Vol. 86: Best of 2024

My word for 2024 was self-discipline - I wrote in January: “I hesitated for a long time to make it my word of the year because it felt reminiscent of grind culture, of pushing yourself past your limits to attain something that . . . society intentionally set up out of reach, to foster shame and let it fester. It has been freeing to grant myself permission to be. But I want to push myself a teeny bit further . . . I want to do what’s good for me even when I could instead be lying on the couch watching five hours of sitcom reruns. I want to practice self-discipline so I can better understand my intuition - sometimes my body truly needs five hours of sitcoms, but sometimes my body is stuck in freeze mode and instead needs sunshine, connection, creativity.”

I’m closing out the year feeling the steadiest I’ve felt in years. I feel freer. I feel more grounded and I feel in charge of my life. At the same time, I’m hesitant; is it toxic individualism to drone on about what’s going well in my personal life as we face the reality that Donald Trump is about to be back in office? We’re all grappling with the fear and sorrow of what that will look like, and what it will require of us.

I’m also a firm believer in the power of celebration - big or small, successes deserve recognition. I’m not under any illusion that this feeling will last forever, but I hope this personal groundedness, this commitment to myself and to noticing the small joys around me, will prepare me for whatever’s to come in 2025.

Best Books I Read in 2024 (no particular order)

• Gather Me: A Memoir in Praise of the Books that Saved Me by Glory Edim - I read this right after the election, when I was going through a bit of a book slump, and it saved ME. Reading a book about books is a foolproof slump buster, and Glory’s storytelling, vulnerability, and the journey she took us on was so meaningful and special. Read this if you love books and beautiful memoirs.

• Against the Loveless World by Susan Albulhawa - I read this in January but it remained my favorite novel all year; a beautiful, unputdownable novel with love and political resistance, all about a Palestinian woman growing up in Kuwait.

• Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham - You all know I love journalism that reads like a novel. It took me about 100 pages of feeling lost amidst the science (and texting Traci for encouragement) to really get hooked into the storytelling, but this book will haunt me. 

• Little Rot by Akwaeke Emezi - this novel was DARK AND TWISTY. I ate it up. 

• Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: 50 Poems for 50 Years by Joy Harjo - This collection by my longtime favorite poet was a meaningful birthday gift from a dear friend. What I loved the most were Harjo’s reflections in the back of the book of each poem: the circumstances she wrote it in, her current thoughts on the piece, any edits that were made. I read this in the wake of the election and it reminded me of the James Baldwin quote: “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.”

Audiobook Round-Up

Audiobooks are reading! But I’m including this as a separate section because what I read physically vs via audio are different genres. I listened to a handful of celebrity memoirs on audiobook that I loved and helped me when I wasn’t otherwise reading: True Gretch by Gretchen Whitmer and Coming Home by Britney Griner both made me cry; Three Pianos by Andrew McMahon was an incredible memoir by my longest-standing musical love; Broken Horses by Brandi Carlile deepened my knowledge and appreciation of her music; I loved that she performs songs after each chapter,

Best Concerts of 2024

As a member of the LGBT AKA Let’s Go Buy Tickets community, I went to a lot of great shows this year. If I had to pick a favorite, it was seeing Maggie Rogers at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Maryland. This was a moment when my wife and I were experiencing so much grief - seeing Maggie for the first time, perform her hometown show, in incredible seats, was a healing I’ll never forget. I also saw Daley, Masego, P!nk (her acrobatics were AMAZING!), Rare Essence, SiR, Lucky Daye (such a fun show, but the seats in the balcony at the Fillmore Detroit are for people 5’4” and below. Never again), Maxwell & Jazmine Sulllivan, Something Corporate, and of course, my man Usher who put on a show for my 32nd birthday. Thank you honey!

Best New Music of 2024

Cowboy Carter made me want to drive around my hometown with the windows down. It felt like a beautiful melding of the folk/Americana music I listened to as a teen with the Beyoncé music I fell in love with in my twenties. It’s a beautiful, creative and brilliantly layered album. After Doechii’s Colbert performance and Tiny Desk, I haven’t been able to listen to anything except Alligator Bites Never Heal. I. Am. Obsessed.

Best Movies of 2024

• Wicked - Duh

• Luther - I loved the Luther Vandross documentary and watching it in person was particularly special since so many of my fellow movie-goers sang, danced, and openly reminisced about seeing him perform in their younger years. If you missed it, you can catch it on CNN tomorrow at 8 PM!

Favorite DMV Spots

I loved getting out of my house more in 2024: Free Go-Go at the MLK Library and the Kennedy Center, shopping for books at Loyalty’s many beautiful locations, Basquiat and Banksy at the Hirshorn, Ethiopian veggie platter at Beteseb, attending Creative Mornings DC, the salmon belly sushi at Perry’s, finally!!! making it to the drum circle at Malcom X Park, and the Museum of the Palestinian People in Adams Morgan were some of my highlights. 

In Memoriam - spots we lost this year

RIP to Logan Circle’s Commissary, which was the first restaurant that made me feel at home when I moved to DC for an internship in 2012. I took all my friends and family who visited when I moved to DC full time in 2014. I had countless date nights with my wife and some awkward pre-pride brunches with couples that are now no longer. I loved the unique eggs bennys (pulled pork and on CORNBREAD!), the black bean burger, the cocktails. You were affordable and delicious and I will always miss you.

RIP to Dirty Goose, my last remaining favorite gay bar. Maybe I’ll be okay since the relationships built and maintained through Goose don’t need the physical building to last, plus I barely go out anyways, but I will miss the rooftop, the Britney mural, and the feeling of safety and love.

2024 Ins - or, what I think helped my mental wellbeing and may help you

• Non-Alcoholic Beer - There’s nothing like a cold beer on a summer day, but drinking has become increasingly tough on my anxiety. This wasn’t new to me this year but I did drink more than years prior. I love how popular NA beers are, and my favorite, Athletic Brewing Company, is in so many grocery stores!

• Volunteering - Without sounding too corny, I’ve started volunteering at a soup kitchen near me roughly once a month and it has helped me return to myself and my values. I grew up in a very service-minded environment, from school to church to Girl Scouts, but as I grew up and started working in nonprofits myself, it became very easy to fall into critique without action. I feel so helpless amidst the many evil, hateful policy decisions we’re seeing play out, like the criminalization of homelessness without adequate and caring policies around addiction, food insecurity, medical debt, etc. So I just … did nothing. Now, I still often feel helpless but I at the very least can look in someone’s eyes and serve them a hot meal. Volunteering put me out of my comfort zone while reminding me who I am. And the added benefits are I get out of my house without spending money, and get to know my neighbors!

• Compost - I joined the compost at my local community farm, Charles Koiner Farm, and it has been so fun to know that my produce scraps and nightly tea remains are invested back in my community.

2024 Outs - Things I am Happy to Leave Behind

BARGAINING. WE DID IT AND IT IS DONE. Our 3-year union contract has been signed with codified retirement benefits, full time remote work, new family building benefits, and more money in our people’s pockets. Someday I’ll figure out how to tell the story of unionization of my nonprofit job. Today is not that day. For now I’ll just say I’m grateful to have moved from bargaining to implementing our CBA. I’m proud to be part of a broader movement of unionizations within mission-driven organizations.

Proudest Wife Moment of 2024

On Thursday, November 7, two days after Trump won reelection, my wife woke up, ate an English muffin toasted with peanut butter, and rode the metro into DC where she passed the Certified Financial Planner exam on her first try. WHO DOES THAT!?!

She’d been studying for fourteen months through all the grief and challenges that life threw at her. She sacrificed time with loved ones and lost so much sleep over the constant voice in the back of her head telling her to study. How much the test demanded of her was hard on our marriage at times, but I also saw her step up in her discipline and contributions to our household in a very intentional and beautiful way. I’m always proud to be her wife, through good times and bad, but seeing her resilience in the face of adversity up close and personal is the biggest blessing of my life.

Honorable Mention - Auntie Life

2025 Goals

• Writing: I got into the Jenny McKean Moore Creative Writing Workshop with Kat Chow for 12 weeks and am very! honored! to grow my craft with a writer/teacher I so admire. I’m also rebuilding some creative spaces to be more consistent with my fellow newsletter-writing friends.

• Reading: I read 35 books in 2024. It wasn’t the best reading year, but I leaned into DNFing books that weren’t working for me and had some moments of great reading. In 2025, rather than focusing on a number, I want to better remember what I read. This will probably look like journaling book thoughts, or bringing back a consistent newsletter review section.

• Yoga: I have been teaching semi-regularly at the Brigadier General Charles E. McGhee/Silver Spring Library, and in 2025, my goal is to find a spot to offer a weekly class.

• Community: I always want to host more, but my small, actionable goal here is to take more photos with my friends. I grew closer with so many people this year, but we need more photos of our time together!

• Personal/Professional Life: In 2025, we plan to travel to Thailand to celebrate 10 years together. I’m currently exploring (redacted big life change) and we also may (redacted big life change) and (redacted big life change)! More to come… maybe ;)