When the esteemed Wm. Steven Humphrey, editor-in-chief of the Portland Mercury, first asked me if I wanted to write an opinion piece looking back on my 2020 experiences, I balked. This year was traumatic yet dull in so many general and specific ways that I didnāt know where to start, and I didnāt have anything to say that hadnāt already been said a million times by pundits and social media philosophers.
So I decided to circumvent that challenge by focusing instead on what sparked joy.
Because so much of 2020 was spent inside my house and inside my own head, the things that got me through 2020 are just that: things. Physical objects, songs, board games, TV shows, the odd luxury candle. These are the things Iāll want to remember from 2020. The rest of it can go straight to hell, in my candid opinion.
āAnthemsā by Charli XCX
I used to be a good writer. I used to keep an overflowing list of things I wanted to write about, and take delight in honing first drafts into tighter, leaner turns of phrases. I even used to be able to complete the rule of threes.
But then the novel coronavirus pandemic hit, and my creativity went down the toilet like so many rolls of dearly sought-after toilet paper. I feel like a whiny little baby even bringing this up, in a year of Dickensian suffering and Machiavellian leadership, but 2020 was like a giant ice cream scooper, taking a generous helping right out of the center of my mind. Every fleeting idea that my pandemic brain managed to generate was flighty and effervescent, fizzling out and leaving my mind a flat, abysmal can of seltzer.
I know Iām far from alone in this. Which is why the few culturally creative projects that were exclusively envisioned and executed this year have felt so remarkable. And no other such project has been more meaningful to me than the song āAnthemsā by pop artist Charli XCX.
Written and recorded during the early months of quarantine and released on the record How Iām Feeling Now in May, āAnthemsā was the noisy, pace-setting track to many a rage-fueled walk around my neighborhood. It perfectly encapsulates the angsty, electric boredom of spring and summer 2020, and a few repeat listens feels catharticāCharli is ranting over screeching beats so I donāt have to. I donāt know how often Iāll be able to listen to it after the pandemic ends, but if one song saved my life this year, it was āAnthems.ā
This mug
I bought this cute little Marimekko mug in Astoria in September, during what was supposed to be a week-long vacation in an adorable tiny house with my wife. That vacation got cut in half because our home was in the Clackamas County wildfire evacuation warning zone. For months, Iād pinned all my pent-up hopes of a slice of normal, relaxing life on that one week, and returning home early to an apocalyptic Portland, where even taking the trash out felt like an emergency mission, hit like a brutal last straw. (Again, I feel like such a baby to complain about only getting half a week of vacation when a lot of people lost their homes in the fires, but I also know that it is okay and healthy to be sad about losing things!)
Anywayāthe mug. Thereās not much to it except that it has bright, happy colors, and itās the perfect size and shape for my hand, and every morning I drink coffee out of it feels maybe five percent lighter. What more could you want from a mug?
The Alegria burrito
Iām a big fan of every business at Portland Mercado, but this year I became especially enamored with the Alegria burrito at Fernandoās Alegria. Itās got the basics of any good breakfast burrito (and by ābreakfastā I mean ābreakfast, lunch, dinner, and midnight snackā): scrambled eggs, guacamole, a hearty tortilla. The special ingredient here is grilled nopalitos, which impart a mild briny flavor that youāll want to keep coming back for. Some days in this pandemic, there isnāt a ton to look forward to beyond your next tasty meal, and this one has never disappointed.
Boy Smellsā Juneās candle
āBergamot, cassis, anise, coriander, daffodil and tonkaā is how this intoxicating, musty-in-a-good-way scented candle is defined on the label, and Iām not going to try to describe it more aptly than that. This candleās scent fills any room you light it in within 15 minutes, and keeping it lit at my home desk was a tiny kindness I showed myself during days when working from home felt particularly rough. I recommend itāand, more generally, I recommend any candle, incense, etc. that soothes you, as we too often fail to meet our scent needs.
Weird seltzer
I think Iāve consumed, on average, three 12-packs of flavored seltzer a week since the pandemic started. I quickly learned that the flavors I thought would taste disgusting turned out to be my favoriteāwhen youāre working with a zero-calorie soft drink, you need some bold, confusing flavor combos to break through the fizz. Here are my three, highly controversial favorite seltzers of 2021:
ā¢ La Croixās coconut cola: I have no idea who else is buying this, but as a coconut head, Iām so grateful theyāre making it. (The plain coconut La Croix flavor is also good.)
ā¢ Polarās cranberry lime: Double acid, aggressive carbonation, and absolutely no relief for your tongue. A rush!
ā¢ Polarās orange vanilla: No, it doesnāt taste like an orange creamsicle. It tastes like a zero-calorie fizzy water with the essence of orange and vanilla pumped into it through God only knows what process. But thatās why I like it.
I finally got into houseplants!
Turns out that everything every millennial-oriented publication has been trying to tell me for the last five years was true: Houseplants are fun and satisfying and not terribly expensive! Iām now anticipating houseplants to fall sharply out of fashion in 2021, but Iāve made peace with that.
Also, please donāt send me your houseplant tipsāsome hobbies are fun to master, and others are fun just to partake in obliviously.
Making ice cream
Tired: The multi-step, highly involved process of making sourdough bread.
Wired: The multi-step, highly involved process of making ice cream.
Sorry, but if Iām gonna lose myself in a therapeutic kitchen journey that eats up an entire day, I want ice cream at the end of it, not bread! I recommend the Salt & Straw ice cream cookbook, and especially the Arbequina Olive Oil recipe.
Azul
This two-person strategy board game revolves around trying to arrange the right number of colorful, aesthetically pleasing tiles in the right order, and screwing over your opponentās ability to do the same. Itās just the right difficulty levelāstimulating but not intimidatingāand wonderfully tactile. And, unlike Monopoly, it doesnāt take 20 minutes to set up and put away!
Real Housewives, Sister Wives, and Dateline
I know a lot of people used the pandemic as an opportunity to binge-watch The Sopranos or explore the Criterion Collection or whatever, but I did not have it in me to watch anything that required more than half of my attention to appreciate. Enter formulaic reality shows and problematic true crime TVāhere are a few special shoutouts:
ā¢ Keith Morrisonās campy, conspiratorial narration on Dateline.
ā¢ The way every Dateline episode is set in a small town, and yet every episode includes a talking head saying āNo one thought it could happen here!ā
ā¢ The dinner party from hell in season one of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
ā¢ The latest installment in the Real Housewives franchise, set in Salt Lake Cityāspecifically the character who married her step-grandfather. And sheās not even one of the Mormon ones!
ā¢ The gay daughter in Sister Wives.
Jacobsenās Black Garlic Salt
I put this shit on everything. It tastes good!