I have to go buy an eggplant for tonight's Pasta alla Norma (one of two New Years Eve pasta dishes Michael is set on cooking later because we're cRaZy like that) but before I do that, I wanted to get some words down. Some of my words went on tour this year, peeking out from behind the heavy velvet curtain of magazines and online sites, giving awkward waves to my mini fan base. I did a lot of writing this year, in many different places, and that's a good thing; it's what the tiny fan base and I want to see.

Is it strange to feel a kinship with your voice? I've been working with it for so long now it really feels like a lifelong friend. And for the first time in my life, I know how to read something I wrote a year ago, two years ago, three years ago, hell, twenty years ago...and not die of embarrassment. It may not sound the way I want it to sound today, but wow, I got that shit down and I can understand better than ever where I was coming from and what the hell I was feeling when I wrote about feeling frustrated at my first internship, or scared to move out of my parents' house, or excited to be published in some paper zine that no one reads. When we moved into this apartment in October, I kept unpacking and finding old Moleskins and the like---some filled, some not filled at all---and I'd stand there for a split-second reading a sentence or ten before moving on to something else. There was no cringing like in past years.

I was reading what I wrote last year around this time, in a post named "New Outlets," because I couldn't remember what my resolution for 2014 had been.

“There’s too much value in pursuing the things in life we care most about, the things in life that make us most happy. Even if the things in life that make us most happy feel so freaking hard. Even if it’s just slipping a single postcard into a mailbox, or a foot into a slipper. I’m going to find new outlets. ”

— December 30, 2013

I don't know if there's a rule about repeating resolutions in the new year, but if there is, I don't care. My thirties have taught me that. So, here's to finding new outlets! And to continuing on with the tried-and-true.