have been a very bad blogger and very, very absent and also, to be honest, pretty boring in general — Truly. Are you an insomniac? Let me lull you to sweet sleep with wild tales of reorganizing an entire employee file system! Let me tell you about entering hundreds of insurance claims at a time and then submitting them! Over dial-up! You’ll sleep like a baby. — I thought I’d steal a meme from the awesome Kimmie at That Girl in The Wheelchair that she posted and I saved about a million years ago!
Currently…2
Loving:
To be perfectly honest, the first answer that came into my head was sleep, but that’s boring, so I’m going with 1. Lumosity since breaking up my work day by playing games that are supposed to make me smarter is actually much more enjoyable and useful to me than taking a lunch. 2. This Smith’s Minted Rose Lip Balm because it’s like, the second lip product I’ve ever tried that I thought actually made a difference to my lips. And 3. Bath & Body Work’s Sweater Weather. I know I’ve talked about how much I love this before, but dude, I really love this scent. Soon it will be too wintery to burn any longer and I will mourn it. It is so strong (such a good ~throw) without being overpowering and the scent lingers forever without getting stale. Oh and also, my new glasses!
zennioptical.com3
Reading:
| Just Finished |
Right Now |
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| FUN! |
WEIRD! |
GREAT! |
TRASHY!4 |
Watching:
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To be honest — and to my dismay — I honestly don’t even know what I watched on purpose last. I haven’t intentionally watched an episode of TV since the end of September and I haven’t seen a movie in theaters since we saw Guardians of the Galaxy on August 1st. Tragedy! We did however manage to get through an entire movie on Netflix last weekend! And a documentary no less! I Know That Voice was super delightful! And fascinating. And definitely worth watching if you have even a passing nostalgia or interest or enjoyment of animated movies. I’m interested in voiceover work anyway, so it was particularly interesting to me. Love seeing the faces that go to the voices. And we’re going to see Big Hero 6 tomorrow! And also I watched a bunch of eps of The Mindy Project and that is pretty fun.
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Oh, and also this. On repeat.
Listening to…
  
  
  
Working on…
The answer to this question should be: my finished book that needs editing, my next book that needs writing, the book after that that’s in need of conceptualizing, my screenplay, my other screenplay, the dozens of projects I have in lists everywhere, but mostly I am working on trying to get better at adulthood. It turns out that managing time is really hard and trying to have a life while working 8-10 hour days is, like, actually difficult? Last time I had a full-time job, I was too depressed to care if I ever had any fun or leisure, so this time around it’s at least an improvement!
I am also working on a post about what I’ve been up to since my last update (The Twin Cities! Great food! Yellowstone! A new puppy!) and the Totally Top 5 series for 2K14! Oh, and I’ve also been posting the #holidayjamz I normally upload to my tumblr (who Cease-and-Desisted me to death! Thanks, Stevie Wonder!) as Youtube links to my twitter instead with #holidayjamz2k14 because the holiday season begins November 1st and if you can’t take that… well, suck it.
1: Cancer treatment is going very well! Can’t use the word remission until I have a hysterectomy, but my oncologist is very chill about waiting for surgery and very confident that we caught the stuff early. Woo!
2: What I’m currently reading/watching/listening to is always over there on the right hand side of the site. I update it fairly regularly even!
3: I am ~feeling a LARGE number of the frames from Warby Parker, but I didn’t like any of the ones in my first home try-on (at least on my face, they looked great off) so I am hesitant to take the plunge and order the ones I really want, since they don’t even have a home try-on option. Free returns and all, but nail-biting! We’ll see how the next box goes.
4: “Her [REDACTED] became a gourd of hot syrup, spilling into Dominik’s mouth.” So, yeah.
Dear Crystal,
I tried to write this like a regular post, like I was talking to my mythical invisible audience, and I tried it like nine different ways and they were all terrible, so I decided to write to you instead. You’ve been my best audience from the very beginning anyway.
It’s been six years since we first decided to try the whole dating thing! Can you believe it? Isn’t that crazy? Six years that you’ve stuck by me and continued to make this thing work even when it’s insanely hard. Six years of dumb fights interspersed with the rare important ones. Six years of laughing at each other, with each other, at everything and everyone. Six years of loving each other.
I feel like this is one of those times where I should say, “It’s not always easy, but nothing that’s worth it ever is” or one of those things, but it’d be a lie because loving you is the easiest thing I have ever done — hands down, no contest — and the most rewarding.
You are so smart and so funny and so beautiful. It’s kind of horrifying how much I like you, honestly.
I have been so, so lucky to know you for the last seven-ish years, so lucky to have gotten to be your friend and to love you intensely and romantically and grossly for most of it. Everyone that knows you is better for it. We’re all lucky to have you in our lives, someone so unbelievably loyal and generous and kind. No one who knows you really deserves to and most of us know it.
You take incredible care of me and everyone you love. You care so much and so deeply that it astonishes me. You make me laugh every single day, even on the worst days I’ve ever had. You laugh at my stupid jokes and you encourage me to be the best writer/friend/daughter/sister/girlfriend/person I can possibly be.
I love spending my days with you, even when they’re filled with dumb adult decisions and errands, even when I’m being medically probed and prodded, even when everything else is terrible — you never are. You are the best part of every day.
The last six years have been the most important of my life, I think, for a lot of different reasons, but mostly because of you. I will never stop being grateful for you, for your love, for your remarkable and indescribable presence in my life. I will never stop being thankful that I get to share that life with you, that we have a life together. Loving you is the greatest thing I’ve ever done and I’ll never stop being grateful that you let me do it.
– Ash
So, like last year, I found myself with a little collection of miscellaneous things that I loved this year that I wanted to share and so I’m throwing ’em all together here for your perusing pleasure!
5. iPhone Apps [lift | daily goals | tody]
Though I am legally and technically an adult — and have been for ten years — I am not great at managing my life. I am really forgetful! And there are just days where I struggle to function for a variety of physical and mental reasons that don’t particularly need to expanded upon. On those days in particular, I am grateful for these three apps, but, really, they’re my every day saviors.
I’ve been using Daily Goals for a really long time now and my goal list has gone through a couple of different iterations and each one has been as useful as the last because the app is so clean and simple and functional. The developer has added some extra functions recently that are nice, but not always functional (the streaks don’t seem to work correctly at all for me?) but I don’t need them anyway, so I don’t really care. I track my every day things in here — vitamins, tooth and skin care, and my selfie-a-day — and it’s nice to be able to scroll through the calendar and see if I’ve missed days.
I’ve been using Tody for quite a long time too and I cannot recommend it enough. It’s a cleaning to do list that actually works and allows you to set tasks and how frequently they ought to be done and it’s all really easy and functional. It’s not the prettiest app in the world, but I don’t care because it does exactly what I need it to do without being fussy or overly complicated.
Lift is a relatively new addition to my system and I really love it. It’s got a community aspect to it that I didn’t care about when I started but have actually found to be kind of motivating. It’s surprising how accomplished a thumbs-up can make you feel! It’s a nice looking app with relative ease of use and functionality. I am not fond of the recent update with the 21 step goal system and wish desperately that there was a way to turn it off; I wish you could create new goals/activities instead of only being able to pull from the ones that already exist — sometimes you just need a really specific goal, you know — and I wish they hadn’t taken the ease of just hitting the checkmark away — you’ve got to hit and save and exit now and it’s pretty silly — but I think it’s a great app despite its flaws.
4. Songza [songza.com]
Songza is a lot like Pandora except Songza has the magical Musical Concierge which helps you choose the station you want to jam to by letting you pick the activity you want to soundtrack. You can even choose playlists based on moods, decades, or cultures/communities. It’s got minimal ads on mobile — way fewer than Pandora at the very least — though you do sometimes have to sit through one if you choose a favorite playlist rather than choosing through the concierge (which wouldn’t bother me that much except it’s always the same video ad for Mondavi wines which should just be subtitled ‘Boring White People on a Dock’) and I think the variety is solid. Plus, it seems to get new music really quickly, which I only know because new Beyoncé jamz pop up with regularity.
I work out to Performance Enhancing Pop: Running almost every day and go to bed to Psybient or 3am Airport pretty often. The holiday playlists have also been great — I’m particularly fond of Never-Ending Christmas Hits, Cozy Christmas Classics, and Jazz Christmas. I also love the 80s Slow Dance and 90s One-Hit Wonders. I prefer the app to the desktop site because it’s much more streamlined and functional. The site is kind of a mess, frankly, but they do their job regardless and the great, varied playlists are what really matter.
3. Graze & Ipsy [graze | ipsy]
I love Graze. Like, so much. Like, an insane amount. It’s a little subscription box — we get it every two weeks, since mail here can be dodgy — filled with four delicious, healthy snack servings. It rules. We’ve been getting it almost the entire time we’ve lived in North Dakota and I know it’ll be following us wherever we go next. And they’re working on bulk options so I can fill my pantry with all my favorites like the veggie sushi plate, my thai, dark rocky road, and boston baguettes. It’s rare that I don’t like something from Graze and even then it’s usually just because I’m a fussy weirdo that doesn’t like goji berries. Such a good, cheap, fun thing to get in the mail! Plus, if you use the link up there, you get your first and fifth boxes free!
I initally tried Ipsy way back when it was still called GlamBag and ordered it alongside BirchBox to see which I liked better. I wasn’t impressed enough to keep either, but I thought GlamBag was leagues ahead of BirchBox*, so when I was looking into subscriptions again, I decided to give it a newly-renamed second chance. I loved that first bag back and haven’t been disappointed with one since. The bags are so so cute — November and December were particularly cute! — and you get a really decent selection of items. I love the POP Eyeshadow Trio I got this month, the BH Cosmetics Baked Eyeshadow I got last month, and have loved and learned a lot from what I’ve received thus far. For $10 a month, you can’t ask for a lot more.
2. Bobbles [amazon | waterbobble.com]
We ordered a couple of Bobbles back in March after I saw my friend Cam raving about them and because even though we like the tap water here, it has a little bit of a weird taste. I grew up on Los Angeles municipal water which is either terrible or the best in the country, depending on who you’re talking to, so I either have really high standards or exceedingly low ones. Either way, we thought it couldn’t hurt to run what we drink through a filter. We loved them so much, we bought two more and they’re the only way we drink water now. They’re particularly nice because the water that comes out of our tap is really cold, so we just drink and refill throughout the day. We both like the Bobble Sport better, since the cap stays attached and we don’t have to hunt them down all the time because we’re forgetful like that.
1. Bath & Body Works Three Wick Candles [spiced apple toddy | sweater weather** | champagne toast | leaves | lemon mint leaf]
I talked about these before at great length and since then, my obsession has only gotten worse. I mean, to the point that I just placed an order about twenty minutes ago so that I could snag some of my favorites to stockpile while they’re super cheap (Use TREAT4YOU for $10 off $40 or WINTERWISHES for 20% off!) during holiday clearance. I mean, it’s so bad that I’m going to have to work out some sort of storage system for them as they go in and out of seasonal usage. I feel like some sort of candle-hoarding monster demon? But it’s kind of worth it to be honest. And since the three-wicks go on sale (2 for $22!) pretty regularly, it’s not too terrible an obsession to have.
My personal favorites thus far are linked up above — Spiced Apple Toddy and Champagne Toast are probably my top two though I haven’t actually burned Champagne Toast yet. It’s part of the seasonal line, but it’s so bright and fruity that I’m saving it for spring/summer where I think it’ll be much more suitable. Spiced Apple Toddy is maybe the best smelling Christmas scent I’ve ever smelled. It’s sweet, but not sugary and tart apple heavy, but it’s got a nice spice that makes it feel super holiday appropriate. Sweater Weather and Leaves are both really close in terms of fall scents, but I think Leaves is suited more for late fall because it’s got an apple base, so it feels a little more holiday-ish/pre-Christmas. Sweater Weather is just unbelievable. And I haven’t burned Lemon Mint Leaf yet, but it smells so good in the jar I want to eat it. So, so pretty. I also love Fireside which is masculine and woodsy without smelling like a campfire.
I recommend only spending the cash on the three-wicks, by the way. The minis and the smalls have, in my experience, burned very poorly and had very little impact scent-wise. Go big or, you know, go home without a candle.
Previously: 2K12 | JAMZ | MOVIES | ALBUMS | TV | BOOKS
*: I cannot emphasize how much I genuinely hated BirchBox. I mean, really, hated it. I opened the box, went through what was in it and went, “I spent ten bucks on garbage!” and I am still angry about it.
**: Amazon links just provided for reference because those scents aren’t currently available on the Bath & Body Works website. I don’t actually think you should spend two or three times what they cost in store. I don’t even think you should pay what they cost in store, to be honest. Wait for sales!
It’s time to talk about books! Like last year, this was inexplicably difficult to do? I read a decent amount but when it comes time to talk about what I’ve read, I seem to just go totally blank. I stare into the ether, hoping something magical will work it way around my head and I’ll suddenly be really good at talking about books, but it just never happens. We all suffer for it.
| 5. Grounded by Kate Klise — previously
I read Grounded as part of the Casual-Ass Internet Book Club and Ms. Klise was kind enough to actually email me when she saw the post saying that I’d chosen her book which I thought was just incredibly sweet.
It immediately panicked me, however, because what if she came back to check out my review and I ended up hating the book?! Luckily for me, she’s an incredible writer and Grounded was an absolutely delight. I thought it was really engaging and intriguing and exactly the kind of book I would have absolutely loved when I was a kid. My casual-ass review of it is one of my favorite things I’ve written this year and one of the only times I feel like I’ve ever managed to really convey what I wanted to about a book. It was a joy to read and a joy to write about. |
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| 4. Make Lemonade & True Believer & This Full House by Virginia Euwer Wolff
I first heard of/read Virginia Euwer Wolff’s Make Lemonade trilogy way back in 2008 when I was substitute teaching. I always showed up to work with at least two books so that I’d have something to do while my students were, inevitably, watching a video/taking a test/whatever but one fateful day, I’d already read through everything I’d brought with me. Luckily, I was subbing an English class, so there were books all around me and, conveniently, True Believer was sitting right in front of me on the teacher’s desk. I used the last couple periods of the day to read through it and was so, so impressed and moved, even though it’s the middle of a trilogy.
I’d had all three books on my Amazon Wishlist since that fateful afternoon, but finally got the urge to buy them early this year. They were a truly remarkable read. They’re complex and hard and written in free-verse that is at turns agonizing and artful. LaVaughn is one of the strongest characters I’ve ever experienced in fiction and what she is able to learn and overcome is unbelievable. She makes you want to fight for her and alongside her and even more importantly, she makes you want to fight every single one of your own battles until you can’t fight a second longer.
These books are beautifully rendered and filled with engaging characters who are exceptionally well-fleshed and honest. What a painful joy to experience. |
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| 3. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews — previously
I really loved Me and Earl and the Dying Girl when I read it in September and it’s held up as one of my favorites for the year. Though I love it largely for its humor, I also think it’s a story with a good heart that touches reality in an honest way, even when it’s hard. I like Greg as a narrator and his good heart carries the story much farther than a different narrator might have. Earl is bombastic and exciting to read about and Rachel is nicely drawn and feels really genuine. I particularly like Greg’s realizations that surround her illness and the unfair — to her — role it takes on for him and Earl. Greg’s self-awareness never seems phony and is really refreshing to see in a young, white, male narrator.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is also unique in that it has the best cover design I’ve seen in forever and also made me laugh out the loudest and most frequently. It was also an unhappy ending that I not only didn’t hate, but admired. And it has one of the very best teacher characters I’ve ever read in a book.
I still think about Greg and his regretful polar bear noises frequently. Such a delight. |
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| 2. Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt — previously
I loved Tell the Wolves I’m Home when I read it back in August and I spent a lot of time thinking about it after I finished and even long after I’d already given it a glowing review. It’s a smart and painful book that hurts in all the right places and hits you with the immense weight of youthful awkwardness in ways that you could’ve never even imagined. It’s funny and raw and the language is just transcendent in places.
June is a remarkable narrator with a gift for observation and articulating heartache in ways you’d never think to and she grows and changes and learns from her mistakes right in front of the readers’ eyes. There is so much heart in this and so much complexity about family and siblingship and the struggle to do the right thing for the people you love. It’s exhausting and tearful and wonderful.
I was worried about reading this one — hype is deadly — but I am so, so glad that I did. |
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| 1. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell — previously
Eleanor & Park was like a gift from the book gods this year. It was another one that hype tried to drive me away from — that tricky bastard! — and another that I am so, so glad I read anyway.
Eleanor & Park is rich and funny and filled with wonderful characters, thoughtful narration, and great dialogue, which is something I can’t say for most of the books I read this year. Both Eleanor and Park are fantastic narrators who wear their hearts, thoughts, and observations on their sleeves. It is so, so nice to be deep in the heads of characters who have things to say and see the world in ways that are interesting and engaging and fresh.
It does such a great job capturing what it’s like to be young and scared and unsure and enamored of someone new and an even better job of precisely and evocatively encapsulating the thrill and torture of new love. Eleanor & Park is romantic as hell and sexy in a way that feels true and acutely age-appropriate. It is a wonder of a book and I am so glad that 2013 brought it to me.
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Honorable Mentions
    
Previously: 2K12 | JAMZ | MOVIES | ALBUMS | TV
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