a year in review
WARNING: this is mostly non-bagel related.
I don’t feel comfortable calling 2017 a “good” year. I mean, we inaugurated a soulless nightmare monster as president, and every marginalized group is so goddamn tired (and also so goddamn tired of saying “I’m so tired” a lot.). But, as I reflect on the year as a whole, 2017 was incredibly important for personal growth and achievements, coupled with feeling slightly more fearless facing the uncertainties of life trajectories.
I’m a sucker for a bulleted list, and as I write this I'm drinking rosé, and I’m sentimental as hell, so let’s do this.
✨The Jo Lammert 2017 Year in Review✨
Things I did in 2017 (in no particular order):
Drove my car a lot.
Drove to the Guadalupe Mountains, stayed on an 80 acre off the grid property
Drove to west Texas with my lovely, lovely friend Gabrielle (and stayed at our friend Adam’s vineyard in the Davis Mountains).
Drove to Del Rio
Drove to Marfa again
Drove to Burnet to celebrate July 4th with family and buds
Drove to Marfa AGAIN for Marfa Film Fest.
From Marfa, drove with good buds Rachel and Andy to White Sands National Monument, Truth or Consequences, NM, Santa Fe NM, Archer City, TX, dropped them off in Dallas, went to Hot Springs, AR.
Drove to Houston with my friend Karen to see our friend Shawn, see the Astros, go to museums, etc. (by the way, Houston is so great!?!?).
Drove to Marfa AGAIN (well… this time to live there.)
Drove to the Lincoln National Forest in New Mexico, Carlsbad Caverns, and Guadalupe Mountains (again)
Returned to Austin for Fantastic Arcade
Drove to the TX hill country/Austin for Christmas
About to drive to east Texas for a new year’s adventure
Plus daytrips to Mexico and various small towns around here in west Texas.
Went to San Francisco for GDC (my fifth year!)
Went to Seattle to visit my longtime grad school bud/ Kimmy and celebrate my bday
Went to Kauai, Hawaii with a group to celebrate our friend David’s birthday, along with his big life move to Melbourne. It was one of my favorite vacations, surrounded by stunning beaches, surrounded by a lot of food (specifically a lot of poke) and beer, and surrounded by people I love dearly. Such an important memory. I hope I’m fortunate enough to have more travels in life a fraction this lovely.
(oh also the Astros won their first World Series while I was out there, which was the cherry on top.)
Saw good music (probably forgetting some, but the ones that stick in my brain):
Molly Burch
Jens Lekman
Various SXSW things
- Hamilton Leithauser
Mitski
The xx
Kevin Morby
Fleet Foxes
Big Thief
The War on Drugs
Marched and rallied against horrible things, definitely not as much as others, and definitely not as much as i clicked “Interested” on Facebook, but more than I ever have before in my life.
Moved two blocks over to an east Austin studio treehouse.
Started a Cookbook Club. We had two great meetings/potlucks… then I moved to the desert. Oops!
Organized an event at SXSW, did not die!
Organized a tubing trip, did not die!
Rollerskated once, did not die!
- Climbed a bunk bed at an airbnb… broke my right foot.
Ate my first banana split
Went ‘viral’ on Twitter for wearing a Korean sheet mask. It was weird and I was weird about it!
I left my state day job. Took a big risk and got back into freelance. Hope to grow this part of my life even more in 2018.
Left Austin, the city I lived in for 8 years, and moved to Marfa. I’m here ‘til TBD.
Started working for the first time in my life as a barista. Learned a lot more about coffee and milk and latte art. Now I also bake 18 loaves of sourdough a week too!
Learned it's 'turmeric' not 'tumeric'
I wore less makeup? Definitely not an accomplishment so much as a new development in life. I’m a big believer in “do what you want to your face/wear a ton of makeup or no makeup/you do you”, but I also know for me (repeat, FOR ME), the eras I couldn’t leave the house without red lipstick and cateye liner were the eras I was most consumed in self-hate.
Also note I still wear makeup frequently, and most of the time a guy thinks I’m, like, “naturally glowing”, joke is on you buddy, there’s probably a concealer/mascara/highlighter combo happening.
Also please note, even if I wear less of it, I fucking love makeup, please send me Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty products.
- Related, I feel a pinch more confident in myself/my body/yadda yadda yadda than i did a year ago. A year ago I felt a pinch more confident about those things than I did two years ago, two years ago was better than three years ago, etc.. All of this is to say, based on this trajectory, I’m hopeful I reach mega-babe status by the time I’m 60 (that's how this works, right?).
Ummmmm oh yeah, I launched this website. I baked bagels with friends, I baked bagels for friends, I had pop-ups, it’s been good and emotional and this project weirdly catapulted me into the physical and mental places I am now?
All in all, it was a good year for my personal growth. I am very privileged and very fortunate, I recognize that. There’s the cynical part of me, always bracing for disappointment, and maybe even bracing harder after making a bulleted list of mostly good things happening to me in 2017, bracing for things to go terribly wrong. That’s definitely possible, but I’m happy the first third of 2018 is already booking up with work travels, personal travels, weddings, concerts, lots of good things.
One year ago I had no idea I’d be living in the west Texas desert, but here we are. I don’t know where I will be one year from today, but I’m feeling very okay, and actually maybe very excited about that unknown.
I will probably still be baking bagels though.
