Good things that happened in 2020

Well on a more personal front, I learned a bunch of new recipes... including two meatless ones. Best one so far was a cheese-less "mac and cheese" where instead of a cheese sauce, it's made from cauliflower, onion, and stock blended up that tastes like a cream sauce. They called it a faux mac and cheese, but it's more like a baked alfredo meets primavera. Delicious, though.

I guess technically it wasn't meatless because I used chicken stock, but I'm sure it would have been fine with veggie stock too... but I can buy a pack of 6 Knorr stock cubes for less than two bucks that makes probably 6 quarts of stock OR I could buy a single quart of veggie stock for two bucks. I don't know if they make veggie stock cubes. Either way, it was good and good for you.

Plus, I hate cheese. As you all know.

Not personal but in terms of the Arts the most important American artist culturally of the last century imo - filmmaker, musician, novelist, painter, anything - 78 year old Bob Dylan did an astonishing and culturally momentous (and out of nowhere too) thing in 2020 when his song "Murder Most Foul" was released during the quarantine.

It is not just the song of right now - but it feels like a book and a movie of right now too or a long unwieldy poem - it's strange and loooooooooooong (17 minutes) and uniquely American in subject matter and scope.........and no one knows what to make of it exactly yet but it feels overwhelming (Nick Cave just praised it notably, publicly).

You can't listen to it and do something else, you have all this time on your hands to just sit and dig into it and reflect on it and the more you do that, it seems weirdly hopeful and yet utterly hopeless.

It's just great .....and the fact this is great right now in 2020 (his first #1 song EVER - Rock Digital Download but still!) and by a 78 year old beyond iconic guy who is watching his peers like John Prine actually die from the virus is kind of mind-blowing.

One of my favorite shows is Taskmaster and they've been doing hometasks for viewers to send in via twitter. It's been super delightful and I especially love the most recent one:

I made some good friends. I guess that was 2019 though, so doesn't count.

Though, we really only had 2 and 1/3 months of sample size to judge 2020 on. After March 10th, the entire country was preparing for hibernation making it unlikely we'd see 2020 as positive without the ability to go out and improve our lives.

I'm still hopeful about 2020 (at the very least I think it'll be a good year for movies), but much MORE hopeful about 2021.

Personally, I finally became more social and broke out of my shell. I’ve made huge strides in happiness and managing my mental health. For once, I’m actually hopeful for my future. Back in December, I don’t think I’d have cared if I caught this virus, but now my focus is “don’t die,” which is huge for me.

In world news, my friend sent me a video where pollution is way down, and endangered species are making a comeback. That’s good.

Oh, and Parasite winning BP.

Adam Sandler's Spirit award speech.

    AMEN 

I owe my life to those incedible people.