then she appeared

Another year ALREADY?

Although in many ways it feels like I have lived two or three years this year. But since most of it was boring or stressful, it doesn't feel like much was accomplished, so it feels like it should be no further into the year than mid September.

Glad to say goodbye to it, really. I didn't have the worst year ever, though. I mean, I had my worst health year ever, but the year my Dad died (11 years ago today) was a pretty shitty year. That was probably the worst. Hell, even a few years ago when I had a different health crisis and had to move out of my apartment, that was a pretty shitty year. A couple of years before when I had pneumonia and the goiter diagnosis and the eventual surgery, etc., not a great year. This one? Was scary a couple of times, and sad a couple of times, and definitely painful a lot, but wasn't the worst. I'm happy it's over, nevertheless.

2014 IN NUMBERS

In 2014 I had:

1 endoscopy

5 CAT scans

20+ chest x-rays

10 PT visits for my back and leg

2 gallons (hyperbolically estimated) worth of blood tests

30u of insulin per day because of high blood sugar

1 episode of bronchitis that lasted about 6 weeks

1 major surgery involving partial sternotomy filmed by Frontline crew*

2 thoracentises (fluid drained from the lungs via a big-ass needle)

2 EKGs

1 echocardiogram

1 pulmonary function test

1 regular stress test

1 invasive stress test which involves a catheter being inserted into the neck down into the heart

XX doctors' visits with not sure how many doctors

2 wisdom teeth extracted

1 root canal

1 eye test where the eye doctor said there are a couple of "small bleeds" in my eye

4 prescriptions for antibiotics

$165,911.70 charged to my insurance so far in medical bills

18 pounds gained

In 2014 I read/watched/wrote/took/attended/planted/had/socialized with/got/attained:

39 books

134+ movies

XXX hours of television

26 blog entries

630 photographs

2 shows (Luka Bloom and The Book of Mormon)

1 family reunion with 31 relatives

4 flower-boxes on my porch for the first time

1 4-day mini-vacation on the Cape

3+ occasions of playing pinball

2 trips to western Mass to hang with Suzanne

1 fancy dinner with 2 college roommates who live on the west coast

15+ new CDs (yay new music!)

1 pedicure (first time!)

2 surprise birthday parties (one at family reunion, one at P's house!)

6 pairs of earrings at aforementioned birthday party

1 robot (MINT!)

2 weeks off for Christmas vacation

And finally, I managed to make it to 50

The two sections pretty much balance each other out, I think. The crappy and the good. The health stuff vs. the fun stuff. Since hopefully the health stuff is resolving as much as it can**, maybe this new shiny year will have a lot less on the sucky side so the good side can totally overbalance it. Because I feel like I'm really due for a win!

( Asterisks within )

I need to make some progress on things. One of those things is my obsessive list-keeping, so here's the movie part. Movies watched either in the theater, from Redbox on DVD, from Amazon Prime on streaming, or on HBO. January and February I'm not certain of the source, because I am too lazy to look that far back. I don't count movies that air on regular cable or that I just watch part of, or that I've seen a million times. I don't think I used Netflix much this year. I wish Redbox and Amazon Prime showed viewing history. Redbox does, but it only goes back 45 days, not all time. Amazon Prime only shows what you bought or rented, not what you viewed for "free".

Movies Watched 2013 ( within )

...I think that works out to 95? 15 in the theater. Redbox costs $1.20 or $1.50 for Blu-ray plus tax each, so I spent about a hundred there. Which is amusing, since I spent way more than that on the 14 in the theater! I did do a bunch of matinees in the spring, so I saved a little. There will probably be a few more in the theater before the first. I hope.

My favorites: Beasts of the Southern Wild, Mud, Argo, Silver Linings Playbook, Pacific Rim, Stoker, Warm Bodies. Second tier: Bourne, Looper, Ted, Seven Psychopaths, The Descendants, Oblivion, Hansel and Gretel, Elysium, Gravity, World War Z, Hunger Games 2, The Hobbit 2.

WORST EVER: Alex Cross/Universal Soldier Day of Reckoning/Force of Execution. Honestly, it's a three-way tie. Alex Cross was just unspeakably bad, why is Tyler Perry allowed to make movies? Universal Soldier is incomprehensible mush. And Force of Execution? So bad. No one to root for, no one does what people would do in those situations, ridiculous waste of Danny Trejo. Ugh.

Special mention for sucking: pretty much everything John Cusack did lately (The Raven, The Numbers Station, The Factory, and The Frozen Ground). They weren't TERRIBLE, but lord, they weren't good. The Raven was the best of them, but someone must have told him "less, John, less!". Talk about understated: he was barely awake in any of these.

2013 Books read to follow.

Still pimpin' my reading blog; new entry reviewing Marvel 1602.

So if this guy can do this, I can certainly take a few photos every day. Updates will be posted in sets, by month. So this month's set is "July 2005". Clear?

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