a few false starts & then a real one
looking back at 2023 & ahead at 2024
A few false starts:
I am writing to you at dawn from a studio apartment with a high ceiling. On the ceiling, a smoke alarm that’s out of batteries, that chirps—loud and staccato, demanding notice—once every thirty seconds. It’s too high for me to reach and, anyway, the model’s so old that I wouldn’t know what to do if I did. It has been chirping all night. It has been chirping for days.
I am writing to you from my childhood bedroom. The walls are blue now. The bed is full now. The shelves are still vomiting books. Once upon a time, not long ago, a cat used to lie beside my head, belly up, body curled toward my pillow. Now, a clay imprint of her paw sits on my dresser telling me that, when she died, her pinky nail was overgrown.
I am writing to you from my desk at work. All around me, piles of papers. A stack of Post-Its—mini and regular. A tin of Altoids in the drawer. Outside the window, cars speed down the boulevard while the day turns to dusk.
I am writing to you at night from the airport terminal. The flight is late. The chair is hard. I’m missing someone but I don’t admit it. On either side of me, people on speaker-phone. My mother says she can always tell if someone’s from LA because they don’t respect public space, that they pollute it with their own noise. I’m headed back to LA to the studio apartment with a high ceiling and smoke alarm that has been chirping for days.
I am writing to you from my table at home. Behind me on the wall, art by friends—a half-finished daffodil from C (her favorite flower); a blue photograph from R; a drawing of an eye by A. The refrigerator isn’t humming like most do. More steady screech. Out the window, the predictable sound of sirens.
All my friends know that this year has been dubbed the “fourth worst of my life,” which isn’t to say that it hasn’t been that bad but that I’ve had four very, very bad years (2023, 2021, 2011, and 2008). Most of this year, I didn’t think I’d survive it. Most of this year, I didn’t think I wanted to. But, like, who of us didn’t feel that way? It’s fine. It’s fine!
In any case, here we are, at the year’s end, and I’m still alive despite all the close calls, and so are you, and I thought I would reflect on the things that got me through. So without further ado,
here’s what I have for you today:
The books, TV shows, and music I loved in 2023
My goals for 2024
Favorites of 2023:
My favorite TV shows of the year:
My favorite songs of the year (some new; some just new to me):
My favorite things of the year:
My goals for 2024:
Eat every shape of pasta at least once.3
Write more poems.
Rewatch the entirety of Bones.
Read more literature in translation. (Any recommendations? Lately, I’ve enjoyed Love Me Tender, Lie With Me, and Trysting.)
Find a clean and safe apartment that I can afford.
I’m unsentimental to a fault and, as such, have a difficult making lists of goals or really sharing or even thinking too hard about the things I want, but this feels like a safe and doable list. I have a few more things I want to work toward, too, but they feel like more pressure, so I thought I’d include the manageable and fun ones for you here.
If you have any truly fun goals for 2024 you want to share, please do! We all need more fun!
I don’t have any issues about being on social media but, to anyone who aspires to be more mindful about it in 2024, I found you some potentially useful wisdom from Eliza McLamb:
I’ve deleted all social media apps on my phone and downloaded the app ScreenZen, which I’ve set to block them all, twenty-four-seven, seven days a week.
Here, you might say — bitch, that’s what you just told me wouldn’t work! Where’s the pendulation! To which I say: AND…
I still go on social media every day. I visit instagram.com and twitter.com on my mobile browser, and every time I do, I have to physically go into the ScreenZen app and pause the blocking feature for an hour. This process creates an extra mental step (do I really want to visit social media right now?) and lets me know when I’ve spent an hour on them by blocking me again (great for my time blindness).
Instagram.com and twitter.com for mobile browser are terrible places to be. It’s a UX nightmare. You can’t watch reels, everything glitches, and the pages refresh at involuntary and often inconvenient intervals. It is harder to use, and that is the point. I’ve created a physical manifestation of the friction that actually happens in my mind when I use these platforms. I don’t think humans were meant to hypnotize ourselves out of the boredom of a checkout line or a slightly uncomfortable moment in our brains. Social media for mobile browser reminds me of this.
note: if you really want to step it up, set your phone to grayscale. nothing will make you feel more like a baby than realizing that most of the fun of your phone comes from bright lights and pleasing colors
In the effort of embracing pendulation, I also remember the many great things I love about the internet. Keeping track of what I actually enjoy and find valuable in these spaces helps me make use of them better. For example, I regularly check the socials of the Party for Socialism and Liberation’s LA chapter, as they post updates on organizing events and calls to action in my area. I love this one account of a woman who’s really good at cleaning her bathroom. I have a few favorite Instagram prophets who post small snatches of text over beautiful images. I like these things, and knowing that I don’t intend to swear them off entirely helps me find a place on the internet that doesn’t feel like I’m being held hostage.
Finally:
Thanks for sticking around this year and following along and engaging with my little weekly round-ups about all the books I’m consuming as well as the occasional wisdom about where to submit or how to revise or why it really is vital to cite your sources. Thanks to those of you who pay $5/month, even though you know you don’t really get anything different, because you like my silly little emails and know how broke I am. Thanks for reading and writing and standing up for what you believe in and putting in the work to make the literary community (and any/all the communities you’re part of) better.
I hope 2024 is a happier year for us all—
-Despy Boutris
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Silly but fun.
I will watch Natasha Lyonne in anything.
I always reach for spaghetti or penne or fusilli, but there are so many more fun options??? I want to seek out shapes like orzo and pastina and fusilli col buco in 2024.