Answering the 40 questions, aka Year-End Post on LiveJournal

31 Dec, 2025

Yesterday, a post from Craney came across my RSS feed, and as I read it, a familiar smile crept across my face. Craney links to a 2016 post written by Steph Ango (the CEO of Obsidian), which lists 40 questions to ask yourself as an exercise to review the year for its good parts, bad parts, and everything in between. Eagle-eyed and older folks like myself should immediately recognize these questions as coming from LiveJournal, as many users would also take stock of their lives at year's end.

Given today's date and relative slowness at work, I decided to answer these questions for the first time in nearly two decades:

1. What did you do this year that you’d never done before? Visited Alabama and touched the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. I replaced my Mac mini desktop with a much smaller Mac mini. Stopped in at Funks Grove to buy their sirup (no, that's not a misspelling). Attended the Missouri State Fair with L.
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions? Didn’t make any, so I neither kept nor failed at them.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth? No, not this year.
4. Did anyone close to you die? As of this writing, no. My grandmother made it through 2025, but I know she will be an answer to this question next year.
5. What cities/states/countries did you visit? Stayed entirely within the US in 2025. I visited Iowa twice, Illinois twice, and Mississippi for the first time in nearly 20 years. I visited Alabama for the first time ever, which included an hour-long foray into Pensacola, Florida, so I guess I can throw Florida on the list. Had our New Mexico trip not been canceled in November, I would have included that state, along with my first-ever visit to Texas at El Paso, and a day trip into Mexico at Puerto Palomas.
6. What would you like to have next year that you lacked this year? More money, obviously, and more serenity as I turn 55(!).
7. What date(s) from this year will remain etched upon your memory, and why? November 11, as our actual wedding anniversary was marred by the uncertainty of our travel plans to New Mexico. It was the least-enjoyable anniversary in years. I canceled the trip two days afterwards, then worked on assembling a road trip to Alabama at the last minute that was a better success than I had planned.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Throwing together the Alabama road trip on short notice ranks high, but nowhere as high on the list as buying my Canon rangefinder, which helped rekindle my enjoyment of photography.
9. What was your biggest failure? Not resolving my mother’s final resting place, as her ashes still reside with us. In January, I will contact the cemetery where her mother resides, as the goal still remains to reunite my mother with her mother. It's possible this contact may be done in person, but regardless of how it starts, my hope will be to accomplish everythig before what would have been my mother's 77th birthday in August 2026.
10. What other hardships did you face? Learning Epic for my job at work, as it is an aptly-named system. The ebb and flow of financial security.
11. Did you suffer illness or injury? Nothing major this year, fortunately.
12. What was the best thing you bought? The aforementioned Canon rangefinder.
13. Whose behavior merited celebration? L. as is her custom, both for putting up with me and for making her own moves towards a better professional career.
14. Whose behavior made you appalled? It’s a cliche to point towards elected officials in Washington or Jefferson City, and they deserve quite a lot of scorn for their actions. However, I’d put Cornell College’s recent decision to axe a healthy chunk of their liberal arts education at the top. I realize many colleges, big and small, are facing both a demographic cliff and outside pressures to justify their educational programs (conservative groups who hate education in general, pro-AI and pro-STEM forces who downgrade the importance of liberal arts as a concept, etc.), but I really do not like my alma mater's response here, nor do I like the uncertainty of what programs or focus will arise from what's left of the college's curriculum. This may be a topic of a future post.
15. Where did most of your money go? Bills, bills, bills.
16. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Rediscovering film photography, courtesy of the Canon (and a beat-up Kodak Brownie), which has morphed into getting excited again about photography in general.
17. What song will always remind you of this year? “Aerial Troubles” by Stereolab. Old voices return with some familiar sounds, and some sounds that are new for them.
18. Compared to this time last year, are you: happier or sadder? Richer or poorer? Healthier or unhealthier? Same for all three comparisons.
19. What do you wish you’d done more of? Slept better, and biked more. Or biked better, and slept more.
20. What do you wish you’d done less of? Spend time on Bluesky. I really fell out of love with this social media platform this year. I’m keeping it for the few people whose insights I enjoy, but its overall tenor burns me out after scrolling it for 5-10 minutes. Additionally, I wish I didn't invest so much in my FSA account, as I vastly overestimated how much money I'd need for my health in 2025. The end of this year saw me spend an inordinate amount of money on approved items, most of which I can justify in some way. Still, this monetary arrangement isn't one I want to repeat in 2026, so I hope this year's experience was one-and-done.
21. How are you spending the holidays? At home. "YOU'RE STUCK HERE!" No road trips to Chicago this year.
22. Did you fall in love this year? I stayed in love with L., and vice versa.
23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? Not really, as I learned a valuable lesson both from L.’s work experience and from my last job. Hating someone invites that person to live rent-free in your head. This person also gets free transport, as you carry this hated person wherever you go, meaning there's no real escape. I certainly dislike folks for situational reasons, but I try my best to keep those situations from expanding beyond their natural borders.
24. What was your favorite show? Probably some YouTube channels, particularly It's Time to Travel🇯🇵 / 旅する時間 and travelgeek.
25. What was the best book you read? Things Become Other Things by Craig Mod.
26. What was your greatest musical discovery of the year? L’altelier de Musique, a YouTube channel featuring a lot of Russian DJ’s using vintage equipment.
27. What was your favorite film? Our annual Christmas feature: Mitchell via MST3K.
28. What was your favorite meal? I think this year, sushi has rapidly climbed up the list, possibly tied with ramen.
29. What did you want and get? The film camera!
30. What did you want and not get? The November 2025 trip to New Mexico and El Paso (along with a brief Mexico excursion), which was called off due to uncertainty surrounding air traffic issues during the federal government shutdown. There will be a visit to New Mexico in May 2026, but it will concentrate more on the northern part of the state.
31. What did you do on your birthday? Celebrated like Emperor Maximillian I of Mexico, as I ate at a French bistro and had drinks afterwards at a Mexican mezcaleria.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? I'll say that my car's current status is one I wouldn't have voluntarily desired. Part of me wishes it would have been written off in the November 2024 accident, but I'd likely be more stressed out over my new car payments. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
33. How would you describe your personal fashion this year? Still in that New England combo of a preppy hiker who could be a older LL Bean model.
34. What kept you sane? Coffee, beer, mixing cocktails, adventures with L.
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you admire the most? I don’t really have anyone in mind here, largely because I have a tendency to conflate admiration with perfection, only to become inevitably disappointed when these public figures turn out to be flawed humans like myself and everyone else. Removing the distance from a public figure often means seeing them as fully-dimensional humans, and that's the range I prefer to operate within.
36. What political issue stirred you the most? Too many to mention, but the ongoing pogrom against trans folks is likely at the top of the list.
37. Who did you miss? Friends in Chicago, whom I felt I barely saw this year.
38. Who was the best new person you met? Probably a 4-way tie with 4 Class of 2025 graduates from Cornell College and the Phi Kappa Nu co-ed fraternity. I’ll just list their initials here, so a big shout-out of admiration to Ad., Au., E., and J.
39. What valuable life lesson did you learn this year? Look at backups for every travel plan, and don’t throw so much money into your FSA account. Oh, and learn to expose your film for the shadows, not the highlights.
40. What is a quote that sums up your year? “Let’s go to the porno store, then to Publix!” You get neither context nor source for this quote.

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