Happy Lunar New Year! Above is some ddeok guk I made for the holiday, because I felt that maybe we should have some Korean food this Lunar New Year holiday. My wife was so happy with it she had seconds and thirds! And I had to tinker to make a decent vegetarian version of the meal, so that was flattering!
Trailing behind the whole new year hustle as I do—often I’m teaching a winter class from late December to mid-January, and it doesn’t feel like a new year starts until that’s done—I tend to count new years off the Lunar Calendar. This year, I’m trying to get a little more of a sense of forward motion, though I suppose what I really mean is that I’d like to carry on with the sense of forward motion I started to develop in 2023.
Last year, I read more than I did in 2022, and even—despite thinking this would never happen—I joined a book club toward the end of the year. I had hoped that it would help compel me to read more, and to some degree it has, even if mostly I’m reading nonfiction and music-related books these days.
Knight Owl Publishing ran a successful Kickstarter for my upcoming Isle of Joy RPG adventure book. I completed a soundtrack for that as a bonus stretch goal for backers, which will be available soonish on Bandcamp. (I’ll update with a link, or look in the sidebar if I forget to do that.) I also returned to creating new music in a big way: I composed my first string quartet last year, too. (Whether it’ll ever get premiered by a real quartet, who knows, but I managed to compose one! You can hear it by clicking the play button in the sidebar or visiting Soundcloud, though this version is performed by, er, my computer.)
Writing fiction… well, I’m feeling the faintest stirrings, as I have been for a while, to return to work on my Gin Craze-era novel. I managed to edit A**hole Island into shape, at least I think I did, and will be looking for a publisher for that this year, too. I haven’t written any new fiction in a while, but it’s mostly down to time and a certain kind of focus I’ve found I’m unable to achieve with a small kid around. He won’t be small forever, but anyway, I think he might even be hitting an age where I will be able to write again.
Health-wise, it’s not been so great. Aging is kicking in, and I need to do more to ensure I’m at least modestly fit or healthy. That’s also been a struggle, in part due to time and due to lacking a really engaging outlet for exercise. I have a bike, and when it’s warm enough I do cycle semi-regularly. I would love to go swimming, but I’m also still trying to avoid COVID as much as possible, so swimming maskless in a public pool is kind of out for me right now, as is lifting weights at my apartment complex’s fitness center—though I am starting to consider that option, as maybe I can go masked. All that is to say that, aside from some cycling in the spring and fall, I didn’t exercise enough last year, and it shows.
I also spent a lot of time and energy on my family—this is not a complaint, it’s a description of what I’ve been doing with my time and energy over the past year. Sorting out some of my own family issues helped me to think more consciously about what I want for my family, what they need, and how I can give it.
So that’s last year. This is the point where I think a lot of people would start listing their plans for 2024, and believe me, I’ve seen some really elaborate approaches to that. People have themes for the year, lists of goals, lists of things they hope to do or to stop doing, projects mapped out in varying degrees of detail… it’s enough to make one feel like a slacker for saying something like, “Well, I’m playing it by ear.”
However, I’m still sort of taking things loosely. I’d like to make another Dungeonsynth album for Bandcamp. I’d like to prep some stuff for Zinequest 2025, so I have something substantial to launch on February 1st. (I put it off again this year and don’t have time to make something now.) I do have one musical project ongoing—learning maybe one jazz standard a week for the year as part of my newly recommenced regular musical practice, so I have the repertory to deal with jam sessions—and yeah, I’d like to try get a semi-regular jazz jam session going in the city, if I can, if only so that I can participate regularly. I want to develop a tone on my new baritone sax comparable to the tone I have on tenor—and if I could do that on alto and soprano to, so much the better, though I think bari is my big focus after tenor right now.
I’d like to run some more games, if the opportunity arises, though I am also finding enjoyment in playing in games run by other people. I’d also like to turn another of my ideas into an adventure or a game—especially, right now, some kind of lost-colony-world planetary romance old school system. I’d love to finish my Gin Craze-era novel and start the process of finding a way to get it published, though I know better than to force it. I’d like to move forward with my plan of figuring out a way to get my son out of Korea before he’s old enough to be forced into military service here. I also plan on further revising some of my approach to work—making my contribution more reasonably commensurate to my treatment by my employer is the best way to put that. More rest, more time with family, more leisure—things I think we all deserve, and which I know I’ve earned. It’ll be a challenge: I’m currently scheduled for an absurd number of classes next semester, though likely not all of the 26 class hours I’m scheduled will happen, but either way, I’m taking it as given that a human being can only grade and provide feedback on so much work in a week.
But overall, I don’t have firm plans or a firm schedule: once school starts in March, that will dominate my days, and I guess the rest of my time will just be apportioned as best I can do it, on the projects that interest me most. I’m trying to play 2024 by ear, and focus on the day-by-day, and see what comes, and handle it. That’s working well for my these days, or at least in most areas, so I’m going to stick with it and try apply it to more and more aspects of my life, and see where it takes me. Whether or not we can call that a “plan,” it’s what I’m planning to do in the coming year.