2022 in the Rear-View

After realizing I had not blogged once in all of 2022, I planned over Christmas to write up a year-end piece on the year's events that should've motivated me to the keyboard. But then I got locked out of my apartment on Christmas Day night. 

Sorry for the delay. I may get around to telling that story, but first: 

Among the missing posts:  

- my frustration before the year even began - December 2021. After having carefully avoided Covid because I'm among the 3% of Americans considered immunocompromised, I risked seeing my now-remote CNN colleagues in-person for the first time in 21 months -- and tested positive the next day, rushing to the ER for Regeneron  - which turned out to be ineffective vs. Omicron.

- my misery in then having to spend my two-week Xmas break quarantining from my partner in our apartment, having to skip my uncle's funeral, and then, trying to make it to the family cemetery for the interment, having  the Uber driver get so lost on the way that we missed all but the last farewells. 

Finally arriving at Mount Hebron Cemetery

- my reflections on visiting the buildings at 2 Broadway and 14 Wall Street where my father had his law offices before moving them up to the burbs, memories of accompanying him to work on Saturdays to match the schedule of his workaholic father/boss - part of why my brothers and I never followed him into the family business.

14 Wall Street's pyramid roof/my brother Matt
 (who became a school superintendent)

- my disappointment at the ongoing suspension of the Central Park volunteer tour guide program, for which I had just been certified on a second tour, the Ramble, when the pandemic hit in mid March 2020. I attempted to stay informed by taking more tours from the staff guides...

The Block House, built for the war of 1812, North Woods

...being a "greeter" at Belvedere Castle, while also still...

...giving unofficial tours to friends. 

The Bow Bridge, Lake, & Dakota, 1890 & 2022
(photo: John Williams)

- my relief in finally getting an Evusheld shot in March, finally giving me measurable Covid antibodies because the vaccines hadn't worked on my immunosuppressed system (now moot because Evusheld doesn't work against the latest variants, and has been discontinued).

- my sneaky satisfaction in returning in February, masked, to nearly empty museums on weekdays before the city had fully gotten back to full throttle.

MoMA and the Met, February 2022

- the crazy coincidence discovery by my older daughter, while working for New Yorker writer John Seabrook, that my great-uncle (her great-great-uncle) had been involved in the reorganization of Seabrook's grandfather's company in 1925.

- the bittersweetness of finally getting to attend a memorial service for our friend, the legendary music genius Hal Willner, whose wife Sheila had been my pal since Rolling Stone days, and who tragically died in the first weeks of Covid - with tender tribute performances by many including Bono, Elvis Costello, and the normally reclusive Michael Stipe and Tom Waits. R.I.P. 

- my risible fury with the crazy Covid rental car/employee shortage - 

arriving in Lodi, New Jersey for our lower-priced four-month lease, only to learn that the reserved SUV had an accident the night before, and I was forced to borrow a sedan to drive to Wayne to fetch an SUV that had a nearly empty gas tank and expired license plates for which I was immediately ticketed when I parked it on the street in Manhattan. (The replacement vehicle had a plate due to expire at the end of the month, but it was from North Carolina so I just took it and risked getting Avis more tickets.)

- my growing affection for off-season Midcoast Maine, where we had been nesting and working during several months at a time during the pandemic, after having only spent parts of summers there, doing some innocent real-estate porn trespassing, befriending local octagenarians who comprise a high percentage of the winter residents - plus getting to meet Wilco bassist and Mainer John Stirratt. (Heather Cox Richardson remains on my bucket list.) 

- the small-town joys of seeing a double-A baseball game in which the horribly named Mets farm club the Binghamton Rumble Ponies were blown out 13-5 by the Red Sox club the Portland Sea Dogs, in which several of the players later figured in the real Mets pennant race - at which the promotion gimmick was "Halloween night" in April.

"Mets future" Francsico Alvarez catches a 13-5 loss

- the weird "half-return to normal" I felt attending this year's Wilco Solid Sound Festival at Mass MoCA, delayed a year for the pandemic, at which I masked indoors and often out, and got to meet virtual friends in person but only fleetingly. (Japanese Breakfast soundcheck snippet below.) 

- my parental pride when both daughters not only collaborated on a forthcoming short film - one writer/director, the other starring-- but also landed a series of jobs in the nuts-to-navigate showbiz world - even converging for a while in the fall with gigs on the set of the same show. 

- my joy at still finding new layers of New York after so many years here, including another pool I hadn't realized I could swim in, a climb up Highbridge Tower that I'd seen since being driven past it as a kid coming in from the suburbs, a friend's walking tour of "Billie Holiday's Harlem," and a former Met Museum guard's insider's tour.

Highbridge Tower, Mark Satlof's Billie tour, Patrick Bringley's Met, Jackie Robinson pool

- my pride in having seen an early preview of the Broadway musical adaptation of Almost Famous, and thinking of something funny to add -- having the kid reporter, instead of telling Lester Bangs about his high school newspaper journalism, physically pull some out and try to push them into Lester's unwilling hands. And it made it into the show before opening! Thanks to me knowing the set designer Derek McLane from college, the director Jeremy Herrin from having met him at a concert, and the writer Cameron Crowe from journalism days (he left Rolling Stone years before I arrived - despite being only 4 years older than me.). Yet the New York Times review trashed the show in a particularly "let's try to get this thing shut down" manner. (It worked -- it closed January 8th.) 

When I wrote to console Cameron about how the review unfairly didn't give the show props for anything, he wrote me this hilarious response:

- my agony over the Mets nearing the crown and letting me down again like Lucy with the football, ending a season in which they won 101 games with me watching in person from the top row of the upper deck at their miserable final playoff game in whcih they mustered only one (1) hit.

- the drama of getting a new (3rd) cancer and how clumsily I tried to protect family and friends from the information until I knew more, only to learn after I'd sent out the initial missive about my upcoming cell transplant and hospital stay - that the head of pathology's further study of the biopsy had decided it could be treated simply by me starting to take a daily pill -- which so far has worked. 

Miracle BTK Inhibitor cure - so far

Along the way, when in London visiting friends and seeing theater and art, I lost my man-purse in a public square. It was retrieved by a donut shop manager named Roop. 24 hours later, in a completely different part of London, I was exiting the tube and walking out of a restaurant with his boss and coworker was -- Roop. Small town London! 

That would have been a fine blog post, chock full of relatable events and emotions, even for those who don't necessarily know me. 

Then came The Christmas to Remember, when I locked myself out in the hallway, and spent the night on the floor. Maybe I'll tell that story later. 

Meanwhile - on a happier note, on 1-1-23 - after 6,724 days together - the lovely Syd Sidner and I tied the knot in Central Park, in a private ceremony. Our officiant, Rosa Joshi, pronounced us "life partners who are now legally married." 

(And yes, dear reader, she broke her toe on Christmas Eve in Colorado, and still made it to the altat). 

Happy 2023!

1.1.23 
(Photo: Sarah Gordon Drake) 

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