From the Home Office in San Diego, CA, in which the author bares his soul …
Let’s just say 2023 wasn’t my favorite year. I had a few health problems in the second half, thankfully nothing major (so far), and an also not-my-favorite trip to my beloved United Kingdom (Harrogate and London), plus the usual financial worries, including rising rent (I actually negotiated a better deal on a new lease, so I’m grateful for that). Such is life.
2023 was a milestone year for me in that it marked 25 years—a quarter of a century!—since I moved to San Diego. That’s the longest I’ve ever lived anywhere. At this point in my life, I can’t imagine living anywhere else, but it gets more and more difficult to stay here these days. San Diego has become the #1 most expensive city to live in the entire nation, at least rent-wise, but a lot of other -wises too. And I honestly don’t know how much longer I can afford to be here.
One ongoing question these days is one that makes just about every one of my California friends’ heads spin when I voice it: Do I really need a car anymore? I go to bookstores and Target. I rarely drive more than 50 miles in one round-trip. I feel “lucky” when I pay less than $5.00 for a gallon of gas, and my insurance went up over $100/year. I love my car and the freedom it brings, but do I really need it anymore? I drive it maybe once or twice a week. I took it in for my yearly maintenance at a dealer I go to (not where I bought it) and they made me what I thought was a decent offer for a car that is 17 and 1/2 years old (it has only 86,000 miles on it). My next financial requirements on the car will be before mid-August, when I’ll need to pay for a smog test (which happens every two years) and my yearly registration fee. I have never liked to drive, I didn’t learn how to until I was 35 (!), so I won’t miss driving, but I will miss my car, or at least the idea of my car, if that makes sense. Besides everybody drives like a maniac out here. Is it time to let it go before someone—or some incident—causes me to do so? I honestly don’t know.
2023 will go down for me as the year of the Spinner Rack. Just about a year ago, I created Tales From My Spinner Rack! on this here blog, and I’ve been grateful for it ever since. One year and 37 posts later, I’m still going strong with it, having just done a brand new three-part series, “December 1965,” this month, plus a new 34-minute video on the Official Tales From My Spinner Rack! YouTube Channel, which I started in October. I’m really starting to gain some traction on there, too, with 88 subscribers (not much, but better than the five or so I had three months ago), and my third video, “Jimmy and Lois: Still Crazy After All These Years!,” fast approaching 2,500 views. I also did two convention presentations, one at WonderCon in March (“Batman Becomes Bat-Baby,” also available on YouTube), and the other (“Jimmy and Lois”) at San Diego Comic-Con in July. My goal for 2024 is to continue writing posts and making videos, trying to find my video “voice” (the writing and graphics are there, the narration is not), doing shorter videos (over a half-hour is A LOT), and—hopefully—having panels at both shows once again, and maybe branching out to other conventions; we’ll see. In the meantime, I’m really enjoying turning these comics I love into a little something extra I—and seemingly other people—enjoy, while scratching my ever-present creative itch.
Oh, and just in case you’re wondering … yes, I’ve been playing around a little with the appearance of this blog over the past few days, including a new banner and logo at top, showcasing Tales From My Spinner Rack! and changing the fonts (slightly) and the background color. I couldn’t find a different WordPress theme that gave me everything that this one does, so I had to try and utilize what I already have a little more creatively.
I’ve continued to walk each day through 2023, and I’m on track right now to have walked over 250 miles more than I did in 2022, a new record for me (roughly 1,960 miles this year). I walk pretty much twice a day, including a late-afternoon “walk around the block,” which takes me past a hotel resort next door to me, through a community park, and a restaurant/shopping complex, about a 1.75-mile “short” walk. My morning walks usually end up being around 3.5 miles, so I’m averaging at least five miles a day, which is 150/month. I don’t know how long I can keep up with this pace (I’d like to break 2,000 miles in one year, certainly doable based on this year’s total), but I do still enjoy it, although I will admit to a lazy Sunday (or Saturday) now and again.
I read a lot this year, 80 books, which surpassed my GoodReads goal of 75, so that’s a good thing. God, I love books. I love bookstores, book-shopping, and books in general. I buy books that I read and books that I collect, although almost all books that I read are books that I collect, while conversely, books that I collect are not automatically books that I read. (Make sense? If you know, you know.) I do read a lot of comics and graphic novels, but those I read as real books; I don’t like reading comics on Kindle. I do read a lot on Kindle though, if only because I have neither the financial wherewithal or physical space to own every real book I want to read. Still, the highlight of my UK trip this year was the 15 or so books I came home with. British books are the best, much more superior to their U.S. counterparts, in my humble and bookish opinion.
My wanderlust has become much less lusty, to be honest. Travel is a pain anymore, with flying—short-haul or long-haul—being something I endure not enjoy. I love the planning of a trip, but the getting there and back, not so much. And everything is so expensive. I had been hoarding hotel points, so I managed to get five free nights at my favorite London hotel, along with Diamond status, which gave me free access to their executive lounge each day (which meant basically a free meal each night, along with a free breakfast each morning); that’s the only way I could afford ten days in the UK this year … that and haunting my preferred hotel’s app, continually looking for the very best deals, and cancelling previous reservations and booking again when the price changed. Hey … I’m retired. Everyone needs a hobby. I don’t know how much I will travel in 2024. I was hoping to go to New York City in the fall, maybe late October or early November, but …
I am fearful for 2024 and the upcoming presidential election, which I feel has the propensity to tear this country totally apart. I joked in 2016 that I would move to Canada if what happened happened, but I’m too old to move to a different country. I am hopeful things will turn out the way I want them to, but I don’t have a lot of faith. Every four years you’re supposed to ask yourself one simple question: “Am I better off than I was four years ago?” and I can honestly answer “Yes, I am,” if only for the reason that someone is no longer in the White House. I don’t write a lot about politics on here or on my Instagram posts. I believe it’s a very personal, very polarizing topic, but I sincerely don’t want to see what happened in 2016 happen again. The country won’t survive that. And if this offends you, I apologize, but you have my permission to unfollow me.
What are my goals for 2024? (I hesitate to use the word “resolutions,” which roughly translates to me as “things I say I will do in the coming year but never accomplish”). The usual … take better care of myself, physically, mentally, and financially. Read more and walk more, maybe spend more time with friends, although to be honest, I am happiest at home alone (sorry, friends) these days. Be less occupied with things I can’t control, like the couple who live above me and walk around like they’re the Nazis invading Poland in 1939. They couldn’t be stopped either, at least for a few years.
I am hopeful that I got at least one good omen for the coming new year this morning. I washed my sheets and when I put them back on my bed, I managed to put the fitted sheet on correctly the very first time. Blue skies and sunshine ahead, no doubt.
Well … wasn’t this fun? See you next year.
@innocent-bystander.com 
Leave a comment