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Books I Read: 2024

Hey gang! I am back with another reporting of all the books I read this past calendar year. Which is the one thing that you can count on consistently from this blog that I’ve otherwise left to shrivel on the vine. I should change that. I really do want to write more, I need the outlet. But do people even read blogs anymore? If a blog falls in the TikTok forest, can anybody hear it? I guess that doesn’t matter, I write this for me. And my one blogger friend Brian, hi Brian! And any other unwitting fool who stumbles upon it. I’d like to write more, so I’m gunna just jot that down and hopefully find the gumption to follow through this year. Anyways!

2024 was a record breaking year in terms of my reading because I read the most books I’ve ever read in one year! (That I know of, because I’ve only been keeping track officially since 2017. Maybe I read more books one year, like, when I was 8 and I just don’t know it. That was a big year for Goosebumps and I was fucking 8, so what else did I have to do?) But in terms of quantifiable stats, I read 66 books in 2024. Yeah, SIXTY-FUCKING-SIX! That feels like an immensely significant number to me, mainly because I decided it is. Keeping in mind, I know some people who read no books and I know someone who read over 100 books last year. That person is a lovely, inspiring reading machine. They’re the LeBron James of reading, and I recognize that they are the true outlier here. Lots of people read none, that’s very common. But 100 is rarified air, and I kinda feel like 66 is too. If the goal is a book a week, 52 is easily achieved, depending on what you read. But I really put the pedal to the metal last year and I feel like my 66 is an impressive showing.

What was so different from years prior? Not much, but I guess I was motivated. There’s a lot of books that exist, and I want to read as many of the good ones as I can. Because it just feels good, you know? To be completely engrossed in a gripping adventure outside of my boring suburban shell. Slip into a world of murder and mayhem and leave unscathed, an unassuming voyeur of slickly contrived drama. And while life with Woody is still demanding and very hands on, somehow more opportunities to read during his waking hours have cropped up. When I take him to swim or gymnastics class, I whip out a book while I sit in the stands. Yeah, I’m that parent. Or, sometimes on the weekends we tell him it’s quiet hour and he has to play independently because he just needs to calm the fuck down and chill out for a bit and we’re tapped out on playing hot wheels and dinosaurs for the moment. Which is conveniently a great reading hour for me. I’m hoping that my love of reading will extend to him via osmosis or whatever science term thingy it is that transmits shit to others. I figure he’ll see how cool I look doing it and obviously he’s gunna want to be hella cool like that too, right? Sometimes he does a great job at quiet hour, playing entirely by himself, quite happily. Other times he’ll play a bit during quiet hour, but it’s obvious he’s still jonesing for parental attention, so he’ll curl up beside me and ask me to read my book aloud to him. If I’m reading something that isn’t appropriate for his ears I’ll tell him no, but if I’m reading something fairly tame I’ll oblige. The first time I did it was to humour him, thinking he’d get bored of it in 30 seconds because there weren’t any pictures, but to my surprise he actually liked it! I was reading from a book called “How to Talk to Little Kids So They’ll Listen”, exposing some great parenting manipulations to make life with him easier, while he sat there an enraptured listener. (I haven’t finished that book btw, so it is not on the list this year. I’ve just been reading choice chapters from it as needed.) He also sat and listened me reading over 15 pages of Val Kilmer’s memoir aloud. No clue why that resonated with him so deeply. But thanks, Val! My plan is working after all.

Now, let’s get down to brass tacks! What you came here for, what you’re all dying to see, the list. I still write a tangible, touchable, lickable version of the list in my list-making journal. It took up three pages this year! (Not pictured, the third page…) Here it is, in all its Skittles toned glory:

A new habit this year though is that I’ve also started digitizing my list. I’ve done that using the GoodReads app AND with google sheets. Double your pleasure, double your fun, I always say. Now you can see a new and improved list of all the books I read showing the author, genre, date finished, and my own personal rating. It’s a simple 3-point scale from Total Crap to Excellent. With an It Okay middle tier. Data Analytics nerds rejoice!

Some noteworthy conclusions drawn from my google sheet:

  • 26/66 books were rated Excellent, a 39% excellency rating!
  • 3/66 books were rated Total Crap, only a mere 4.5% of the books I read sucked ass, which I guess means I’m doing a good job choosing entertaining books
  • All 3 of those Total Crap books were from the Horror genre
  • December was my most prolific month with 9 total books read
  • On average, I read 5 books per month
  • Horror is my most read genre, (22/66 = 33%, a full third of all my reading). No surprise there! The thrillers are all very horror-adjacent though, I’m just splitting hairs here, so we could mush those genres together and conclude that 35/66 (53%) of the books I read were scratching a serious itch for danger
  • I read 2 Pulitzer winning works of fiction and they were both Excellent, as expected. Ronan Farrow’s work on Catch and Kill contributed to a Pulitzer win for the New Yorker as well, but in a different category.
    • To note: I am on a casually meandering side quest to read all of the books that have won a Pulitzer prize for Fiction. I’m keeping a separate list for that and I’ve already read 10/76 books awarded that prize so far!
    • This is the list that I’m working from for that, if you’re curious: The Pulitzer Prizes – Fiction
  • The highest rated category is a three way tie of 100% Excellence between Pulitzer Winners, Non-Fiction, and Kid’s Lit. Every single book I read in those categories was Excellent (but, those stats are admittedly skewed given the raw data I’m working with.)
  • The most read author was Dean Koontz with 6 books
  • Many authors made multiple appearances though: Riley Sager (5), Stephen King (3), Thomas Harris (3), Richard Chizmar (3), Josh Malerman (3), Grady Hendrix (2), Kiersten White (2), Madeline Miller (2), and Robert McCammon (2) respectively
    • Which just goes to show that I am nothing if not loyal!
  • There were some other familiar favourites making singular appearances as well: C.J. Tudor, Neil Gaiman, and Joe Hill

A really fabulous stat that I get from using the GoodReads app is the total number of pages I’ve devoured across all the books read in a singular year:

24,077 Pages! That is truly incredible. I was shocked when I saw it, but also quite proud. This is the sole reason I’m using GoodReads to be honest. I don’t rate books or write reviews or engage content from other readers in any way. I just like that big juicy Pages stat.

Also of note, I had an eye exam this year and have learned that in my advancing years, I am now far-sighted. I had to get glasses for reading. There I am, getting all old and shit. Kinda looking like Dave Grohl maybe. But at least I don’t cheat on my spouse and keep a stash of secret babies squirrelled away. (Shots fired! Dave, you let us all down last year with that shit, you dirtbag! And I’m still mad at you.)

With so many pages turned, and so many lessons learned, I have to say that the absolute cream of the crop this year, the best of the best books, the ones I would recommend to any one, are these (in no specific ranked order):

  1. Black River Orchard by Chuck Wendig
    • A bonkers nutso tale of horror and murder revolving around artisanal apples. It made me a Chuck Wendig fan and I’m looking forward to reading more of his stuff.
  2. Brothers by Alex Van Halen
    • Is this a perfect rock ‘n’ roll memoir? No. Is it entertaining and deeply endearing? Hell yes! I loved learning more about the Van Halen brothers and how they grew up. I loved hearing crazy stories about Diamond Dave! And I loved spending time in a loyal and loving sibling relationship. Alex is right, the connection they had is one that most siblings will sadly never achieve.
  3. Circe by Madeline Miller
    • I don’t often read Historical fiction, but this book was on Paste Magazine’s list of The 40 Best Novels of the 2010’s (another side quest I’m on), and I kept seeing it highly recommended in the book forums I follow. I immediately got why it’s been lauded as a remarkable and fantastic read after the first chapter. It is so freaking good! I loved the reimagining of the witch Circe from Homer’s The Odyssey, which I had lots of experience with in my academic days. She was a complex and compelling heroine who I loved spending time with. I applauded her tenacity and I ached with her during her loneliest moments. It made me read Miller’s The Song of Achilles as well and it is also a phenomenal read. But of the two, I liked Circe best.
  4. Gone South by Robert R. McCammon
    • The summer of 2024 was my summer of the dusty old paperback page-turner, and this was the best of them all. The story was good, a wild and outlandish adventure with multiple subsets of characters overlapping and intertwining. You’ve got a fugitive on the run, bounty hunters, deformed freaks, swamp people, and a deluded Elvis impersonator/wannabe! This book had it all and moved at a breakneck pace. It was weird and funny and exciting. Boat chases! Car chases! Foot chases! Swamp chases! All the kinds of chases were present. It was fun. Way more fun than McCammon’s Boy’s Life which holds an exalted place in 80’s fiction, but I’m not really sure why. It just meanders. Gone South is a better bang for your buck.
  5. Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk by Kathleen Hanna
    • Incredible. This is the perfect example of everything I want a memoir to be! Kathleen Hanna is candid and raw to a degree that nobody else ever is when they write their memoir. When I read a memoir I want the person to really show me who they are behind the veneer of fame. I want to feel like I’m having a one on one conversation with someone about their life where they’re willing to share with me everything, to answer any question I might have. Kathleen gives that and oh so much more. She’s a real person, a real artist, who has struggled and made mistakes, who has persevered and figured out who she is outside of the musical scene and point in time that seemingly defines her for the purposes of a Wikipedia page. I’ve always loved her and her music, but now I somehow love her even more. Everyone should read this book.
  6. Total Recall by Arnold Schwarzenegger
    • Arnold is similar to Kathleen Hanna in that he is very honest in telling the story of his tremendous life. And this is just such an amusing and inspiring read. This is a person who was born with buckets of determination and drive, who made everything they ever wanted to happen in life, happen. Through unrelenting force of will alone. This is a great portrait of a man who loves living and has never stopped pushing himself. It’s an ode to optimism and grit. I respect and admire him, simple as that. He’s got unique views on life and he’s a very intelligent person. He’s made some monumental mistakes, and parts of the book read like an effusive apology to Maria, but I get it. Even though he fucked up, he was trying to be accountable for his shit as he reflected on those mistakes. Unlike Val Kilmer’s slippery and seemingly revisionist retellings of all his failed romances… that dude is pathologically exempt from all his faults, so I especially respect the hell out of Arnold for owning his shit. They say never meet your heroes, but he seems like the exception to that rule, the kind of hero you would never regret meeting.

One little bit of snark before I wrap this up, and it’s directed at Thomas Harris. Red Dragon is a phenomenal book. I couldn’t put it down and it kept me guessing at every turn. It was visceral and haunting at times, and it made me feel deeply uncomfortable in the exact way I want a horror novel to make me feel. Bravo! It spurred me on to reading a few more Harris novels. I’d already read The Silence of the Lambs years ago, and not needing to re-tread old ground, I jumped ahead from Red Dragon into Hannibal next. Here’s the snark: It FUCKING SUCKS! What a total pile of shit that novel is. It took me over 2 weeks to read it because it was such a tedious slog. I burned through Read Dragon in four days and was expecting to do the same with Hannibal, but it was sooooo slow in the beginning that I just kind of stalled and dreaded picking it up. I had to force myself through it. The novel starts with Clarice and her fall from grace, which is just so stupid, but you expect Harris is setting the stage for major redemption later on so you deal with it. And then the story goes to some random ass character in Italy that we give no shits about, and a whole clusterfuck happens over there. Which makes Hannibal decide it’s safe to come back to the U.S.?? Like, no dawg. He’s an evil supervillain genius that the whole world is looking for, this makes no sense! Then the last half of the novel does start to pick up, and I’m thinking “okay, maybe he’ll salvage this and stick the landing after all.” NO. It was a total shit the pants, miss the mats completely, zeroes across the board from all judges ending! I’m still infuriated thinking about it months later as I write this. Why??? Why did you do this to your fans, Mr. Harris? WHAT.THE.FUCK my dude? It was a completely unnecessary character assassination of Clarice Starling and an overall abomination of a story. I hate it. Hopping mad over here.

For whatever reason, I gave Harris another chance later in the year when I read Cari Mora because that book had killer potential. The description on the book jacket led me to believe there’d be a semi-recreation of the Starling/Lecter dynamic, but with new characters in a new iteration. Another plucky female lead facing off with an unthinkable monster. They had a moment, those two, at the end. But they didn’t come together and square off in quite the way I expected. It was anticlimactic at best. There’s some nervy scenes, but mostly this is a heist story. A heist story told in the most vague, ambivalent way possible. The book was by no means about the falsely advertised cat-and-mouse between hunter and prey. But I guess that was the best the publishers could come up with to get people to read it? I mean, it worked on me. The problem is after you’ve read the book, you just feel like you were duped. So I won’t be reading any more Harris, I’ll tell you that. Fool me once, fuck you. Fool me twice, goddamn, fuck me! I shoulda known better.

So that’s that, everything I read in 2024. This year of reading should be good too. I’ve read 5 books so far and I’ve got a few early contenders for best of the year. I’ve got Lonesome Dove on the shelf, just waiting for the right moment to leap into my hands. I think maybe the summer will be a good time to tackle this critically acclaimed, epic western. And I’ve got some more 70’s Koontz lined up. I haven’t read as much Koontz as I have King, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say from what I’ve read so far, the 70’s might be my favourite era of his. His villains are so deranged, but in a very direct and earnest way. I dig that. We’ll see how that opinion shifts though as I dive deeper into his stuff.

I’m not going to force myself to crush a specific number of books this year, it’d be nice to meet the 50 book quota again, but I’ll see how I feel. Usually a year of crushing books gives way to a year of lightly crunching them instead; the natural ebb and flow of obsession and restraint at work. I do want to read something that challenges me this year though. I don’t know what that is, but I know it’s out there. Maybe something that will inspire focus and improvement in my own writing. Or, maybe I should finally tackle Hemingway! (I’ve read absolutely zero Hemingway, can you believe that?)

If you came this far, thanks for reading dude, I appreciate it. Drop me a line if you’ve got thoughts on my reading list or want to chat about any book, ever! I never tire of talking about books and I welcome your company, always 🙂

Books I Read: 2019

The reading adventures continue!

Although, there were fewer adventures this year. I did not cover nearly as much ground as I did in 2018. This past year I read a modest 24 books in total. I had every intention of keeping up the pace of the year prior, but I think I may have been feeling a bit burnt out. I intended to focus my 2019 on reading all of Paste Magazine’s 50 Best Horror Novels of All Time. I’d already read a few of the books from this list in the past, basically all of the Stephen King and Joe Hill stuff, and I read another 15 from this list at the end of 2018 as well. I think going into 2019 I had about 25 books on this list still to tackle. And some of them I just felt like I probably wouldn’t read because they were harder to find through the library and online. Some of them just by cursory review of the subject matter alone I felt might be better left unread, you know, for personal preference and psychological preservation.

I sort of meandered this year, and only wound up reading 7 of the books from the horror list. When I found out I was pregnant the first time, back in the spring, I obviously lost steam because I started reading What to Expect When You’re Expecting and spent more of my time researching all kinds of pregnancy shit. So, to be fair, that was a pretty reasonable disconnect from the goal. Then there was a whole flurry of activity around selling our place and moving, so I simply did not have the time to dedicate to reading. There was a brief lull in the summer between the condo sale and the move in June and July when I got to indulge a bit more. At that point I didn’t want to be bound by a required list and instead preferred to read whatever caught my eye at the library.

Anyways, here it is. Here’s the list of all 24 books I read in 2019:

  1. Vox — Christina Dalcher (January 6th)
  2. Ring — Koji Suzuki (January 13th)
  3. Night Things — Michael Talbot (February 13th)
  4. A Head Full of Ghosts — Paul Tremblay (February 19th)
  5. At the Mountains of Madness — H.P. Lovecraft (February 24th)
  6. Educated — Tara Westover (February 27th)
  7. Sleeping Beauties — Stephen King & Owen King (March 17th)
  8. An Object of Beauty — Steve Martin (March 24th)
  9. Food: A Love Story — Jim Gaffigan (March 26th)
  10. Dad is Fat — Jim Gaffigan (March 30th)
  11. Revival — Stephen King (April 8th)
  12. Supermarket — Bobby Hall (June 7th)
  13. Disappearance at Devil’s Rock — Paul Tremblay (June 14th)
  14. The Sisters Brothers — Patrick deWitt (June 20th)
  15. Let the Right One In — John Ajvide Lindqvist
  16. Final Girls — Riley Sager (July 5th)
  17. Alice Isn’t Dead — Joseph Fink (July 9th)
  18. Tell the Machine Goodnight — Katie Williams (July 24th)
  19. The Hiding Place — C.J. Tudor (July 31st)
  20. Rabbit Cake — Annie Hartnett (August 5th)
  21. Where the Crawdads Sing — Delia Owens (August 28th)
  22. The Outsider — Stephen King (September 10th)
  23. Little Star — John Ajvide Lindqvist (September 26th)
  24. The Exorcist — William Peter Blatty (October 4th)

I’m still very much obsessed with fiction, reading anything with the slightest hint of action, adventure, and intrigue. I’ve never been one for non-fiction. I get enough real life in my real life. When I read I want to be transported somewhere I’ve never been, live vicariously through someone else’s exploits. I want things to be outrageous and zany, intense and thrilling! I need strong, complex characters overcoming challenges and triumphing over evil. I think I got a fair amount of that this year. But I did have a few uncharacteristic real life detours, with the Tara Westover memoir and the two Jim Gaffigan books.

I enjoyed everything I read this year too, there weren’t any major disappointments. The Bobby Hall novel Supermarket was bizarre, but I liked it. The Steve Martin book, An Object of Beauty was alright. I don’t think I’d recommend it, but I didn’t hate it. If you’re wondering, yes it was written by that Steve Martin, the one we all know and love from SNL, Father of the Bride, and other comedy favourites. Vox was fantastic, it was hard to put down. Night Things was a read from the horror list that I actually liked way more than I thought I would. It had horribly cheesy cover art that wasn’t encouraging, but it wound up being a fun read. Reminded me of those quirky books I was always drawn to in the 6th grade like “My Teacher’s an Alien!” because they featured such outlandish cover art.

Stephen King naturally makes a few appearances as well. It wouldn’t be a reading list without him. The Outsider was awesome, I liked it a lot. Looking forward to watching the series when it starts airing. I think Jason Bateman is a great casting choice for this story.

My reading came to another long pause towards the end of the year. I started reading a book called Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky which started strong and then just couldn’t hold my interest. I finally picked it up again with the intention of seriously finishing it at the end of December, but that one has slipped on through to the 2020 list.

Of this list, here are my Top 5 Picks for Best Reads of the Year:

    1. Rabbit Cake — Annie Hartnett
      This book caught my eye because it was bright yellow and had an illustration of a cute rabbit on the cover. I immediately sensed that it was going to be unique and quirky. It did not disappoint. The main character is a little girl named Elvis who is very matter-of-fact and scientific in her approach to processing all of the grief and fallout in her family after her mother dies. It showed how people grieve differently, but through a hilarious lens. I needed this book. It was exactly what I needed to read after my miscarriage. Every word went right into my soul and I was so grateful it called out to me from that dusty library shelf. You can judge a book by the cover!
    2. Educated — Tara Westover
      I mentioned I don’t often read non-fiction, right? This book was actually gifted to me by a co-worker in a Secret Santa exchange. It’s not something I would have chosen for myself, but I am so glad I read it. It blew me away! This is a truly amazing story of a real life person who overcame insurmountable odds to get a formal education, something most people take for granted. School is just something we’re all accustomed to as a part of life from a very young age and I don’t know if many of us would have the same wherewithal to pursue an education if it wasn’t something we were forced to do. Tara Westover is an impressive and inspiring person and I’m so thankful she shared her story with the world.
    3. The Sisters Brothers — Patrick deWitt
      All the laughs! I loved this book so much because it was witty and wry. Much like Inherent Vice, there were multiple times I laughed out loud while reading. A good old fashioned cowboy romp with humour. Great characters, great story. The brothers were so real to me, I felt like I was on the trek with them. I could practically smell the cracked leather, dusty trails, and stinky boots as I read. Maybe that was just me though, who knows? I loved this book from the very first sentence through to the last.
    4. Tell The Machine Goodnight — Katie Williams
      Imagine someone ran a simple diagnostic test on you that resulted in clear directives you could follow to be happy. They could be easy enough to do, like go to yoga. Or they could be utterly absurd, like cut off your pinky finger. Would you do it? What wouldn’t you do to be happy? The premise was really intriguing and I enjoyed reading this story. It did feel like it could have unfolded in a more satisfying way, but overall the characters kept me interested.
    5. Alice Isn’t Dead — Joseph Fink
      Right from the start this book wasn’t fucking around. You’re thrust into a bizarre scenario in the first chapter and it just keeps getting weirder and wilder as you read. You feel compelled to uncover the conspiracy alongside Keisha. This book is actually the novelization of a podcast. I think that’s what made it so interesting. You’re reading a book, yes, but it reads differently. There are moments of fast-paced action, but also long stretches of inner turmoil while Keisha is on the road that make you feel like you’re on the same endless road trip. I still don’t even know if I fully understand how everything connected in the end, but it was an entertaining ride no doubt.

Even though my output wasn’t as prolific as last year, I’m amazed I managed this many reads at all, given what an absolutely insane year it’s been. As appealing as it can be to escape reality, sometimes you just have to face it head on instead. I might seek out adventures and epic struggles in my reading, but I realize that my life isn’t entirely devoid of its own adventures and epic struggles. It might not be to quite the same extent, but there are challenges to rise to, little evils to overcome, zany pals to provide amusement and support along the way. I have all the makings of a great story right here in front of me. Wherever my story may take me, I’m ready for it. Armed first and foremost with a good book to help me get by.

Books I Read: 2018

I decided to continue this habit I started in 2017 of keeping a record of all the books I read throughout the year. And for 2018 I decided to up the ante, considerably. I saw this article promoted on LinkedIn about how most CEOs read 50 books a year that piqued my interest. Did you know that Bill Gates reads anywhere from 50-60 books a year? Damn, son! That’s some impressive numbers. Afterwards I thought to myself that I’m a bad boss bitch myself, there’s no reason I can’t go toe-to-toe with ol’ Gatesy on this. I love to read! And I’ve heard that the more you read the better you write. (That’s some wisdom from Stephen King, who also reportedly reads anywhere from 50-70 books a year!)

The math on this checks out. There are 52 weeks in a year, so 50 books is an attainable goal. Those extra 2 weeks would give me the same supportive comfort I’ve come to expect from the finest pair Costco stretch pants money can buy. I decided that 2018 would be the year I read a minimum of 50 books.

And you know what? I fucking did it! I did it so hard. I read a whopping 63 books in 2018. And I loved every minute of it. In 2017 I only read 18 books, which I feel is a totally respectable number as well. I was questing for the Dark Tower during the last half of the year and truly savouring those stories.

But knowing that I was able to triple my reading made me feel good too. I read so many books I needed 3 pages in my notebook to list them! I also have this darling 12-pack of multi-coloured fine point pens that I used to spruce up my list. Because, yay pretty! I also started recording the date that I finished the book, which I hadn’t done the year prior. It allowed me to better track my trajectory.

Check it out dudes, here’s my reading list!

Here’s the complete and comprehensive list of all the books I read in 2018 so you don’t have to squint read it from the photos:

  1. The Fireman — Joe Hill (January 6th)
  2. Fahrenheit 451 — Ray Bradbury (January 10th)
  3. The Bat — Jo Nesbo (January 17th)
  4. Heart-Shaped Box — Joe Hill (January 23rd)
  5. Oryx and Crake — Margaret Atwood (January 30th)
  6. The Year of the Flood — Margaret Atwood (February 12th)
  7. MaddAddam — Margaret Atwood (February 17th)
  8. Love is a Mixed Tape — Rob Sheffield (February 18th)
  9. The Chalk Man — C.J. Tudor (February 19th)
  10. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest — Ken Kesey (February 26th)
  11. Lord of the Flies — William Golding (March 2nd)
  12. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children — Ransom Riggs (March 13th)
  13. The Damned — Andrew Pyper (March 16th)
  14. The Man in the High Castle — Philip K. Dick (March 29th)
  15. The Rosie Project — Graeme Simsion (April 4th)
  16. The Killing Circle — Andrew Pyper (April 10th)
  17. Marathon Man — William Goldman (April 15th)
  18. Sharp Objects — Gillian Flynn (April 22nd)
  19. The Westing Game — Ellen Raskin (April 24th)
  20. The Executioner’s Song — Norman Mailer (May 13th)
  21. The Couple Next Door — Shari Lapena (May 14th)
  22. In a Dark, Dark Wood — Ruth Ware (May 19th)
  23. Luckiest Girl Alive — Jessica Knoll (May 27th)
  24. The Road — Cormac McCarthy (May 30th)
  25. Lost Girls — Andrew Pyper (June 10th)
  26. The Woman in Cabin 10 — Ruth Ware (June 17th)
  27. Neuromancer — William Gibson (June 30th)
  28. The Silent Wife — A.S.A. Harrison (July 2nd)
  29. Slaughterhouse Five — Kurt Vonnegut (July 3rd)
  30. Misery — Stephen King (July 6th)
  31. The Bell Jar — Sylvia Plath (July 9th)
  32. The Heart Goes Last — Margaret Atwood (July 18th)
  33. The Demonologist — Andrew Pyper (July 25th)
  34. The Great Gatsby — F. Scott Fitzgerald (July 28th)
  35. The Girl Before — J.P. Delaney (July 29th)
  36. Roadwork — Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman (August 3rd)
  37. The Running Man — Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman (August 9th)
  38. Truly Madly Guiltily — Liane Moriarty (August 19th)
  39. Anasi Boys — Neil Gaiman (August 26th)
  40. Dying Scream — Mary Burton (August 31st)
  41. Inherent Vice — Thomas Pynchon (September 6th)
  42. On Writing — Stephen King (September 9th)
  43. We Were the Mulvaneys — Joyce Carol Oates (September 17th)
  44. A Stir of Echoes — Richard Matheson (September 19th)
  45. Gerald’s Game — Stephen King (September 25th)
  46. My Best Friend’s Exorcism — Grady Hendrix (September 30th)
  47. Duma Key — Stephen King (October 12th)
  48. Coraline — Neil Gaiman (October 13th)
  49. The Other — Thomas Tryon (October 22nd)
  50. Gwendy’s Button Box — Stephen King and Richard Chizmar (October 22nd)
  51. The Shining Girls — Lauren Beukes (October 30th)
  52. Broken Monsters — Lauren Beukes (November 5th)
  53. Strange Weather — Joe Hill (November 10th)
  54. Something Wicked this Way Comes — Ray Bradbury (November 12th)
  55. The Girl Next Door — Jack Ketchum (November 14th)
  56. Bird Box — Josh Malerman (November 18th)
  57. Rosemary’s Baby — Ira Levin (November 21st)
  58. The Haunting of Hill House — Shirley Jackson (December 10th)
  59. Hell House — Richard Matheson (December 14th)
  60. Audition — Ryu Murakami (December 16th)
  61. The Devil in Silver — Victor LaValle (December 24th)
  62. The Woman in Black — Susan Hill (December 27th)
  63. The Summer is Ended and We Are Not Yet Saved — Joey Comeau (December 29th)

So first off, I’m obviously not reading a bunch of business or tech books like Bill Gates probably is. My tastes are apparently quite murderous. Funny story actually, I was walking to the library in the fall and I had Lauren Beukes’s The Shining Girls in my hand. While I was waiting at the cross walk the woman next to me noticed my book and asked what it was about. I told her it was about a serial killer who stalks women through time and the one woman who survived his attack trying to hunt him down. She looked horrified and said to me “You must not read these kinds of things! The mind is so sensitive and these terrible things make such an impression on it. You don’t want to take all that nastiness with you into the next life.” I was genuinely taken aback by that response. It was so unexpected and unnerving. At that point in the year I’d already read my fair share of gory murders and heinous crimes to be solved by plucky heroines that I was starting to think this was the beginning of my very own real-life story! An ominous warning from a stranger is a classic horror trope and the people who buck those warnings are always in for trouble. I brushed it off though and continued on, next reading Lauren Beukes’s Broken Monsters which was even more fucked up than The Shining Girls. But I loved both books. Both are well-written and riveting, I would recommend them to anyone who doesn’t mind having terrible things imprinted on their brain.

There are a few books here that I’d read before but wanted to reread like Fahrenheit 451, The Great Gatsby, and Lord of the Flies. All three are excellent reads that I would also recommend. Looking back I see that I had quite a few little binges throughout the year where I just gobbled books up. There was a long weekend in February that was horribly cold and snowy so I literally read all weekend long, finishing up three books in three days. It was so lovely, and so needed. There’s nothing I needed more this year than solitude and books. It was good for my soul.

It’s amazing how much time there really is for reading if you make the effort. I was reading in bed late at night, on the subway when commuting, in waiting rooms at appointments, on my lunch break even. In the summertime I was reading in the park and it was absolutely delightful. I hit my goal of 50 books on October 22nd at 11:47pm EST when I finished Gwendy’s Button Box. October 22nd is special because I finished two books that day. I finished Thomas Tryon’s The Other on my Monday commute, then started Gwendy’s Button Box around 9pm as my nighttime read before bed. It was a quick read, and totally engrossing so those 171 pages were easily devoured.

Of everything I read this year there was only one real dud. It was Dying Scream by Mary Burton. What a shitty fucking book that was. I bought it off the 2 for $15 paperback rack at Indigo because I assumed it was another basic serial killer, crime solving caper. Buyer beware, amiright? I didn’t notice the “Romantic Suspense” label on the spine when I bought it. D’oh! It was also apparently the second book in a trilogy, and not having read the first book made it that much worse. But I powered through nonetheless and checked the rest of my book spines thoroughly to mitigate risk of another stinker like that one.

I would also say that The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum is a psychologically traumatic read, so please don’t read it. As someone who regularly faces down spooky, gory, and macabre stories without issue, this one genuinely unsettled me. It’s in a class all its own of awfulness. Any time I tried to convince myself that the situation couldn’t get any worse, it always did and went to levels of depravity that I couldn’t even fathom. It hurt my heart reading this book, truly.

Overall though, this is a list of awesome reads and I’m proud of myself. If I had to pare this list down to the Top 5 Best of the Best, it would be:

  1. Marathon Man — William Goldman
    Such an exciting read! I loved every minute of it. This is pure entertainment.
  2. On Writing — Stephen King
    The only non-fiction I read this year and frankly, long overdue. You know how much I respect and admire Mr. King, so learning about his approach was endlessly fascinating. Truly, this is a must read for anyone who writes. Any genre, any kind of writing, you have to read this book.
  3. The Fireman — Joe Hill
    First book of the year and it set the bar. A post-apocalyptic type of story with well-rounded characters that you care about and hope survive.
  4. Inherent Vice — Thomas Pynchon
    So many laughs! This is the wittiest writing I’ve ever encountered and I actually laughed out loud while reading, numerous times. Pychon is devious and masterful. Nobody writes like this, he’s divine.
  5. The Shining Girls — Lauren Beukes
    This one is a slam-dunk. It’s got a fresh, interesting concept, a perfectly vile villain, and is so fast-paced you can hardly stand to put it down. It’s fantastic.

Boss bitch status achieved! 2018 was one for the books alright, heh heh, pun intended. I proved that I could continue to live my normal life as a career obsessed woman who wants it all while reading just as much as the average CEO reportedly does. For 2019 I’m already underway tackling Paste Magazine’s 50 Best Horror Novels of All Time and I can’t wait to tell you all about it next year.

I leave you with this final thought: READ.

Reading is good for you. Do it. Make time for yourself, for stories, and for adventures or learning. Whatever it is you like to read, make time for it and do it.

Books I Read: Inaugural Year 2017

Sometime in April 2017 I decided to start keeping a list of all the books I’ve read since the start of 2017. I can’t remember why, but I did. It was easy enough to remember everything I’d read as of January because I’ve long run out of upright storage space on my bookcase and started keeping two distinct piles stacked on the shelves: books I’ve just read and books in line to be read. I got the list up to speed based on the books I’ve just read pile and then from there, whenever I finished a book, I wrote an entry for it in the list aptly titled Books I’ve Read This Year. 

Riveting stuff, surely.

And now I present to you, my readers, said list:

  1. What Alice Forgot—Liane Moriarty
  2. End of Watch—Stephen King
  3. All the Missing Girls—Megan Miranda
  4. Ready Player One—Ernest Cline
  5. Never Knowing—Chevy Stephens
  6. God-Shaped Hole—Tiffanie DeBartolo
  7. N0S4A2—Joe Hill
  8. The Good Girl—Mary Kubica
  9. The Perfect Stranger—Megan Miranda
  10. Horns—Joe Hill
  11. The Dark Tower 1: The Gunslinger—Stephen King
  12. The Dark Tower 2: The Drawing of the Three—Stephen King
  13. The Dark Tower 3: The Waste Lands—Stephen King
  14. The Dark Tower 4: Wizard and Glass—Stephen King
  15. The Dark Tower 4.5: The Wind Through the Keyhole—Stephen King
  16. The Dark Tower 5: Wolves of the Calla—Stephen King
  17. The Dark Tower 6: Song of Susannah—Stephen King
  18. The Dark Tower 7: The Dark Tower—Stephen King

I was hoping to get the list to 19 before the year was out, it’s a Dark Tower thing, but alas, my quest for the Tower took me right through to December 30th and I didn’t feel up to starting a new book so soon after that epic and heart-wrenching journey was done just for the sake of 19.

So 18 it is, not too shabby. That’s exactly 1.5 books per month. For someone who worked a very demanding job and has a lot of other varied hobbies, I’m glad I managed to find time for some good stories.

The year started out relatively light, with some Liane Moriarty. I like her. You might know her best as the author behind Big Little Lies, the book that the Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman HBO mini-series was adapted from. What Alice Forgot gave us a woman experiencing a Dickensian epiphany of sorts. She loses sight of what matters in life and a bonk on the head resulting in amnesia helps her revert to a decades younger version of herself, reliving the past decade secondhand, learning how she stumbled and gradually grew into an abhorrent version of herself. Then of course lessons are learned and Alice gains perspective. At least Ebenezer Scrooge only lost one night of sleep. Poor Alice lost a whole decade!

End of Watch was awesome, the final instalment in Stephen King’s Bill Hodges Trilogy. I liked the second story of that series best, Finders Keepers, but this one gave us a fitting end to the trilogy.

I got sucked into the Megan Miranda books by the Indigo hot-sellers displays and they were okay. Quick, entertaining summer reads. All the Missing Girls is the better of the two, with The Perfect Stranger feeling like a repetitive, watered-down contractual obligation by comparison.

Ready Player One seriously kicked ass! Man, that book was so cool and endlessly entertaining. From the very first page right through to the last I was hooked. Classic nerd sci-fi/80’s nostalgia mashup fun galore! I was excited to hear that it would be a movie in 2018, but then I saw the trailer and well… BOOOO! Just based on the trailer alone, there’s no way that movie is going to capture any of the awesomeness of the book. Read the book, get wrapped up in it, enjoy it. Afterwards, let’s all agree to pretend that a movie version doesn’t even exist.

Never Knowing is officially the worst fucking piece of garbage I’ve ever read. It is the current leader in the “How the fuck did this even get published???” championship bowl. For real. Whoever wrote the summary on the book jacket deserves a prize for being able to polish that humongous turd just enough to make someone like me, who has an exceptionally honed eye for bullshit, purchase it. I want my $6 back Indigo value bin. The concept was intriguing, it could have been good. A woman who was adopted goes looking for her biological parents and finds out that her mother was the only survivor of a violent serial killing rapist, who is still at large. Sounds like it could be really good, right? Unfortunately, all of that potential was spun into shit, not gold, by the most hackneyed excuse for a writer since E.L. James. Does this woman even understand how people actually talk to each other in long-term relationships? Here’s some free insight for you, Chevy Stevens: men and women in their fucking 30’s in a committed long-term relationship don’t call each other “baby” every single fucking sentence they speak to each other. Unless they’ve been lobotomized. And if you interact this way with your partner, you need to stop. Like, right now, because I guarantee you are annoying the absolute fuck out of everyone in your lives.

God-Shaped Hole was an emotionally draining read, but in the best possible way. I got deeply invested in Beatrice and Jacob’s relationship and loved that Tiffanie DeBartolo provided a recommended playlist for this book. My love for Jeff Buckley was reignited and I spent most of May and June listening to his album Grace on loop as a result of reading this book.

The Good Girl was another inconsequential thriller with a hyped up “you-can’t-see-it-coming-plot-twist” that was easily predicted within the first quarter of the book. Meh.

This year I discovered how fucking awesome Joe Hill is, and so much like his dad, Stephen King. Even if I had no idea who he was, his writing would immediately feel eerily familiar to me, having read as much King as I have. N0S4A2 is dark, creepy, thrilling, and exciting. Charlie Manx is as vile a villain as there ever was and the imaginative plot is immediately enthralling. Loved it, would highly recommend to anyone who wants a good spooky, action-packed adventure. Horns was stellar too, I read it the week we were in the Dominican, and while it might not be the general population’s idea of a “vacation read” I couldn’t put it down. I relished every minute spent with Ig while his newly sprouted horns compelled everyone around him to express and enact their innermost fucked up thoughts and desires on his path to uncover his beloved Merrin’s true killer. Read Joe Hill, he rules!

Then, towards the end of July, I felt compelled to finally start my quest for The Dark Tower. I bought the first four books a long time ago and they sat on my shelf, idling. I don’t think my heart or my mindset were in the right place to start an epic journey until the second half of 2017. The movie was coming out in August and I stupidly assumed it would be an adaptation of the first book, that it was going to be a Harry Potter kind of deal, 7 books = 7 movies, give or take. So I finished The Gunslinger, and I was halfway through book two, The Drawing of the Three, when D and I went to see the movie. Imagine my complete disappointment when I left the theatre after a 90-minute oversimplified, boiled down glimpse of the entire series.

That fucking sucked. As a standalone movie for D, who was never going to read the books and just wanted to watch it with me, it was fine. There were cool scenes, and good action. But there was no heart. There was no time to even get a sense of who Roland Deschain is, one of the greatest tragic anti-heroes I’ve ever come to know and love. That sucks, man. Most sacrilegious of all there was no ka-tet! No Eddie Dean, no Odetta Holmes/Detta Walker/Susannah Dean, and no Oy! We didn’t get to gear up for an epic quest at all. Shows over folks, make sure you put your garbage in the bins on your way out.

I carried on with my quest to read the rest of the series by the end of 2017 and I succeeded. I loved and cherished every single second of it. I know it gets a lot of flack from fans who read the series in painstaking real-time, waiting years between books for another instalment, but I especially loved book 4 Wizard and Glass. That was my favourite book of the series. People who complain about how it didn’t advance the quest because it was all Roland’s backstory disappoint me. Roland is our dinh and we get to experience a deeply insightful, formative period of his early life firsthand. We get to know his first ka mates, Alain Johns and Cuthbert Allgood personally! We get to experience his first love with Susan Delgado, and his first heartbreak. We get to learn more about how Roland strategizes, how he plans, how he outsmarts his opponents. What an absolute privilege to have a writer give you that rich backstory. If you’re not going to enjoy the journey, why are you even questing in the first place? That’s the reason guys like Stephen King take on these epic storytelling endeavours, because they have rapt readers who want to get immersed in the story right alongside them. We don’t care how long it takes, hell they can make it last even longer if they want and we’ll gladly savour every delicious morsel of tale they can provide. If you’re just reading something to know how it ends, I don’t think you understand the point of reading to begin with.

So there you have it, the list of books I read in 2017. I didn’t really start the year with a plan or a direction, I just read what appealed to me and added it to the list when I was done.

I’m going to start a list for 2018 as well and see how it goes. I think this year I’ll add a note for the date I finished each book, just to see how that looks. I love reading and doing this allows me to look back on a year of reading and appreciate all the adventures I had.

How to Turn 30

This is a story I’ve been wanting to tell for a while, but gosh darn it, I just haven’t had the time! But lucky for you, today I do. So pack your bags and hop in the time machine bitches, we’re headed back to April 2017 for this one. (I know it’s not that far of a flashback, so you can pack light, definitely won’t need your jammies, but maybe a light snack?)

Getting older, huh? That’s a thing, I guess. I’ve never felt old a day in my life. I’ve never fretted about age much. I’m not vain, I don’t give a shit about all that superficial wrinkles and bemoaning the loss of one’s youth, it’s not for me. Take care of yourself, sure. But you’re gunna get old and your tits are gunna hit the floor one day, that’s a fact. You can’t fight city hall, amiright?

I believe that life is a weird and wonderful gift from who knows where and it’s best to just take the biggest, most slobbery bite out of every day you get, because you never know when the buffet will close down for good. Chow down and drink up every last drop of life you’re served. That’s why I love the fucking SHIT out of my birthday. I’m just so happy to be here at all. Getting older means that you add on another year, but also that you’ve hopefully filed away a ton of amazing new memories from that past year to the story of you. And the year ahead is rife with limitless possibilities for more!

Thursday April 20, 2017:
I wake up, and I am officially 30 years old. No more fancy-free, footloose 20’s for me.

I took the day off of work because I wanted the whole day all to myself. So I could do whatever the hell I wanted and spend time thinking about the decade past and the decade ahead. Who have I become? Who will I become in another 10 years? What did I learn? What did I do that will forever make me smile and say, “Godammit, I knew how to live!”

It was kind of sad at first though because I went into it initially feeling disappointed with myself. I was upset about the loss of something very dear to me. Years ago I’d written a letter to myself, only to be opened on my 30th birthday. I thought I knew exactly where I stashed it, but apparently not. A few days prior to my birthday, I went to my assumed secure hiding spot and discovered my letter wasn’t there. I searched all over the place, practically tearing my hair out, so desperate to find that one direct link to a 20-year old me. I couldn’t remember a single word I’d written to myself and I wanted so badly to see that girl again, to see how hopeful she was and compare notes with the woman I am now. But it never did show up. One too many moves over the years I suppose, c’est la vie…

So that was a sucky thing, but only for a moment. I simply refuse to allow any disappointment big or small to hold me back, not today, not ever.

First thing on my agenda for a full day of birthday me time? To the spa of course! I booked myself an exorbitantly priced deluxe facial treatment at Pure and Simple. I love myself, so I’m going to treat myself like the queen that I am. And oh my sweet god in heaven, it was gooood! What was even better? Unbeknownst to me, D called a few days prior and paid for my spa day upfront because he is gentleman and a scholar. Thank you, darling for giving me the gift of flawless skin on my special day.

After the spa, I was looking good and feeling fresh. I snapped a no makeup selfie for instagram to commemorate this feeling. And so I could look back through the cobwebs in however many years and say “yeah, that was me and I loved that badass chick.”

I was feeling hella hungry afterwards, and I needed to refuel. I knew exactly what I wanted next:

Blueberry pancakes smothered in brown sugar butter served with a side of butcher’s crack bacon. Oh honey, yaaasssss! Got this stack of hotcakes at a cool ass diner called Old School at Dundas and Palmerston Ave. I walked in, it was pretty chill for a Thursday mid-morning, and grabbed a seat. There was a super adorable punky couple at the table beside me and I overheard the dude tell the server it was his 23rd birthday. Yay, I love meeting a fellow 4/20 birthday twin! I went “Holy shit dude, me too! Happy frigging birthday man!” And he was so jazzed about it. We birthday high-fived and then his girl paid the check and they went their merry way. It was a good omen.

Oh right, back to the pancakes. They were unreal! Literally the only thing I thought about for a month straight afterwards. And I’ll tell you this people, I ate every single bite in that skillet. Hell, I almost licked that skillet clean but then reminded myself that I’m 30 now, so I should control myself from doing desperate shit like that, at least when I’m in public anyways.

As I was about ready to settle the bill, my server came up to the table and handed me a GIANT COOKIE! My pal The Magpie had called the diner up because she knew I was there and bought me a birthday cookie as a post-breakfast treat. At that point, I honestly starting feeling like a real baller. Everywhere I went people were like “oh, blah blah paid your bill, or bought you stuff.” It was fucking fantastic.

I didn’t know if I was going to be able to walk after that, but walk I did. I strolled around the city and found myself at TOT Cat Cafe near College and Spadina. I wasn’t hungry at all, so I just donated $10.00 to the cafe to play with the cats.

I was at the Cat Cafe for almost two hours! Usually when I go in there with D he’s all “yeah great, they’re so cute but I don’t want to be here all day” and then herds me out after like twenty minutes. Not today though! Not on my birthday. I took my time playing with, petting, and fawning all over every special little kitty in there. They were all so frigging cute.

I wanted to stay there all day, but two hours seemed like it was plenty. I brushed all the fur off my shirt and headed out. I went to Kensington Market after that, and I took my sweet ass time. Walking around, checking out the shops, enjoying the day. I tried on some hats and wondered if I should start becoming a brooch person now that I’m 30. I could be dripping in brooches and elegance!

Ultimately, I decided I’m still to young for that, but maybe for 40?

I started thinking about 40 a lot on the walk home. How far away it was, how I had a brand new decade ahead of me to do whatever I wanted with. I got home and then I brewed myself a spot o tea. Inspiration was flowing and dreams were percolating so I sat down and I started writing a new letter. Even though I really wanted my letter for 30 to reference, it was okay without it. I wrote out all the stuff I hoped and dreamed that a 40-year old Smash would do and be proud of when she looked back.

I hid it in a spot that I absolutely 100% will not lose track of it. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

It was pretty much workday done by the time I finished, then D got home and we ordered an absurd amount of Chinese food. We feasted and I told him all about my day. Then I told him it’s not even close to over yet because we are going out partying and we’re gunna burn the motherfucking house down! He was more than agreeable.

We hopped in a cab and barreled our way towards fun at one of my all-time favourite places, The Office Pub, for Thursday night Karaoke madness. Two of my most cherished pals, The Magpie and DJ Gibbs met us there with their pipes all warmed up and ready to sing. It was the best night, we went apeshit on the mic and on the d-floor. I loved every second of it and I don’t ever want to forget that night.

We closed the place down that night, singing and dancing until the lights came on. Then we hugged the karaoke host because he was the coolest guy on the planet and told him how thankful we were for his service that night. He did a hell of a job allowing us to make merry all over the place.

We worked up a real drunk and crazy appetite and went to get some burgers at the A&W down the street. My face hurt from laughing so much. The Magpie, D, and DJ Gibbs were at an all-time hilarity peak and they were killing me with their jokes and zaniness!

I put that A&W bag on my head and it was game over. This might be one of my most favourite pictures of all time because it STILL makes me laugh to the point of tears when I see it.

D and I hopped in a cab and I smiled the whole way home. I’ve been blessed by the love of so many wonderful friends. The Magpie and DJ Gibbs are two very special people and I appreciate the hell of them for making April 20th, 2017 one of the highest highs of my life so far.

Harv greeted us at the door when we got home and shared some special birthday kitty kisses with me.

I love D and Harv so much. This is our family and we’ve got our own amazing thing going on. I don’t know how the fuck I lucked out so much, but I’m thankful for the both of them every single day. They make my heart whole.

The birthday fun didn’t stop that night either, that was just the day of! D threw me a huge surprise partaaaay on the Saturday night that followed and it was a killer time too. But that’s a whole other story in itself…

So there you have it, folks. I turned 30, and that’s how I did it. I took the fucking bull by the horns and made 30 my bitch. I very much recommend that everyone else does the same. For any birthday, any age! Love your birthday, embrace it, be thankful when the universe bestows a birthday upon you because you never know how many it will give. And you need to make the most of every single one.

Every day is an opportunity to live the life you want to live.

Twenty-eight years old

I’m turning twenty-eight tomorrow. That’s not really remarkable or anything, lots of people have before and lots more people will continue to turn twenty-eight for the foreseeable future. But there’s something about twenty-eight, I’m not sure what. It’s just been itching at the forefront of my mind these past few weeks. I feel… disquieted about it, I guess?

I’m not the kind of person that frets about age or tries to deny how old I really am; it’s silly to be afraid of something that’s inevitable, something you have no control over. People get older, that’s just how it is. Aging is easy, you don’t even have to do anything and it just happens. But aging fearlessly takes a lot of effort. I want to take the road less travelled, I want to age fearlessly. I don’t want to piss and moan about getting older the way it seems everybody else does. So it’s annoying to me that twenty-eight is giving me some degree of difficulty.

But maybe it’s not the actual aging itself that’s bothering me. I think it might be because I haven’t yet determined my purpose for this year. I usually have a plan of attack for each new year, some goals I want to accomplish, some dreams I want to chase. And I guess I just haven’t really nailed down what it is I want to do with twenty-eight yet. That must be what’s making me feel… disorderly?

I do love my birthday, though. I love it so much. Specifically, I love celebrating the shit out of it. And I’ve collected some very memorable birthday celebrations over the years.

My 20th birthday for instance, when I did that legendary 21-second box-o-wine stand that people still talk about today.

box o wine stand

And my best friends built me the bejewelled funnel of my dreams that year, which they very aptly named “Smash’s Life Support”.

dream funnel

Or my 22nd birthday, when we had the fanciest most “biz-cas” house party ever. We may have looked the part, but we certainly didn’t act it.

biz ca-jed birthday

biz cas again

At twenty-three I fell madly in love with a little cougar bar called Crocodile Rock…

croc rocking birthday

When I turned 25, my mom made me a jumbo banana bread cake and fucked up the frosting, spelling birthday without its very necessary ‘r’. Happy Bithday Ashley, indeed.

Happy Bithday

But more important, when I got all fucked up in the backyard later that night and started singing “For Whom the Bell Tolls” at the top of my lungs. Aging fearlessly at its finest.

I’ve had some good birthdays, that’s for damn sure. I’ve made more than my fair share of zany and crazy birthday memories.

And we carried on the tradition this weekend. It was awesomely fun. Krazzzy Karan showed up with a Heineken mini keg for me and from there we decided rounds upon rounds of good old-fashioned keg-stands were in order!

heiny birthday keg

kegstands!

I got to do some birthday shots with my darling Sara via Skype, because she currently resides all the way on the other half of the planet, in Vietnam.

Skype shots

We got real effed up last night…

party crew

laughing with my chums

partying with harry

The hangover today is pretty much exactly what you’d expect, and probably deserved. But it’s kept my mind off of these feelings of… uncertainty? And now that I’m circling back to that problem, I still don’t think I have an answer.

Everything in my life was in disarray last year, and now that the dust has finally settled, I guess I just don’t know what comes next. Marriage is great. Work is still kind of intense, but engaging and engrossing as always. I’ve got lots of hobbies and my social calendar for this summer is already booming with plans. And yet I’m still not satisfied with all of that. I want more, I just can’t put my finger on what it is I need.

I suppose I could finally get around to getting this crazy frigging wisdom tooth in the back of my mouth pulled. But that’s not really something I can feel accomplished about. That’s just something I’ve been putting off.

Twenty-eight, you sure are tricky. What do I want to be? What do I want to do? How am I going to make this year of life the best one yet? Seems like the answer to that requires a little more consideration than I was expecting. But as soon as I’ve figured it out, you can bet I’m going to throw myself into it with all of my heart. That’s the only thing I ever really know for sure… that I’m going to keep charging ahead, fearlessly, and living life with all the gusto I can muster. It’s the least I can do.

The Strongest Man in the Whole Wide World

I’ve always known that my dad is strong. All dads are. Every dad is the strongest man in the world to their kids when they’re young. He can lift you right up over his head and everything! It makes you laugh, it makes you squeal, and you feel light as a feather, swooping through the air in his powerful grasp. It’s a wonderful, but fleeting feeling. You’ve got to come down eventually, he can’t hold you up forever. But he is still the strongest man in the whole wide world. Until one day when he isn’t…

Eventually, you get older and you realize that it’s just your own silly little misbelief. But that’s okay. It doesn’t matter that he isn’t literally the strongest man in the whole wide world, he’s your dad and he’s still plenty strong for you. He might not be able to lift you right up over his head anymore, you’re too old for that now anyways, but you’ll always cherish those days when he could.

Dad and I, back when I was at the perfect weight to be hoisted up over his head

Dad and I, back when I was at the perfect weight to be hoisted up over his head

I got to watch my dad compete in a power-lifting competition this weekend, and I felt an overwhelming pang of nostalgia for those days when I was young and my dad was undoubtedly the strongest man in the whole wide world. Where did all of that time go? How did it slip away so quickly? Somehow, during that frantic dash to adulthood, I’d forgotten all about what it was like to believe in Dad. But thankfully for me, he’s constantly fanning the flames of belief in my heart, even when I’m out playing “adulthood” and am too caught up in myself to notice.

My dad has always been into weight training, he started doing it back in the ’70’s when he was only sixteen years old and it became a lifelong passion of his. You wouldn’t know it to look at his average height and build, but he’s a very powerful man. He’s totally unassuming in that regard. And he loves pouncing on an opportunity to show someone what he can really do with a set of weights. He’s used to being grossly underestimated by those that so wrongly assume that only “built” or “big” men can lift anything remotely impressive. When I tell people that my dad is a power-lifter they immediately ask me how big he is or they’ll remark that he must be HUGE. But power doesn’t come from having stupidly gigantic muscles. It comes from an unyielding will to conquer the impossible and a relentless pursuit of ever greater challenges.

a very old photo of my dad on his journey to greatness

a very old photo of my dad while on his journey to greatness

Although power-lifting has been a great passion of his for many years, he only recently started competing. He’s been competing for a few years now, but I’d never had the opportunity to go and see him in competition until now. And though I’m quite familiar with what my dad can do–I’ve seen him lift mind-boggling amounts of weight while growing up–he totally floored me. At 57 years old he was the oldest man in the competition by a mile. All of the other competitors were anywhere from 20 to 30 years younger than him. But that didn’t faze him one bit, it never does.

My dad, showing off the deadlift tattoo that I drew for him over ten years ago

My dad, suited up and showing off the deadlift tattoo that I drew for him over ten years ago

Dad gets out there and pushes all of the bullshit preconceived notions about his age and his build completely out of his mind. His only thought is about the lift. I watched as he stepped up to the bar, all determination and focus. I watched with unbearable pride as he shattered every expectation with every successful lift. And just like that, I believed again. I never stopped believing, I just forgot that you have to keep doing it if you want to keep the magic alive.

A power-lifting competition comprises three different lifts: the squat, the bench, and the deadlift. Each competitor will get three attempts at each lift, with the weight increasing progressively for each lift. My dad’s favourite lift is the deadlift. The announcer at the competition stated that it was her favourite too, because “it’s an act of defiance”. Defying odds and defying gravity. For his final lift of the day, my dad did a deadlift of an astounding 402 pounds. I know that’s not a record and it’s not the most that anyone will ever lift. But in that final moment when he dug into every last reserve of strength and snapped the weight into position, my dad was the strongest man in the whole wide world again.

My dad is a remarkable man and I admire him. He’s inspiring and he’s brave and he’s amazing. And I get to have all of the joy in telling people that he’s MY dad. I’m going to hold on to my silly little misbelief awhile longer yet and cherish it. He’s earned it.

My dad is the strongest man in the whole wide world. Everything is exactly as it should be.

Another Year of Awesome!

Happy 2nd Birthday to my beloved blog, Smashing Through Life!

It's a snake in a party fez!

It’s a snake in a party fez!

First off, welcome back Vincent the Viper, who proudly celebrated last year’s blog birthday with me while wearing a more traditional party hat. This year, Vincent is sporting a decidedly flamboyant party fez instead and I think he looks fabulous. During more lackadaisical times, my friend The Magpie and I entertained the notion of starting a business manufacturing and selling one-of-a-kind hats for fake snakes, but then real life got a lot more interesting in a hurry and we’ve since shelved that idea for the time being. Maybe we’ll come back to it again, when we’ve got some decent seed money pulled together. But anyways, that’s not what we’re here for today.

IT’S MY BLOG BIRTHDAY AND I’M REALLY FUCKING EXCITED ABOUT IT!

That’s why we’re here. Keep yourself on point, girl.

A lot can happen in a year, and I’m not saying that to be cliché. A lot really did happen to me in this past year. Some good, some bad, and some ugly too. I made some stunning 3-pointers, but I also spent a lot of time warming the bench, too. I genuinely enjoy looking back over a specific period of time and reflecting on the things that have happened in my life. It’s good for me, and it motivates me to keep reaching ever higher. I believe that my personal and professional development should never reach a plateau; I won’t let that happen. Not while I’m at the helm. If I’m learning and challenging myself on a consistent basis, then I’m growing and becoming a better me all the time. There is always room for improvement, and I’ve got an insatiable hunger for more. I’m always so eager to keep forging ahead, so it helps to look back once in a while. I need to make sure that I’m cutting the right path. That I’m living the life I’ve always wanted.

This blog’s mission, initially, was to act as an outlet for my frustrations and disappointments. It was an exercise in perpetual positivity. It was a place of refuge, an altar of optimism at which I could worship when I needed it the most. I was in a very dark place when it began, and this blog was my lifeline. It was a connection to the trademark brightness within, the brightness I’ve always been known for, but which was dimming more and more every day at an alarming rate. But it has since evolved, the aim has shifted. I don’t need to search for the positives in my life quite so desperately anymore because I’m surrounded by them.

This blog is continually evolving, just like me, and I couldn’t be happier with the progress we’ve made together so far. It’s a place where I can chronicle my life, my adventures, and my many dreams in the most positive terms possible.

So, what have I done this year that’s so whoop-de-fucking-doo great, you ask? I’ll tell you!

Smash’s Top 5 Awesomes This Year

1.) I went on the vacation of a lifetime

I've never been this happy to be awake at 6:30am in my life

I’ve never been this happy to be awake at 6:30am in my life

D and I dropped everything and went on our first ever vacation together. And we made it memorable as hell by saving up the extra bucks and flying the extra miles to get ourselves a slice of Hawaii. It was unreal! The food, the adventures, the beach, the ocean, the people, the sites. We loved every minute of it. Going all out for our first trip together was definitely the right call.

2.) I Got Engaged (and set the date, too!)

An old shot, from about 5 years ago

An old shot, from about 5 years ago. Super Retro Disco Party, obviously.

D and I have been together a long time. We’re coming up on eight years this summer, if you can believe it. I loved him from the first moment I drunkenly gazed into his sweet blue eyes, and there was never any doubt. But there was never any rush to get to the paperwork either, and he caught me completely unawares when he proposed during our aforementioned vacation. I tease him sometimes about being totally devoid of emotion, but he really surprised me that time. I don’t even question this decision at all. We go together.

3.) I Won Shitfest 2013: Fall

I fuckin' love this trophy!

I fuckin’ love this trophy!

Some of you will remember my graceful acceptance of the award from this wonderful post that our dear friend, The IPC, allowed me to share with you on his site. I don’t write a movie blog, but I love movies so I read a lot of movie blogs. And I love the movie blogging community that I’ve stumbled into on WordPress. I loved reading the posts that were entered in the first Shitfest, and when a fall fest was announced I knew I had to get involved this time. I knew a shitty movie that I could write about. A real fucking shitty movie. I just wanted to have some fun, and it proved to be an experience that I will cherish forever. I’ve got the trophy to prove it.

4.) I Started a New Blog

The Kingdom

I miss writing essays. I miss feeling scholarly. I long for my undergrad, on rainy days mostly. So I decided to start a blog to review the works of Stephen King, to sort of keep in touch with that part of myself that so loved turning in assignments. I’m just hanging out over there, doing book reports basically. But it’s a fun hobby, and I enjoy it. I’m not rolling out the reviews quite as quickly as when I first started the blog, but I am still trucking along and reviews get posted at least once a month. It’s a way for me to explore other facets of my writing, too, and that’s important to me.

And finally, saving the biggest for last…

5.) I Got Promoted

Always the consummate professional, jumping on the bed in my suite during a work trip 3 years ago

Always the consummate professional, that’s me jumping on the bed in my suite during a work trip 3 years ago

I’ve been waiting for this a long time. It was an exciting, albeit painful journey at times, but I’m finally moving in the direction that I want to go. I had never realized how deeply ambitious I was until I joined the workforce. Procrastination and indifference were my MO whenever I pondered that almighty “What are you going to do when you grow up?” question that seems to haunt us from birth. But once I started carving out my own way in the world, I found myself immediately hooked on ambition. It’s a heady device, man. I made the choice to significantly alter my career path a couple of years ago, and it’s all starting to come together now. The sky really is the limit, and I thoroughly enjoy reaching for it with all of my might. I’ve got plans and ideas aplenty, and I’m going to make a splash in a big way. Greatness abounds, when you’re willing to work hard for it. I love how it feels to earn my living, and being rewarded professionally for my efforts feels divine.

I’m not kidding around, you guys. I truly am kicking the shit out of life every day. And I hope to continue doing so, right here on this bizarre little blog of mine, for a long while yet.

Here’s to yet another year of awesome. Cheers!

Adult Eating

Rip down that shitty old 2012 calendar, callously toss it in the trash. Hang the shiny new 2013 calendar in its place. Expectations, hopes, and desires all bubbling to the surface as you do so. What will happen to me this year? Where will I go? What amazing things will I do?

Resolutions aren’t my bag, man. I prefer goals. I think that’s because goals don’t come with the finality that resolutions do. If you resolve to do something and you don’t do it, then you’ve failed. It’s as plain as that. If you set a goal for yourself, there’s just more wiggle room. You can reach that goal eventually, you can shape that goal and change it. If you try to change or modify a resolution it’s like you’re trying to hide from failure. A resolution seems like it’s too final. It’s an absolute. It’s an absolute asshole.

Goals just seem to place more emphasis on progress, as opposed to results. That’s what I’m interested in, progress. I want to see and feel the progression when I strive for something. If you’re just racing to the finish line all the time, you’ll never really learn anything. Resolutions demand a finish. Goals allow us to learn, and improve.

I have a couple of goals in mind for myself this year. One of them is to eat more adult meals. And by that I mean meals that have been cooked at home. From real ingredients. Not nuked for two and a half minutes until heated through.

And I’m going to use my infallible tracking system to see how well I do with this:

soda chart

This is the chart I made in July when I decided to give up drinking soda. I gave myself a little check on each day that I didn’t drink soda. And I did pretty good too. You can only see two slip-ups. One was on Sunday the 22nd and that was because we went to see The Dark Knight Rises and I won a free large drink playing movie trivia. So, clearly I had to cash that one in before it expired at the end of the month. Can’t waste free soda, that’d be ridiculous. More importantly, you can’t offend the Gods of Movie Trivia. If I didn’t enjoy every second of that drink, I might never win another trivia prize again. And I just can’t have that.

Then I slipped up again the next day, just one little can of coke, because it tasted so good the night before! But I finished the rest of the month without issue. Looking back at that calendar, I’m really proud of myself. I did a good job. And seeing it like that, visually, really motivated me to keep the goal going. Doing this showed me that I have it in me to work hard at achieving my goals. It inspired me.

This is what I’m going to do when D and I have adult meals for dinner. I’m going to mark them down on the calendar so I can watch us progress. We have the time, we have the ability, and we have the will to succeed. We don’t need to slack off and pick up a pizza on the way home from work because we’re “too tired” to cook. Or because we don’t want to deal with the dishes afterwards. We can do this. We’ll make adult meals for ourselves. D is already really good at it, he just needs me to be more supportive and less lazy.

But before we could move forward, we would need one last kiss goodbye from our beloved poor-eating ways. On New Years Eve, after the ball had dropped and we were sufficiently buzzed, we headed out. Down the street to the local Burger King we went. And we procured an epic feast, that consisted of only the most greasy morsels. The entire lot was under eleven bucks total.

burger king feast

We shared the fries and drink, so as to keep our gluttony in check. D had a King Supreme, and I dug into the best whopper I’ve ever had.

whopper

The fries were perfection. They’re never that great at BK, but naturally during our last big hurrah they were perfect. Deep-fried little pricks. Once we’d gotten that out of our systems, we were ready to move forward. We hit it and quit it like pros. Don’t call us again, BK. We’re not home, and we’re screening all calls until further notice. We just need some space, to figure this all out. We hope you understand.

The next morning we were happy. And ready to move on. We had something excellent in the works for dinner tonight. For the very first dinner on our new leaf, we did an amazing job. A prime rib roast, mashed potatoes, steamed green beans, and yorkshire puddings. Oh hells yes, yorkshire puddings got invited to the partaaay!

It started with a delicious piece of beef. On sale!

prime rib roast

Which needed a nice marinade the night before, for optimal tastiness. In the magic ziplock bag of deliciousness is garlic, onions, fancy mustard, Worcestershire sauce, rosemary, and thyme. It was pretty simple.

marinade

Then the next day, this bitch went in the pan!

roast ready to cook

Once it was cooked to perfection, D popped it out of the oven and sliced it up. The roast was then put to plate with everything else.

roast beef dinner

I took a pass on doing the dishes tonight. They need to soak a bit anyways, right? But otherwise, I think we’re off to a great start on our goal for 2013. We’re eating like adults now, and don’t it feel good!

To-Do Lists

My my my, how things have so drastically changed in the course of a year! This past Friday, that’s right 4/20 y’all, I celebrated my 25th birthday. Bit of a landmark as far as birthdays go, so I thought I’d take a tour back through the year and set some goals for myself for this next year as an illustrious 25 year old.

I am hugely devoted to my daily To-Do List, and one of the greatest feelings of the day is when all of the items have officially been “crossed off” the list. My lists are always titled “Monday’s Shit to Do”, etc. The exception is Tuesday’s list which is normally titled “Tuesday’s Gone” because I get a kick out of the Skynyrd reference. When all of the items are crossed off I give myself a little at-the-desk-dance party. Just a quiet little shuffle to myself to note how fucking awesome I am at conquering the day.

At this time last year my work life was a fucking black hole of awfulness. The bitch in charge of the training department choose someone else over me as her second in command because I didn’t really care for puckering up to provide the daily rim-job that was apparently required to get anywhere in the company. I was surrounded by slackers and assholes who all wanted to call the shots but not provide any actual results. My really amazing boss was on maternity leave and it took two people to fill her job while she was gone. Those two people were such horrendous posers that they didn’t even last through the 6 months of mat leave before they were shit-canned. So the rest of us just tried to do our best to stay afloat everyday.

Also, mid-April last year I had been working on a very intensive project. I busted my ass on this thing for 6 months straight, and the project completion came with a plum trip to St. Lucia to visit the client. And was I rewarded for all my hard work with this trip? You’d think so, but no. The dickbag boss man decided to take that trip for himself. Seriously? He could afford a trip like that without even batting an eye and he had to rob me of my very hard earned and well deserved reward. That was a major sign for me that I wasn’t in the right place.

Everyone was out for themselves and that was the bottom line. Needless to say, last year I was not feeling good about work. We were constantly swamped and the daily To-Do List was always over 20-30 things that needed to be done and I’d average about 12-14 things crossed off the list. I’m so organized and I’ve got my shit in a pile, so coming to work everyday and not being able to climb over the other side of shit mountain was really starting to get to me. At 5’oclock, quitting time would roll around and my list would look something like this:

You can see that there is a whole bunch of stuff on this list and only two things have been crossed off, and it also starts on the page before it! This actually isn’t a work to-do list but a personal one, but it’s a good example nonetheless.

I really cared about my job though. I loved what I was doing, I just hated being shit on all the time. I decided to tough it out a bit longer. It got better for a while when my boss came back from mat leave, then took another ridiculous nose-dive into absolute crap back in January. I finally reached my breaking point and made the realization that things were never going to change. No matter how many cool things were coming down the pipeline, the company philosophy remained the same. It had never really meshed with my personal working philosophy to begin with, but I just hadn’t realized it until this past winter.

At that point I made a vow to myself: I was going to dust off the old resume and start putting it out there in the hopes of finding a place that jived with me more. I wanted to work for a company that wasn’t about being “liked” over doing hard work. It seemed that the slackers always rose to the top and the people that actually provided results and could deliver quality work just kept getting pushed to the bottom of the pile.

Fuck that! Fuck working 13-14 hour days and never getting appreciated for it. Fuck struggling everyday to do my absolute best only to be met with more bullshit. Fuck having to kiss someone’s ass just to be noticed. I firmly believe that people should get where they’re meant to be by the merit of their hard work and determination.

And you know what? I’m there now. I found a wicked new job, interviewed, and nailed it! I gave my notice back at the end of March and counted down the days. I got myself a fresh start. I admit that I will truly miss a handful of wonderful people who worked just as hard as I did. But I also could not wait to get away from all of the people who routinely made my skin crawl… *shudder*

In these past couple of weeks I’ve gotten myself a new job, in a new city, a new apartment, and a new lease on life. I’m shedding this cocoon of bullshit and transforming myself into a shiny new go-getter all over again. I felt like I was suffocating at my old job.
And now with this new opportunity I can breathe again. I’m taking every breath in deep and letting it roll out smooth; enjoying the feeling of freedom.

With so many changes going down in my life, I felt like it would be appropriate to make myself a personal To-Do List of some things I hope to accomplish during my 25th year. The joy that I feel when I complete my daily To-Do Lists is immense, so I can only imagine how I’ll feel a year from now when I review this To-Do List and can claim accomplishment of my goals. I’m going to focus on me and being the best me that I can be day in and day out.

“The 25th Year’s Shit to Do”:

  1. I’m going to write this blog regularly!
    I know I’ve been a major slacker with it lately, and having all that I’ve had to do is no excuse. I resolve that I will write a new post about the most awesome thing that happened in my week every Sunday afternoon. On a Sunday afternoon I shall reflect on the week to provide you, beloved readers, with your weekly dose of awesome optimism prime!
  2.  I’m going to champion high heels!
    I am not what you would call “graceful”. I never have been, and I’m cool with that. However, I’d like to try for a little bit of grace and an increase in style for my daily life. I clomp around in flats and sneakers all the time and I think I need a little pep. There’s a girl that I work with who says that she “can climb mountains in her heels”. I’m not trying to scale Everest here, but I would like to be able to walk down the street in heels without looking totally out of my element. This is my Everest:
  3. I’m going to get myself more education!
    One of my biggest dreams is to go back to school and get my Masters degree. That’s super expensive and I have tons of debt from my undergrad that I’m working to pay off. But I love learning. In an effort to continue pursuing knowledge, I’m going to actively look for some courses and workshops that I can do in my spare time to become more well-rounded. One of the things that I looked at today was doing a 4 week course in Flash Animation. What the hell? Why not? I’m going to find myself a wicked “summer camp” for some cool new skill and learn me something new! I haven’t decided what yet, but I’m going to find something fun and engaging.
  4.  I’m going to be more proactive about my finances!
    I work hard, and I do put away some decent savings. But I feel that I could be doing more for my financial future. I should get started on my RSPs, and sort out my banking situation. I still have a student Visa, and I am no longer a student. I read an article about the big mistakes that 20-somethings make with their money, and it was inspiring. I want to be smart about mine and become more capable of managing my own finances. I don’t want to wake up one day and realize that I’ve been pissing all my money away, or that I’m stuck living paycheck to paycheck. I may not be rolling in the benjis, but I want to feel comfortable and secure.
  5. I’m going to explore the city!
    I’m moving to Toronto in a week and a half. I’ve grown up in a small town my whole life, so this is a big change for me. I hate feeling lost and unsure of where to go or where I am. I’m going to take time to explore the city and become comfortable navigating it on my own. I also want to benefit from all that Toronto has to offer. I’m going to live like a tourist and try to see the city with new eyes everyday. I don’t want one bit of it to pass me by, and I don’t want to become jaded and tromp through the city unappreciative of its beauty. I want to be able to get myself anywhere in the city at a moment’s notice. I want to give directions to others with confidence because I know where the hell I’m going.
These are the personal goals that I have set for myself this year. I feel so incredibly awesome when I get to cross stuff off the daily shit list, so I can only imagine how amazing I’ll feel when I look back in a year’s time and can say that I’ve met each of these goals. 25 is going to be the year of my reawakening to life! It’s going to be a truly epic journey, and I hope you’ll stick around for the ride. Expect to get your weekly doses of optimism on time as well 😉