Summing Up 2025

1. What did you do in 2025 that you'd never done before? 

Lots of small things and not too many big things. But I think that's good. Small changes eventually make for drastic life alterations. Going to Ciudad de México in February was probably the biggest highlight in terms of things I've never done before, but I also made many new dishes, went to St. George Island Brewfest for the first time, fasted for 72 hours, and learned a lot about what I am capable of doing.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year? 

At the new year last year I made a deal with myself that I would do less work for my employer, that I would work out more regularly, and that I would spend more time traveling and visiting friends. I did all of these except for the part where I work less for my employer. Somehow I seem even to have increased that amount of work. I don't think this will happen next year—I'm on sabbatical for five months—but I need to get better at that work–life balance everyone talks about.

For 2026 I resolve simply to say yes to more things. When people invite me to do things, I need to start saying yes more and more often.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? 

No.

4. Did anyone close to you die? 

No.

5. What countries did you visit? 

Mexico City in February was absolutely amazing. And in September I went to Vega Baja in Puerto Rico, which was also amazingly restful. (Yes, I know that Puerto Rico is a colony in the United States empire.) 

6. What would you like to have in 2026 that you lacked in 2025? 

Greater peace of mind and more of an ability to relax.

7. What dates from 2025 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? 

October 15—The Violate Man: Male/Male Rape in the American Imagination was published by Vanderbilt University Press.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Really nothing can compare to having The Violate Man come out this year. It's an enormous personal achievement, and in many ways it's a huge weight off of my shoulders. I've been working on the research published in The Violate Man since some time around 2008 or 2009. Perhaps a third of this was written as my dissertation in 2012. Since then I've worked at shaping my thinking on the topic of male/male rape into a book manuscript. I've probably told many people this story, but the book has had a lot of trouble finding an editor willing to work with me on publishing it. Its subject matter has been difficult for a lot of people. Gianna Mosser, my editor at Vanderbilt has been a true collaborator and mentor on this book, and I feel extremely grateful to have her working with me on this book.

The book won a publication subvention award from the American Society for Theatre Research this year, and I'm excited for any awards that might come its way, but mostly I just want people to be able to read this book, into which I've put so much energy, time, and care.

9. What was your biggest failure?

I am decidedly a failure at romance at the moment. I am a very introverted and private person, and I just am not interested in letting anyone else in further than a friend. I really like friendship, actually! Maybe I don't want anything more. This has been disappointing for others in my life, including—occasionally—me. I have definitely tried, though, which is why it counts as a failure.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I did not.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

At a farmer's market in Northampton this summer I bought a fig tree. Hopefully it survives while I'm in California for three weeks, but I expect it will. The woman I bought it from said "It could live in your trunk for two weeks!"

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

New Yorkers came through this year and elected Zohran Mamdani to be their mayor. It was maybe the most hopeful thing to happen in 2025.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Another appalling and depressing year in US American politics. I don't understand how most of these people live with themselves or look themselves in the mirror. The people who made me the most embarrassed this year were the craven Republicans in Congress, who seem to operate without any principles whatsoever aside from racism and the prospect of achieving personal wealth and power.

14. Which charitable organizations did you give to?

The Tallahassee Bail Fund, an organization doing amazing work in North Florida.

I also donated money to help some students and former students in need.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? 

Katie and Nick's wedding in May. 

Cookie week at the New York Times.

Being able to do the doctoral hooding for my student Rebecca Curran.

The American Society for Theatre Research annual meeting in Denver.

Doing a 72-hour water fast with Dayne and Garrett.

16. What song will always remind you of 2025? 

"Golden" from K-Pop Demon Hunters, of course, though it's definitely not my favorite song from the movie. That would be:

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: 

a) happier or sadder? Happier.

b) thinner or fatter? Thicker but not fatter.

c) richer or poorer? Richer. 

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Writing, honestly. My job right now—especially as the editor of the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism—means reading the writing of other scholars multiple times. This just doesn't leave much time for me to be doing the writing I'd like to be doing.

 

19. What do you wish you'd done less of? 

I spent way too much time on Snapchat in 2025. But I am not quite sure if I wish I were spending less time doing it, so this is an oblique answer to the question. I'm getting something out of Snapchat, I guess...

This Snapchat thing is super weird. Somehow, in the last 5 months, I've amassed more than 15,000 Snapchat followers. They're mostly there for teacher–student fantasies, I think. There is also just an enormous contingent of people who compliment me on my physique and my chest. This feels good. I've been self-conscious about my body forever—I think this has a lot to do with Christianity and shame and "the mortification of the flesh" and all that. (Christianity really really fucked me up. I don't recommend it.) But back to Snapchat: I think the weird thing is that I try to be genuine and honest with everyone, but with the number of people messaging me, that's just not really possible. Anyway, it's a new, weird world for me. I've even considered doing OnlyFans and trying to make a little money at it.

20. How did you spend the Winter holidays? 

I've been in Southern California for the last week or so, and I'll be here until January 6. It's been very, very relaxing.

21. Did you fall in love in 2025?

I did not.

22. How many one-night stands? 

Only a couple. This was a real fail this year.

23. What was your favorite TV program? 

I did not watch Heated Rivalry, but I will, I will; it's too gayportant not to. The problem is that this is the time when I need to catch up on movies. I will check out these hockey pucks in the new year. 

I try to avoid tv as much as possible. 

There was a lot less of it on tv this year, but—as with 2024—I kept current with all seasons of Drag Race. This year that meant: Canada's Drag Race season 5, RuPaul's Drag Race season 17, RuPaul's Drag Race: Tournament of All Stars (season 10), Drag Race France: All Stars, Drag Race Brasil season 2, Drag Race Philippines: Slaysian Royale, RuPaul's Drag Race UK series 7, and Drag Race España temporada 5. The best of these were All Stars France and Slaysian Royale. Unfortunately, both US seasons were a bust this year, despite there being some amazing drag on them. The worst of these seasons, though, was decidedly Brasil—what a mess.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? 

Not really. But if you don't return your shopping carts at the grocery store, you are jumping to the top of that list. And I truly believe there is a special place in Hell for the people who are listening to stuff or watching videos on their phones without headphones in shared public spaces. 

25. What was the best book you read? 

Two different novels by Álvaro Enrigue: You Dreamed of Empires, an amazing retelling of the first encounter between Moctezuma, Malintizin, and Cortés that I flat-out adored; and then because I loved that so much I got his earlier book Sudden Death, which is a kind of insane tennis match involving Caravaggio, the history of tennis, the conquest of México, the execution of Anne Boleyn, and a clear path between Mexican artists working with feathers and Baroque chiaroscuro.

Pascal Quignard's gorgeous All the World's Mornings, which was recommended to me by my friend Joe. I also loved Alan Hollinghurst's Our Evenings.

I also read some great plays this year: Nick Green's Casey and Diana and Cliff Cardinal's play William Shakespeare's As You Like It: a Radical Retelling. And I read about 20 French tragedies from the 17th and 18th centuries. I didn't love all of those, but it was very exciting to read to the side of the usual French canon.

I usually post about what I'm reading on GoodReads.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery? 

Lola Young! This whole album is great.

27. What was the best piece of theatre you saw? 

It wasn't a great year for theatregoing for me...

28. What did you want and get? 

So many fun times with my friends in Tallahassee. A brilliant new colleague who joined me teaching our PhD students (honestly it's so hard to get good people; I can't tell you how happy I am).

29. What did you want and not get?

A mandoline. I'll buy one soon.

But honestly it's worth saying that I have most of what I want. I think part of what it means to be happy is to want what you have. There is a great deal I could complain about, but I would rather delight in the things I have been given.

30. What was your favorite film of this year? 

This is still likely to change—I have about 60 films on my list to see—but as of the December 30 and until I see tonight's movie, my top ten is:

It Was Just an Accident

The Secret Agent

One Battle after Another

Parthenope

Sinners

Sorry, Baby

The History of Sound

Sentimental Value

K-Pop Demon Hunters

After the Hunt

You can follow my movie-watching on Letterboxd. I kind of love Letterboxd, and I post there now much more than I do on this blog. 

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? 

I turned 44. My friend Matt met me in Clearwater Beach, FL and we drank and relaxed on the beach and talked and ate crab. Matt had also set up a surprise where our friend Walter walked into the bar we were in on my actual birthday, and we all had dinner and lots of laughs and nonsense. It was glorious, and I had the best time.

32. What new recipes did you make this year?

The best cookie recipe of the year was Dan Pelosi's Dark 'n' Stormy Cookies, which are amazing. I'm so happy he invented them and I made them (twice).

I've been cooking a lot from Ixta Belfrage's book Fusão, it's a Brazilian fusion cookbook. And I've been making a ton of different bean dishes, as I work toward eating less meat.

I post a lot of food content on Instagram. I am not sure what I'll be making more of in this next year, but I look forward to more East Asian and South Asian food I think.

33. What were your cocktail obsessions? 

I drink a lot of Manhattans still. I think it's just so much easier—no lemon juice to squeeze and no shaking. Just a perfect Filthy cherry and that excellent mix of bitters, Whiskey, and Vermouth.

34. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? 

An H-Mart in Tallahassee.

35. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2025? 

Polo after polo.

36. What kept you sane?

I have two standing dates every week now. My bar trivia team (Michael, Meredith, and Jason) meets for Professor Jim's Trivia every Tuesday. And my movie club (I call it Unseen Movie Club but I don't know what everyone else calls it) meets every Thursday to watch something none of us has seen before. This is a real recipe for sanity.

37. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Gianmarco Soresi

38. What political issue stirred you the most?

Ongoing genocide in Palestine. The ongoing refugee crisis in the Mediterranean. The resurgence of fascism in the United States.

This is the same as last year because this is what voters everywhere overwhelmingly seem to like. It's horrible.

This year we can add: the federal government sending military troops into US cities, the US committing piracy in international waters, the bombing of Venezuelan boats, and the Supreme Court's truly criminal and lawless shadow docket.

I like this map Tesla sent me that shows where I charged my car in 2025.

39. Whom did you miss?

My friend John, who I didn't get to see in 2025 because he's over in Spain while I'm in Los Angeles.

40. Who was the best new person you met?

Not the first time I met him, but it was my first time really getting to hang out with Jonathan Shandell this year, and he's great.

41. Tell us a valuable life-lesson you learned in 2025:

I think most of what I learned this year is about teaching. With the crazy advancements in Large Language Models, teaching has become a very new business. I can no longer really trust that students have written what they say they've written, which means I can no longer trust that they've read what they've said they've read or learned any of what I was hoping they might take away from the lessons I've planned. At least at home—in the classroom I can mostly trust that they're there with me, thinking alongside of me. But this has really pushed me in new directions in terms of thinking about why I teach, and why I want them to learn. I've been doing this a long time, so this isn't completely new, but I've realized more and more that this is for them and what I'm working to do is give them tools and ideas and new ways to think about things. It's my responsibility to do that. It's also my responsibility to make learning enticing so that they might want to learn what I have to teach them. The challenge here is that I have to know very, very well why it is that I think they need what I have to give them. We can't take anything for granted any more. This has made me even more confident about my teaching, because I have also had to reckon with and be quite sure about the value of what I have to offer.

42. Share an important quotation from 2025:

This is from Avgi Saketopoulou's book Sexuality Beyond Consent.

"If the perverse underwrites all sexuality, rather than ask perversity to account for itself, we might, instead, ask after docile, tame, and subdued sexualities that may suffer from having lost their footing in the perverse."

I've been thinking a lot this year about what we don't know about each other and about ourselves. I was watching the movie Weapons recently with my sister and my niece (who loves horror movies and talked me into this), and I was struck by a scene in which Josh Brolin's character is dreaming and he begs his mute son to talk to him. 

It's the queer child, I said to my relatives who looked at me quizzically. We demand that the child tell us what's going on with him because we cannot fathom what is happening inside the child. We cannot understand his thought processes or desires. This is all children, of course, not only the queer child. And the reason Weapons works so well is that it is indeed very possible that a group of children made some sinister (or indeed harmless) plan to all go do something that the adults in their lives simply cannot fathom. The desires of the child are opaque.

But also this is true of all of us, even ourselves. We don't actually understand ourselves either. In Sexuality Beyond Consent Saketoupoluou writes, "I do not know you. And neither do you." and I think about that all the time. I don't actually know myself very well at all, despite all the navel-gazing I've done (including these annual blogs!). I think this line of thinking has underwritten most of my intellectual work this year. I want to think more about what I am capable of that I haven't yet discovered, and this means also pushing myself toward doing things that I have decided are "not me". Docility and rootedness have worked for me for a while, but I wonder what else there is to discover or put pressure on within the opacity of the self (that is, my self).

P.S. If you have your own annual report or if you have anything to say about this one, shoot me a text or a DM. I'd love to hear from you.

Summing Up 2024

1. What did you do in 2024 that you'd never done before? 

I learned to shuck oysters. I edited my first journal articles—a taste of editing that will continue into 2025. Won Lord of the Rings bar trivia on a first date with a guy.

As I look back on this year, I'm feeling like I spent most of it focused on work. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean I have to answer this question by saying I didn't have a lot of experiences that were brand new to me.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year? 

My new years resolutions for 2024 were to cook more vegetarian food. I succeeded at this. I also had high hopes that I would work less (failed at this one) and that I would stay current with all seasons of Drag Race (succeeded at this one). I also had a goal of reading more books than usual (I hit my usual GoodReads goal of 125 but didn't do better than that) and reading my friends books in particular (I did do better at this in 2024, but I will do even better in 2025). 

Next year, I really really want to make a deal with myself that I will do less work for my employer, that I will work out more regularly, and that I will spend more time traveling and visiting friends.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? 

My friends Daniel and Alex had a son named Adrian.

4. Did anyone close to you die? 

No one close to me died this year. My mom passed in 2023, and her absence in my life is still something I feel pretty acutely. As a matter of fact, today I went to the store to shop for groceries for Xmas dinner and this would almost always have been something mom and I did together. We did this together for years—more than a decade—and it felt very strange not to have her here with me. I think about her a lot.

5. What countries did you visit? 

None. 

6. What would you like to have in 2025 that you lacked in 2024? 

I have so much! This is a difficult question.

Bigger muscles. 😁

7. What dates from 2024 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? 

Manuscript deadlines: July 31 and December 15 were my most important deadlines this year. But also some really crazy shit went down on the first day of classes of Fall 2024. I won't soon forget that day (maybe I'll say more about that down below, or maybe you'll just have to get the tea from me in person).

Perhaps most importantly I was promoted to associate professor and granted tenure on August 8. They draw this out for a very long time: I heard last December that my file would be forwarded to the president of the university. Then I got notified in February or March that I would be granted tenure once my fall contract started. So people would congratulate me on tenure and I would always reply that I didn't actually have tenure yet. I became mildly obsessed with the delay related to this, worried constantly that Florida's neo-fascist politics would somehow disrupt things. In any case, August 8 came and went, and now I'm an associate professor.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
A book contract for my dissertation book, The Violate Man. It has been such a long time coming for this manuscript. I've been working on it (on and off) for maybe 15 years now, and I think the manuscript is in great shape. It has an editor who loves it. And it is filled with important and interesting case studies.

It was also an enormous achievement to publish my special section in the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism on "Drag vs. the Law". This is an area of research in which I've become very invested, and it was exciting to be able to publish my colleagues' writing about drag and how it has interacted with and intersected with the law.

I was also really pleased to have an article in Shakespeare Bulletin this year: "'Against Interpretation': Actor-Driven Shakespeare and a Love for Scholarship". It's a fun piece, I think, and it allowed me to do some very interesting research on the American Shakespeare Center, a theatre company in Central Virginia of which I am very fond.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Sometimes I'm really not a very good friend. My introversion takes over and I need time to myself to reboot and recharge, and this can lead me to be antisocial, to neglect my best long-distance friendships, and to hurt other people's feelings in the process. I hate when this happens, and I'm always very sorry, but I think perhaps this trait is getting worse as I get older.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I really didn't. I seem to be doing alright!

11. What was the best thing you bought?

A new 14-cup Cuisinart food processor. It's so cool. I got it on sale on Black Friday at a reasonable price, but I think it's probably worth the full price.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

My friend Michelle Carriger won the Barnard Hewitt award this year for her book Theatricality of the Closet! I was also so excited to see Andrew Rincón's play I Wanna Fuck like Romeo and Juliet nominated for a Lambda award. (Actually, shout out to the judges for the theatre portion of the Lambda Literary Awards—the plays are bad almost every year, but this year they were almost uniformly excellent!)

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Florida voters, American voters, Republicans in congress, Democrats in congress, genocide apologists. It has been an appalling, depressing year, honestly. 

14. Which charitable organizations did you give to?

The Wikimedia foundation.

The Tallahassee Bail Fund.

I also donated money to help some students in need and some former students making their first independent films.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? 

Dune: Part Two

Vacationing on St. George Island with Meredith and Jason in May.

Visiting Caleb and Diana in North Carolina a little later in May.

The American Society for Theatre Research conference in Seattle in November.

16. What song will always remind you of 2024? 

This isn't a 2024 song, but after Gavin Creel passed away this year, I listened to him sing "What Can You Lose" on a loop for days. I have always loved the way he sang that song, and I've always loved the song.

"No One Else", "Dust and Ashes", and other songs from Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, which FSU did as our Spring musical in 2024. I worked as the show's dramaturge and saw it dozens of times, and our students—really our whole School—did an amazing job with this show. (Here's the dramaturgical material I produced for the students.)

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: 

a) happier or sadder? Happier.

b) thinner or fatter? Fatter.

c) richer or poorer? Richer. 

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Reading Early Modern drama with Michelle, Joe, Donovan, and Walter.

 

19. What do you wish you'd done less of? 

Teaching classes to graduate students who either hadn't done the reading or simply decided not to show up to class.

20. How did you spend the Winter holidays? 

I am in California for a little over a week, seeing family and friends and trying to get in a little rest, as well. I've already gone on a hike in Griffith Park with my friend John, baked three different batches of cookies, eaten dumplings like five times, and taken a little pilgrimage to my childhood home (which looks completely different!). Also, I need you all to know that even the cheap Mexican food in any small suburb of Los Angeles is exponentially better than the Mexican food where I live in Florida or anywhere else I've lived. I know "nobody walks in LA" but when I'm in Los Angeles I also like to walk, especially in some of these beautiful California parks. 

21. Did you fall in love in 2024? 

I did not.

22. How many one-night stands? 

Only a few. I really need to get better at this. I wonder what is wrong with me. Maybe I secretly believe I am unattractive and unlovable. This is probably it.

23. What was your favorite TV program? 

I watched way more TV than usual this year. For research purposes, I watched Baby Reindeer and I May Destroy You. For fun I watched season two of The Lord of the Rings: the Rings of Power, which was... not good. But I am not really sure if it's objectively not good or if I just don't like TV. I find television so annoying. It all just takes so long. Everything is so unnecessarily drawn out. I tried to watch The Decameron because I love Amar Chadha-Patel and because I thought Karan Gill was so handsome in I May Destroy You, and also because I just love the actual Decameron, but I couldn't get into it.

And then I kept my New Year's resolution to stay current with all seasons of Drag Race. This also meant catching up with earlier seasons so I would have all the background I needed and know all the returning queens on the All Stars seasons. So... 

I watched Drag Race México season 1, Drag Race España season 3, Drag Race España All Stars, Drag Race France season 2, Drag Race Belgique season 2, RuPaul's Drag Race: UK vs the World season 2 (with the most absurd upset), RuPaul's Drag Race season 16 (with the best upset), Drag Race Brasil season 1, Drag Race Germany season 1, RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under season 3, Drag Race France season 3, Canada's Drag Race season 4, RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars season 9 (big no to this winner), Canada's Drag Race: Canada vs. the World season 2 (these vs. the world seasons are the fuckin' worst), Drag Race México, season 2, RuPaul's Drag Race UK season 5, Drag Race Philippines season 3, RuPaul's Drag Race Global All Stars (probably one of the worst seasons ever), RuPaul's Drag Race UK season 6, Drag Race España season 4, Drag Race Thailand season 3, and Drag Race Down Under season 4 (why does this still exist?). Overall I would say this was too much drag race, but it won't happen again. Even if I stay current again, I wont have to watch past seasons to catch up. And anyway, I really wanted to catch up on the past seasons, and now there are only three past seasons I haven't seen (and does The Switch even count?).

OK wait. One more TV thing. I also watched My Secret Agent Husband on the DramaBox app. It is an absolutely ridiculous show that was filmed to be watched in the aspect ratio of an iPhone. It was gay and very stupid, and I had a great time. I can't recommend it, of course, but... I kind of want to watch it again.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? 

No. I don't think so.

25. What was the best book you read? 

Giuseppe di Lampedusa's The Leopard. This is a classic, of course, and it's a classic for a reason. It's wonderful. I also adored Henry James's The Wings of the Dove.

For nonfiction, I really fell in love with Avgi Saketopoulou's Sexuality Beyond Consent: Risk, Race, Traumatophilia, Kareem Khubchandani's Decolonize Drag, La Paperon's A Third University Is Possible, and Tina Post's Deadpan: the Aesthetics of Black Inexpression.

I also loved a whole bunch of plays that were new to me: Emma Wipperman's Joan of Arkansas, Rajiv Joseph's Describe the Night, Jaclyn Backhaus's You on the Moors Now, Sabrina Mahfouz's A History of Water in the Middle East, Harrison David Rivers' The Bandaged Place, and Nazareth Hassan's Untitled. (1-5).

I usually post about what I'm reading on GoodReads.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery? 

I started seriously listening to Ryuichi Sakamoto in 2024—not just his film music. I love his stuff.

27. What was the best piece of theatre you saw? 

I drove down to Tampa in August to see Dan Caffrey's play The Amphibians at Think Tank Theatre. I had a great time at this play. I also really loved our production of Great Comet and I'm very proud of that.

28. What did you want and get? 

Tenure, a publishing agreement for The Violate Man, nudes in my DMs, and so much tinned fish (I've become completely obsessed with tinned fish and I now buy regularly from four different companies). 

29. What did you want and not get?

A crop of limes from my lime trees. I really need to work on my gardening and cultivation this year. I started trying in 2024 but kind of failed. Maybe in 2025!

30. What was your favorite film of this year? 

So far it's Andrea Arnold's Bird.

However, I have around sixty-five movies on my unseen-movies list for 2024. I'll probably see thirty-five of those at least, so my top ten will definitely change.

Right now, though, my favorite films of the year are:

Bird

Challengers

Close Your Eyes

The Seed of the Sacred Fig

A Real Pain

Flow

20,000 Species of Bees

Dune: Part Two

The movies I'm most excited for as of this writing are Babygirl, The Brutalist, Hard Truths, How to Make Millions before Grandma Dies, I'm Still Here, A Traveler's Needs, and Vermiglio

You can follow my movie-watching on Letterboxd. I kind of love Letterboxd. It's fun to see what others are watching and thinking about movies.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? 

I turned 43. It was the usual night for my movie club, so we watched that week's movie—a deeply fucked up Tsui Hark movie called Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind—and then the folks from the club had a cocktail with me at a local bar that's open late. It was low key and nice.

32. What new recipes did you make this year?

I've been making a lot of hummus and other bean dip situations. I have two hummus recipes I make all the time now, one of which involves infused oil with cinnamon and ginger and cilantro and chiles, and the other of which involves fried spiced lamb neck-meat. I also started posting these more frequently as reels on Instagram.

33. What were your cocktail obsessions? 

I'm still drinking a lot of Old Barrels and Manhattans. But I made a lot of Puka Punches this year when my friend Chari was staying with me over the summer. 

34. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? 

Different election results. I cannot believe we have to live through another four years of this. 

35. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2024? 

Shorts, white socks, white sneakers.

Dress shirt, dress pants, tie, boots.

36. What kept you sane?

Working out. Happy hour at Savour, 1903, or Charlie Park. Hanging out with Meredith and Jason. Phone calls with Jason Tate.

37. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Amar Chadha-Patel

38. What political issue stirred you the most?

Ongoing genocide in Palestine. The ongoing refugee crisis in the Mediterranean. The resurgence of fascism in the United States.

39. Whom did you miss?

Justin and Elizabeth and Ashley and Danny and Wahima.

Tate, Matt, Walter and Jeanne, Katie, Jude and Steph, Chris.

Catie (although we sure did FaceTime after Maggie Smith passed so we could cry together).

Yasser, Katie, Jonathan, and Viktor.

Honestly, lots of folks. I have so many people I love spread out all over.

40. Who was the best new person you met?

This is cheating because I met her in 2023, but I started hanging out with Jen Gillette this year and she's just so great. My new colleagues Jasmine and Madeleine are also amazing.

41. Tell us a valuable life-lesson you learned in 2024:

I feel like the thing I'm learning the most about this year is forgiveness. You have to be able to forgive if you want to preserve relationships with people, because people do stupid, terrible, ridiculous things, but people are not perfect. People are careless and foolish and they actually need forgiveness. This is a lesson for a teacher, of course, because it's important that I try to treat students generously and forgive them for their occasional frequent foolishness. But I've been thinking about it more and more in personal relationships too. And the thing is, people don't deserve forgiveness. That's sort of the point. It's a gift: a way to move on from the past and try to put faith in a person's future behavior—and a future together.

42. Share an important quotation from 2024:

In this year's 53rd State Occasional, edited by Lucas Baisch and Emma Horwitz, they asked their contributors to talk about what they're obsessed with. Kate Kremer wrote something that I can't stop thinking about:

"A friend wants me to protect myself from my daughter's incursions. She wants to protect my daughter from my overweening (under-weaning) indulgence. She's afraid I might not give her the proper training-by-example in matters of bodily autonomy. My feelings are complex: I want my daughter to attend to my feelings, but I don't want her to stop attending to her own particular pleasures. Complicity comes from the late Latin complex, "allied", from the Latin complicare, "fold together", and I guess I am obsessed with my own complicity. I'm disturbed by the misalignment between how I feel—which is fine, durably fine—and the violence done each day in my name."

This hit me not only because of what she is thinking about—how our own day-to-day feelings are completely at odds with the ways we are complicit in genocide, torture, incarceration, and other state violence—but also because I have been working on editing something about consent and its limits for the journal, and so I've been thinking so much about autonomy, consent, and the ways we are interconnected with one another and vulnerable and open to one another. The possibilities of our own vulnerability and openness might have something to teach us about complicity... I'm going to keep thinking about this.

Summing Up 2023

1. What did you do in 2023 that you'd never done before? 

I have never, ever purchased a new car before. But I did that this year. It was time. I also gave my old car away to a student.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year? 

My resolution for 2023 was to work less for the university. I am not sure I really succeeded at this. I agreed to direct a play this year and that actually meant a lot more time working for the university, but I think that will partially pay off in 2024. This year I'm going to resolve to read more of my friends' books. I did some of that this year, and it was one of my favorite things I did all year. I also want to cook more vegetarian dishes.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? 

Maybe? But I haven't noticed any newborns around, so perhaps not.

4. Did anyone close to you die? 

The day before Thanksgiving, November 22nd, my mother passed away very suddenly. She had been sick very briefly with an e. coli infection, but no one suspected that her life was in danger, and her passing was very unexpected.

Since her death, so many of my friends have been really amazing and have reached out. I have appreciated all of this, and I have been overwhelmed with affection and very moved by everyone's kindness. 

My mother was a very good woman—many people at her memorial service and on social media have pointed out how much she liked to serve others, that she made life easier for other folks and helped them out in myriad ways. And this is all true. My mom went out of her way to be helpful for others, including an extraordinary period in the late 1990s when my mom was a caregiver both for her grandmother (with whom she had lived as a teenager) and my dad's father, who both moved in to live with us because of the medical care they needed. Mom was a very good reader, too, and for many years when I first began life as a writer I would send her my essays to proofread—she often helped me with proofing after graduate school was over. I remember this funny moment when I published an article in American Theatre for which I had been asked to write with a very specific style. She read a proof and texted me "It's very... journalistic?" I said "How dare you!" and agreed. I only say this because she had known my style well enough to know that this article was not it.

My mom and dad both have had a lot of trouble with me being a gay man. I know that such things can often be difficult for people who are serious about Christianity. This was hard on my relationship with my mom, and it was especially difficult for me emotionally when they voted against gay marriage in California (not because I'm into gay marriage or anything—I'm not, really—but because it meant that despite me having been an out gay man for a decade, they were still interested in voting against gay people). This is all much less hard for me now that I'm in my forties and have been on my own for a long time. But recently mom had become, if not less homophobic, at least more willing to push past it when speaking with me. She occasionally asked if I was seeing anyone and would talk to me in terms that acknowledged the life I've chosen. She also dutifully read all of my very gay scholarship; she would usually pronounce it "very interesting".

Mom's memorial service was about two weeks ago in St. Louis, Missouri, and I decided to drive there from Florida. I wanted to give myself time to think and clear my head on the way there. One of the things I reminded myself on the drive was that while I was in St. Louis I was going to hear lots of stories about my mother that I wouldn't really recognize, that there would be a portrait of my mother that was not the portrait I would paint if I were speaking about her. I wanted to prepare myself for that. And then while I was in St. Louis this turned out to be very helpful. So many people knew a different woman than I did. This is a good thing for all of us to remember. Our loved ones are many things to many people, and they are not ours. My mother loved many people and helped many people, and my version of her is not the same as theirs. I say that this is helpful to remember because it reminds me of the stoic approach to great losses like this one. I was not owed more time with my mother. She was someone I was given for a while. Who took time to care for me and raise me. And it is not my job to wish for more time with her. It is my job to be grateful to have known my mother for as long as I did, to be thankful for the time she gave me, and the time I was given with her.

5. What countries did you visit? 

None. But I did go to the Jersey shore for the first time.

6. What would you like to have in 2024 that you lacked in 2023? 

I need a new laptop. I bought myself one, but I am having trouble typing using diacritical marks, and I can't actually have a computer without being able to do that, so I think it might need to get sent back.

7. What dates from 2023 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? 

On August 19, I flew up to the Buffalo area and then drove down to Ellicottville, New York for the wedding of Jude Flannelly and Steph Spry. I got to hang out with my dear friends Walter, Jeanne, Katie, Nick, Chris, and Matt. We drank a great deal, and partied with many people, and we let strangers stay in our AirBnB, and we just generally had an amazing time.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
My book Love Is Love Is Love: Broadway Musicals and LGBTQ Politics, 2010-2020 came out this March. The cover is not great, but I think the book itself is very good!

Directing Imogen Says Nothing for Florida State was a very cool experience. I first said no to directing this show, and I had been hoping to hire an FSU alumna to direct it, but it turned out we needed a director quickly to start design meetings and get to work, and so I agreed to do the show. We began design meetings in March, and I was very lucky to be able to work with Krista Franco as my scenic designer. Krista had designed my last two shows at Endstation Theatre Company, and she has been my friend for over a decade. So this was a gift. If you don't know this play, you're missing out. It's about a bear passing as a human in Shakespeare's England, and it's funny and surprising and violent and very, very smart.

Anyway, we cast the show in late August, and I was given a marvelous team. We had a blast working on it, and I got to spend time with my students here at FSU in a very different way than I have in a long time. It was very special, and I was very proud of them.

9. What was your biggest failure?

For basically the entire year, I was supposed to be working on a book manuscript for my editor, Gianna. I didn't work on this book manuscript and did other things instead, like directing a play and writing an article about the American Shakespeare Center. For me this was the right choice, but I felt guilty about it for most of 2023.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

I really didn't! My new workout regimen has meant very tight shoulders, but it's nothing a little massage can't fix.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Gods forgive me, but I bought a Tesla. It was surprisingly affordable, and I needed a new car; I had been driving the same Honda Accord I bought used in 2010 for the last thirteen years. I made a calculation that Teslas are as cheap as they're going to be, and the U.S. government is still giving tax rebates on new electric vehicles, so this year was the time to do it. I got the car in August, and it's been honestly amazing. I love it. I charge it at home in my garage, and I never carry keys around anymore. I drove it to Saint Louis, and it's very comfortable to wheel around in.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Those activists and lawyers fighting drag bans and transantagonistic legislation in so many states.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

I have been the most appalled this year by the support by both of the major parties in the U.S. for the genocidal actions of the state of Israel. I was genuinely shocked – but ought not to have been – that President Biden was asking the U.S. Congress for monetary aid for Israel. I had to read that news item twice. Aid for Israel?

14. Which charitable organizations did you give to?

Boys and Girls Club of the West San Gabriel Valley

Wikimedia Foundation

Relief aid following the earthquake in Türkiye

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? 

Summer and the Orlando Fringe

Any time I have cocktails with Jason Regnier.

16. What song will always remind you of 2023? 

The song of 2023 is definitely that mournful Billie Eilish tune "What Was I Made For?"

It's not my favorite song of the year, but it feels very 2023 to me.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: 

a) happier or sadder? Happier. 

b) thinner or fatter? Thinner. 

c) richer or poorer? Richer. 

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?

I honestly wish I had worked out more. I'm not really doing very poorly in this department, but I wish I had been better. It always makes me feel good (after it's over). I've been doing P90X3 lately. The workouts are only a half hour long, and they're packed with good stuff, including cardio with weights in your hands.

 

19. What do you wish you'd done less of? 

I spent way more time than I ought to have listening to certain colleagues of mine talk about their accomplishments without ever asking me a single question or considering my feelings. I need to do less of that in the new year.

20. How did you spend the Winter holidays? 

I was in St. Louis for 10 days or so for Mom's memorial, and I was able to spend some great time with family. I was very sorry not to be able to go to California this winter break, but my finances wouldn't really allow it, and I was glad I was able to hug and love on so many of my family members in Missouri while I was there. I baked lots of cookies and coffee cakes. I came back to Tallahassee about a week before Christmas, spent Christmas Eve having a beer with my friend Michael and then the evening at a party at my friends Chari & Tenley's house for jamón Serrano. Christmas Day I made a crazy good Ottolenghi bean mash situation and a spicy mushroom lasagna that was a Christmas project. It was a good day. I'm spending New Year's Eve at my friends Dave and Malia's house home with a movie.

21. Did you fall in love in 2023? 

I did not.

22. How many one-night stands? 

Several. I wish I had been better about this too, though. I should be bolder, braver, and take more risks in this department.

23. What was your favorite TV program? 

I don't like television, and basically I only watched Drag Race, but I actually watched rather a lot of Drag Race. Flagship season 15, of course, and then once the summer started I watched Canada's Drag Race season 2, Drag Race Italia season 1, Drag Race España season 2, which may be the best season I've seen thus far, RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars season 8, Canada's Drag Race season 3, Drag Race Philippines season 1, Drag Race Thailand season 1, RuPaul's Drag Race UK season 4, Canada's Drag Race: Canada vs. the World season 1, Drag Race Belgique season 1, Drag Race Thailand season 1, Drag Race Italia, season 2, and Drag Race Sverige. I've been trying to catch up on all of the international seasons, many of which I had/have missed. I made a spreadsheet of all of the seasons in order – yes, Mary, I made a spreadsheet; I'll share it if you want it – and I just began working my way through it. I'm still very behind, but I'm catching up. And damn there's some great drag. This show is so fun!

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? 

No. I've been pretty chill lately.

25. What was the best book you read? 

I keep track of this on GoodReads. Come join me over there! I had a goal of 125 books this year, and I have so far read 124. I do need to read a play today, so... maybe I'll make it, and maybe not. Anyway, the best book of the year for me was David Graeber and David Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything: a New History of Humanity. I also loved Carlo Ginzburg and Bruce Lincoln's Old Thiess, a Livonian Werewolf. I didn't read a lot of fiction I loved this year, but I did read Gore Vidal's The City and the Pillar, finally, and it's great.

One of my favorite things I've been doing is reading early modern plays with my friend Michelle Liu Carriger. She and I read about 8 or 10 of these this year, including, what I think was a favorite of both of us: Thomas Middleton's The Second Maiden's Tragedy. It's totally insane, and it includes a weird necrophilia plot. Jacobean drama is bananas.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery? 

I don't really listen to a lot of music aside from film scores and Philip Glass. But Carly Rae Jepsen's The Loveliest Time came out in 2023, and I've listened to that on a loop for the last six months. 

27. What was the best piece of theatre you saw? 

I didn't see a lot of theatre this year, either! This seems sort of crazy, I guess. But I did really like Terence Blanchard's Champion. I also really loved Shifted: a New Sci-fi Comedy by Annie Lovelock and Nic Stelter, which I saw at the Orlando Fringe.

28. What did you want and get? 

A painting by Lilian Garcia-Roig. I'm over the moon. It's called Rushing toward the Rapids, and she painted it at the Skykomish River in Washington.

29. What did you want and not get?

A visit with my mom this December. I had been planning to visit her in St. Louis as soon as the fall semester was over.

30. What was your favorite film of this year? 

The Eight Mountains. There are still forty or so films on my list to see for 2023, so this might change, but it has been a great year for movies. My top movies right now are The Eight Mountains, Oppenheimer, Of an Age, Past Lives, American Fiction, Anatomy of a Fall, Afire, Alcarràs, and Under the Fig Trees.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? 

I turned 42. I was in Minneapolis for the Mid-America Theatre Conference, and it was also the Sunday of the Oscars. My friends Jessica and Kate and I had breakfast, then Kate and I went to the Minneapolis Institute of Art, had a beer, picked up Chinese food, and then watched the Oscars in my Minneapolis hotel room.

32. What new recipes did you make this year?

I've been cooking more Indian food because of Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Cooking, and I also made a few things from Ottolenghi's Flavor that have been insanely good. I'm promising myself to cook more from this book in 2024.

33. What were your cocktail obsessions? 

I'm still drinking a lot of Old Barrels. I'm also very into a Paper Plane.

34. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? 

I really wish Tallahassee had a dumpling place. I don't eat enough dim sum.

35. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2023? 

Bright white sneakers. Also, a tightly fitting polo will show off your guns if you have them.

36. What kept you sane?

Spending more time alone. Poems by Chen Chen. Senecan philosophy. Cocktails with Meredith and Jason. Kvetching with Elliott.

37. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Jelani Alladin

and

Barry Keoghan

38. What political issue stirred you the most?

People are really obsessed with trans people and transgender affirmative care. I can't say I give much thought to it; mostly because I believe people should be able to do what they want to with their own bodies whether doctors agree with them or not, but it seems especially insane to be disagreeing with people and their doctors just because what someone else is doing with her body makes you uncomfortable. But I find myself occasionally being asked to agree with flustered straight folks about trans issues, as if they imagine we can identify against trans folks as non-trans folks. No thanks. One thing I plan to start doing when straight people introduce trans issues into conversation is to stop the conversation and say, Before we continue, and before you and I disagree or agree on some particular issue regarding trans issues, I just want to say that I affirm that trans people exist, and that they ought to be able to exist in the world in whatever way they wish. We can talk about specific things, but I want to say that first and that anything else we say needs to be subordinate to this really basic assumption.

39. Whom did you miss?

Justin and Elizabeth and Ashley and Danny.

40. Who was the best new person you met?

Suhaila Meera

41. Tell us a valuable life-lesson you learned in 2023:

You really don't have to do everything. And if you ask for help, people will often help.

42. Share an important quotation from 2023:

One of my favorite things I did this year was to remind the undergraduates at the beginning of the Fall semester to say thank you to their teachers. I realized this year just how much my students take for granted and how hard my colleagues work (for not very much pay!), and I wanted to remind my students that no one has to go out of their way for them. Anyway, I'm going into 2024 feeling grateful, as well.

Summing Up 2022

1. What did you do in 2022 that you'd never done before?
I hooded my first PhD advisee. I took over for a colleague who left FSU, but it was a pleasure to be able to help my student in the ways I did. I love ceremonies like this. We don't have them enough. I don't know. This year, I did a lot of what I did last year. But I will say I feel infinitely more confident this year, as if I mostly feel like I know what I'm doing. I went to Detroit for the first time (and I really liked it).

Me and Mike Post Hooding

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn't actually make any! I knew what I needed to do this year, and I actually accomplished all of it, which feels amazing. My GoodReads goal for this year was 125 books. I'm at 120 as of today. We will see if I can manage the other five before the end of the day on the 31st! Either way, I'm feeling pretty good about what I was able to manage. 

My resolution for 2023 will be to work less for the university. I need to become less of a workaholic and focus more on having fun and doing things that are not related to my place of employment. Teaching sometimes feels like a 24/7 job and I need to start making that less so.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
My cousin Angela gave birth to a little girl, although we aren't very close. I was, however, able to visit Daniel Sack and Alex Ripp's new daughter, Thalia Maeve, this summer.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Not this year, thankfully.

5. What countries did you visit?
The Bahamas, but only in a manner of speaking. I went on the most obnoxious cruise to Grand Bahama in order to see my friend Jude perform on the cruise-ship version of Escape to Margaritaville. Jude was brilliant in the show. The cruise was very strange and sort of awful, though I was with my great friends Matt, Walt, Jeanne, and Katie. So that part of it was very fun.

6. What would you like to have in 2023 that you lacked in 2022?
Honestly, I'm not sure! More vacation time, I think. I need to spend more time reading and just generally doing nothing. I'm in a place right now where I work pretty much every day. This does not leave a lot of time for cooking (which I love to do), working out (which I need to do), or visiting cool natural spots in North Florida (of which there are many).

7. What dates from 2022 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
This was a very intense summer. I had strict deadlines related to finishing my book Love Is Love Is Love, and I stuck to them almost perfectly. The manuscript was due to the publisher on June 30, and I was six days late because of exactly six campus visits for new faculty members I helped to hire in my School this summer. But I love writing, and the time between the end of school in May and the deadline was really fun if pressure-filled in its own way.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I'm very proud to have finished writing, editing, rewriting, and making the index for Love Is Love Is Love. The book comes out in the first couple of months of 2023, and I'll be excited to see it in print. The last couple of passes of the book were horrible: the copyediting process for these things is completely fucked and the copyeditor introduced hundreds of errors into my manuscript by way of "fixing" things. Still, I'm hoping it all turns out nicely. I think that's the biggest achievement. I should also say that my article "Infelicities" was given an honorable mention as the Outstanding Article in a Journal at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education conference this summer. That feels amazing, and I am so glad that people are finding this piece useful and provocative for their own thinking. Below is a video of me speaking about the article with Michelle Liu Carriger.

9. What was your biggest failure?
I did not work out as much as I could have or should have. I did not get up to Philadelphia to see my friends Matt and Jill this summer. And I'm underpaid, which makes a lot of things more difficult for me. The failure I feel the most keenly, though, is the stack of unread books my friends have written that is sitting on my coffee table. I did get to read a few of my friends' books this year, but the ones I haven't read really make me sad. Maybe I'll be able to finish one of them before the end of the year.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
No. And somehow I have also managed not to catch Covid still. I don't know how that's possible.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
I am obsessed with my Dyson vacuum, which I bought this summer. This is an absurd thing to be obsessed with, and yet here we are. I also love the new chairs I bought for my dining table. I need a new computer. Maybe I'll get one next year.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My friend Chari, who directed a very well reviewed production of Rent this year at Short North. My friend Meredith, who is somehow doing three jobs at once in the College of Fine Arts. My many students who have graduated and moved off into the world to do good things!

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Ron DeSantis. Honestly, Republican politicians everywhere. (I don't feel quite the same about Republican voters.) These politicians are just so awful. Why do they wish to create a fascist hellscape? Is it just because they hate freedom? What's so fascinating about Republican lawmakers and politicians – at least in Florida – is that they claim to be in favor of freedom, while incarcerating more people and taking more freedoms away from young people, women, teachers, voters, former prisoners, and people of color. It is insane to me that people who say they love freedom don't wish for others to be free. What's truly terrible about DeSantis, though, I think, is that they've rigged the system so blatantly, so terribly in Florida that even our votes matter less. They've gerrymandered everything so horribly because they know they're in the minority, and they don't actually care. Rather than trust the people to make decisions affecting ourselves, they have rigged things so that we can't. They literally are dismantling the basic functions of democracy. It's appalling and depressing to me.

14. This question used to be "Where did most of your money go?" but once I turned 35 the answer was always taxes. So I'm modifying this question to be: Which charitable organizations did you give to?
Wikimedia Foundation

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The Rings of Power

Helping Lauren Abel finish her master's thesis

Every time I hung out with Michael Cleary

The American Society for Theatre Research conference

Finally seeing Dayne Catalano after three years

Some amazing retirements in my department

16. What song will always remind you of 2022?
Carly Rae Jepsen's "Beach House"

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Happier.
b) thinner or fatter? Thinner.
c) richer or poorer? Richer.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Reading, watching movies, hiking

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Evaluating students, stalling before meeting guys

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
I'm in Los Angeles. I'll be at my sister's house. This year's dinner theme is Ghosts of Xmases Past, and none of the foods go together. I'm making a leek and potato gratin, a peanut coconut soup, and baba ganoush. 

21. Did you fall in love in 2022?
I didn't. Sigh.

22. How many one-night stands?
I didn't count this year. But it was a) more than usual and b) not as many as there should have been.

23. What was your favorite TV program?
The Rings of Power. I had a great time, and I literally stop people before they say anything negative about it to me. I'm completely not interested in anyone's negative assessments of that show. 

I also loved season 7 of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars despite my total and complete disagreement about the eventual winner. The only other shows I watched in 2022 were RuPaul's Drag Race season 14 (ok), RuPaul's Drag Race UK season 3 (fine), RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under season 2 (almost unwatchable), RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under season 1 (actually unwatchable), Drag Race Holland season 2 (fun), and Drag Race España season 1 (very good). I still didn't watch all the drag race franchises that are out there. I'm trying to catch up, but tv is not really for me.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I think I hate fewer people, actually.

25. What was the best book you read?
I keep track of this on GoodReads. Come join me over there! Cookbooks I loved this year were Eric Kim's Korean American and Rick Martínez's Mi Cocina. The best fantasy book I read was Marlon James's Moon Witch Spider King. It's an awesome sequel/companion to Black Leopard Red Wolf. I can't wait for the next instalment. But the best novel I read was Andrea Lawlor's Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl, which I think everyone – and I mean everyone – should read. 

All the writing I did this year meant that I didn't read very much nonfiction, unfortunately. But I did start a little reading club (Early Modern Madness, we're calling it) with my friend Michelle where we read an early modern play that we haven't read before or have mostly forgotten. We started with witch plays and read Thomas Middleton's The Witch, followed by John Marston's Sophonisba and Thomas Heywood and Richard Brome's The Late Lancashire Witches. These plays are all astounding, and since then we've read some really strange gems from the period, including Ben Jonson's The Alchemist, John Webster's The White Devil, John Marston's The Malcontent, Tirso de Molina's La Venganza de Tamar, Marston's The Insatiate Countess, and Middleton's Second Maiden's Tragedy. This has been really fun, and I'm very grateful for Michelle's prompting in this direction. 

As for nonfiction, I'm currently obsessed with Sea People: the Puzzle of Polynesia by Christina Thompson. 

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Dave Malloy's Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812

27. What was the best piece of theatre you saw?
I can't believe I'm about to say this, but José Zayas's Romeo and Juliet at the American Shakespeare Center. It really stunned me.

28. What did you want and get?
A raise. A book contract.

Actually last year, for question 34, I said that I wanted "some retirements in my department. A few of those (six?) would improve my life exponentially." It seemed impossible, honestly, but I got that after all.

Better restaurants in Tallahassee. We actually have quite a few now, and I am grateful.

29. What did you want and not get?
To go on a date with my bartender non-boyfriend Tyler. (Also go on a date is mostly a euphemism.)

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
So far it's Jerzy Skolimowski's Io.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I had dinner with Chari and Tenley and Meredith and Jason at a farm-to-table place I like in Tallahassee. I turned 41.

A Lucien Gaudin I made recently

32. What new recipes did you make this year?
Many new things! The highlight, I think, was the Cajun turkey breast I made for Thanksgiving courtesy of Donald Link's book Real Cajun. I made my own boudin (i.e. boudin blanc) at home, and then I rolled it in a turkey breast to make a roulade before cooking it in the oven. It was incredible. The other thing I made that was amazing was Claire Saffitz's fruitcake. It's just so good.

33. What were your cocktail obsessions?
My drinks of choice lately have been an Old Barrel (2 oz. rye, 1/2 oz. Amontillado sherry, 1/2 oz. Benedictine, 3 dashes Angostura) and a Lucien Gaudin (2 oz. gin, 1 oz. dry vermouth, 1 oz. Campari, 1 oz. Cointreau or Beauchant).

34. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Gosh, I don't know. This has been a very good year. 

35. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2022?
Boots are the new dress shoes. I wear boots when I teach about 50% of the time now.

36. What kept you sane?
The Criterion Channel. My friends at Bar 1903. I honestly love having a local bar where I know everyone. (Whenever you see me make a bunch of cookies, just know that I bring a whole bunch of those to the staff at 1903 because they're awesome.)

37. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Haaz Sleiman

38. What political issue stirred you the most?
Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. This is further evidence, I think, of the fact that Republican lawmakers and jurists have completely stopped caring about what actual people in the United States think. It's tough for me to blame the Supreme Court for this completely because, in fact, the current makeup of the Supreme Court is the fault of political maneuvering and outright fraud on the part of Senator Mitch McConnell. It is also the fault of the legislature that we don't already have federal protections for female bodily autonomy in this country. The laws that specifically affected me in this country are the fascist policies that Ron DeSantis is promulgating in Florida related to education, queer, people, and the teaching of history, but the work of the Supreme Court this year when they overturned Roe is really and truly insane.

39. Whom did you miss?
Dayne and Jordan. Justin and Elizabeth and Ashley and Danny and Wahima. Katie and Viktor and Yasser and Jonathan. Patrick and Jessica and Michelle.

40. Who was the best new person you met?
Ryan Travis. Clara Nizard.

41. Tell us a valuable life-lesson you learned in 2022:
Every moment does not have to count, despite what the bad WordArt in AirBnbs wants to tell you. I was asked to give a speech at our School of Theatre commencement ceremony this December, and I made it a point to tell the students that not every moment needs to be filled with meaning. What I said to them was "It seems to me that once we leave college and have good jobs or are out there hustling or even are just like hanging out in our parents’ basements, we oftentimes look back on the time we spent in college as if it were wasted time. The time we’ve spent learning and practicing comes to feel like so much a part of who we are that we forget we actually spent it usefully and fully. I don’t think it’s important that you make sure that every moment counts. I think that’s too much work, actually, and kind of impossible. But I do think it’s important that you remember that even the moments that feel like they are throwaways, that feel like they’re not important at all, are actually the vibrant stuff of being. The silliness of gathering together in a space like this, the hilarity of cheering for a dragon carrying sour cream during a theatre-night performance: these things actually matter a lot. They’re the very material of life, of friendship, of presence." (The dragon carrying sour cream was from an excellent production the School of Theatre did of the children's show Dragons Love Tacos.)

42. Share an important quotation from 2022:

This is a mantra that I heard from Eric Kim that I have started repeating to myself: Don't yuck other people's yums. If someone tells me they like something but I don't like that thing, my job is to shut the fuck up. There's no reason to ruin or even slightly taint anyone else's enjoyment of something.

Summing Up 2021

1. What did you do in 2021 that you'd never done before?

Smiling at Jessica Del Vecchio

It doesn't feel like much of a year of firsts, honestly. In many ways this was a retread of 2020. I worked a lot. I made a lot of new types of food – especially Chinese and Mexican food – and didn't work out as much as I should have. But I did change my Instagram handle from aaroncthomas to chilicologne. I was at a vegan bar with my friends Steve and Joz in San Diego and Joz ordered popcorn that came dusted (spritzed?) with chili cologne, and Steve and I thought this would be a hilarious drag king name.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
My new year's resolution was to brunch more. And I did! Especially with Michael Fatica and Jason Tate when they were in town but also with many others. There's plenty of quality outdoor brunching in Florida.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
My friends Caleb and Diana's daughter Cora was born in May, and my delightful co-worker and friend Kevin and his wife Katie had their son Finn in April.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
We lost my friend and colleague Mark Brotherton earlier this year. Mark chaired the search committee that hired me at UCF, and he was an all-around great guy, a wonderful director, a good friend, and a loving mentor and teacher. He was one of my favorite people at UCF, and I miss him a lot.

5. What countries did you visit?
My passport is actually expired. I will renew it in 2022.

6. What would you like to have in 2022 that you lacked in 2021?
I have so much! I am not sure about this. I am very grateful. You know what I need? A more organized kitchen.

7. What dates from 2021 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
This October 14-17 I went on a very important societal retreat with my friends Yasser, Katie, and Jonathan. We stayed at the beach, ate seafood, and I had a drug-induced paranoid episode. It was life-affirming and very important – except for the paranoia.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I'm now the co-director of the BA program at the FSU School of Theatre. My committee and I are working hard to give the BAs their own sense of identity and a kind of brand that really differs from the BFA programs at FSU. This is not easy, but we made a big step this Fall by hosting a Fall Fringe Fair for BA students. It was a big success, and I think we're on our way. (P.S. The correct response to learning someone is directing a program or is now a department chair is not

Congratulations!; it's Oh that sounds like a lot of work. How can I help?)

My article "Infelicities" was published in JDTC this summer, and some very cool people are liking it a lot. I'm so happy that people are finding it helpful, and I'm very proud of it.

9. What was your biggest failure?
My poor book manuscript on male/male sexual violence (which is actually quite good!) is still in limbo. It will come out eventually, I am sure, but academic publishing is now on pandemic time, and I don't know how to help things move along. This would be very disheartening if I weren't working on my next book. As it is, it is very frustrating, but I'm focusing on the next thing I need to do.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Just some mild neck injuries. I've got a good chiropractor, though, and he is putting me back together.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
A curry leaf tree! I am now growing Genovese basil, curry leaf, and kaffir lime in my backyard. It's very exciting.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My colleague Lilian Garcia-Roig got a Guggenheim. She's awesome and very talented, and so this is very deserved. 

I continue to be very proud of my students, especially the ones who keep in touch. I love hearing from them, and I am deeply invested in them. It is not very common for students to keep in touch, actually, so it is great when they do.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Republicans in Congress and at the Supreme Court, and in governors' offices around the country. I'm not exactly happy with Democrats either, so I don't mean this as partisan politics; it's really not. But these Republicans are actually fighting actively against democracy. They know that a majority of the country doesn't agree with them about many, many things – especially personal freedoms – and yet they arrange it so that they control the country's laws instead of a majority of the people controlling the country. I am a person who is consistently in the minority (politically and personally) in this nation, and I feel like it's our job to work to convince people of our positions, but the Republican leadership in this country, who also represent a minority, have seized power in order to tell the rest of us what to do. It's cynical and disheartening and truly terrible. Our government isn't working. It's not working the way it should be working to help the most people, and it's not even working the way that it was designed to work. Honestly, I don't know how these people sleep at night.

14. This question used to be "Where did most of your money go?" but once I turned 35 the answer was always taxes. So I'm modifying this question to be: Which charitable organizations did you give to?
Black and Pink
The Boys and Girls Club of the West San Gabriel Valley

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Attending the ASTR 2021 conference in San Diego. It was the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic that I had been to a conference and I was so happy to see everyone, even though it didn't always feel super safe. It was also nice to be somewhere other than Tallahassee. I had done no air travel at all since March 2020

16. What song will always remind you of 2021?
Doja Cat and SZA's "Kiss Me More". I even wrote a little essay about it.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Happier.
b) thinner or fatter? Fatter.
c) richer or poorer? Richer.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Working out.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Departmental service.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
I was East of Los Angeles visiting my sisters Deborah and Sheila and their families. We had Christmas Eve at Sheila's and Christmas Day at Debs'. The theme this year – we always have a theme – was less complicated than usual: hugs. We went for comfort food. I made a pumpkin-peanut soup, a potato-leek gratin, roasted sea bass in tomatoes and shallots, and we also had collards, macaroni and cheese, and a quinoa-grapefruit salad. With Christmas cookies for a simple dessert.

21. Did you fall in love in 2021?
I didn't. But there's this boy I flirt with a lot at my favorite bar. It's not love (yet...?), but he's a charmer.

22. How many one-night stands?
Ok, I'm not exactly sure, and I think that's a very good thing, but there were definitely a couple of memorable ones! I'm in a new, very exciting phase of my life in terms of one-night stands.

23. What was your favorite TV program?
I didn't watch TV in 2021, as much as everyone tried to convince me how great TV is. I did, of course, watch RuPaul's Drag Race season 13 and Drag Race All Stars season 6.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No.

25. What was the best book you read?
I keep track of this on GoodReads. Come join me over there! I read a lot of books related to ancient and medieval theatre this year.
I was really inspired by Particle and Wave, a book-length conversation between Daniel Alexander Jones and Alexis Pauline Gumbs.
I finally read Rinne Groff's play The Ruby Sunrise and absolutely loved it!
I did not read a lot of fiction this year – and I mostly disliked everything fictional I read, so no recommendations there, but I just finished Danny Licht's little book about being in the kitchen, Cooking as Though You Might Cook Again, and completely loved it.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I don't know about you all, but I'm listening to Joey Herr's Only for the Night.

27. What was the best piece of theatre you saw?
The Metropolitan Opera's production of Fire Shut Up in My Bones. It was so incredible. The music is great, and the production itself was deeply moving. I saw it by myself and had no one to discuss it with, but it was really amazing.

28. What did you want and get?
A new kitchen faucet! A curry leaf tree. Lots of hugs.

29. What did you want and not get?
A larger pool of eligible bachelors from which I might choose. Tallahassee is small, y'all. I'm reminded of this every time I am in Orlando or Los Angeles or San Diego and can swipe right on exponentially more options.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Dune. Actually, I can't believe I've only seen it once.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 40. It was low key. Jason and Meredith hosted with cocktails and a simple dinner. Greg came over. It was great. These are my very good friends in Tallahassee, and I'm grateful to have them.

32. What new recipes did you make this year?
Birria de res. I'm excited to move into more Mexican cuisine next year, actually. Other fun things I made: carmelized scallion sauce, XO sauce. I spent most of the year alone, so not too many giant complicated dishes.

33. What were your cocktail obsessions?
I started drinking a lot of sidecars. At Bar 1903, my usual hangout, they serve one for happy hour, and I love them. Earlier in the year I was obsessed with Aperol. The two Aperol standards at my house are both easy: a Paper Plane (equal parts Aperol, bourbon, amaro nonino, and lemon juice) and a Naked and Famous (equal parts Aperol, lime juice, mezcal, and yellow Chartreuse).

34. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
A puppy. Haha. I'm kidding. I'm very satisfied with my life, so I'm not sure how to answer this question too well. More beach time would be better, of course. I'll just say that: more beach time. Nights at the beach are my favorite thing. I can just sit by the water and listen to the waves and feel the wind. It's the best.

Oh wait I thought of something: some retirements in my department. A few of those (six?) would improve my life exponentially.

35. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2021?
I discovered tee-shirts that are cut well and started wearing them. I use two brands: Fresh Clean Tees and True Classic Tees. But I am no longer a medium, or at least I can no longer wear one and still look presentable.

36. What kept you sane?
Mostly the same as last year: Meredith and Jason.
My friend Greg hosts a movie club where we watch a movie every week that none of us has seen before. More of my friends joined this year, and their tastes are all over the place. I watch stuff I never would watch on my own. It's delightful.
Texts from friends checking in on me.
The Criterion Channel.

37. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Richard Madden. I love him so much.

38. What political issue stirred you the most?
The fucking budget. I actually get enraged when I think of the extraordinarily wasteful amount of money spent on the military industrial complex every fucking year – supported by both democrats and republicans – that could be spent on actually helping people instead of on imperialism and making technology executives richer. Obviously I am also angry about Texas (and other states') outrageous attempts to control poor women, and obviously I am aghast that we continue to incarcerate people in ICE facilities, military prisons, and state and federal "correctional facilities" for indefinite amounts of time. Our priorities in this country are fucked. We spend so much money on murder.

39. Whom did you miss?
More than anyone: Dayne.
But also Jason Tate, Matt Silva, Aaron Farr, Michael Stablein, Katie Cassidy, Chris Martin, Julia Listengarten, my best friends in California, and my best friends in the Upper Valley.

40. Who was the best new person you met?
Donovan Sherman
Katie Merrill

41. Tell us a valuable life-lesson you learned in 2021:
Lying flat is justice. In many ways, my "technologies of the self" approach to turning myself into someone of whom I am proud and someone I like has already been captured by the system of the academy. The academy tells us that to be valued we need to turn ourselves into a kind of person: productive, always on top of the newest ideas, innovative. I have definitely internalized these values, and I work hard at all times to improve myself. But am I really working for myself and those around me? Or am I simply becoming a better little laborer for my employer? These are questions I began asking myself in 2021. I am not sure what the answers are yet, so this isn't quite a life-lesson, but it's what I'm pondering.

42. Share an important quotation from 2021:
This is from Particle and Wave. Daniel tells a story about his grandmother's pound cake: 

"She made legendary… it was this tall, it had the perfect crust, like you would go (slicing sound) put the knife in, it’s perfect, you know, dense, whatever. And as she got older, you know, not to be morbid, but all my uncles, everybody was like, we got to get that recipe! Because she would always make it and all of the kids would come and get a piece and you know, you visit, and you take your piece home and everybody, all the families would eat the cake. At one point I asked her, and she was like: ‘No you can’t have that recipe.’ And then, you know, we kept asking and asking and finally she conceded to my father to give me the recipe. I was 24 years old when this happened. She said, “I want you to call me when you made it.” So I went in, I got all the ingredients and I, you know, I did it step by step. And I put it in the oven, it kind of like exploded in the oven and burned. And I called her, and I was like, Grandma Daisy?! And she was already laughing, she was already—I said, “This happened, this happened…” And she said, Well I guess I got to be the one makes it. Right? She was like, Y’all will never get my recipe, you’ll never get it!
Each of us has a miraculous series of utterances… what a wonder that you would seek out to be present to experience. It’s like … rather than doing this extractive model where it’s like, you’re doing that thing—I want it! I’ma go get it—which even we were guilty of with our own grandmother, you know like: who’s gonna have the recipe after she dies? I mean come on! We gonna miss you, but we still want the cake! Versus actually saying, you know what a miracle to be present. It’s a miracle to be present."