03Jan

The Last List: List of Lists

A List of My Favorite End of Year Lists

Besides thinking back on my year, deciding on my favorites, I love the end of the year because I get to read other peoples’ end-of-year lists. It’s almost like a compulsion.  Sometimes, I read lists of lists, which is so meta that even Reddit laughs in my face as I fall down the rabbit hole to Wonderland. So here you have it then, the results of my insanity– a small annotated list of my favorite lists, in no particular order.

The first place I go for recommendations is always Maria Popova, the author of the long-running and quite popular site Brain Pickings. She is a supernatural brainiac whose writing I love and whose taste I trust implicitly. Here are her “Favorite Books of 2020,” which we could just as easily rename “Heather’s Reading List for 2021.”

Favorite Books of 2020

Can you guess another person whose taste I trust implicitly? You may be surprised, but it’s former President Barack Obama. He’s been putting out his “favorites” lists since his time in the Oval Office, and every year I enjoy seeing what he enjoyed and found necessary to read, see and listen to. His reading list is full of books I want to read, and any list of songs that starts off with “Savage Remix” is surely going to be a list I want to make a playlist from. How can you not love Megan Thee Stallion AND Beyoncé?

Pitchfork’s “35 Best Rock Albums of 2020” features 3 of my fave albums: Haim, “Women in Music Pt. III,”  Phoebe Bridgers, “Punisher,”  and Tame Impala, “The Slow Rush.” So you know someone has good taste… don’t know if it’s me or Pitchfork, but it’s one of us lol.

I am showing my age and my nerdiness here, but I love the NPR music peeps, and I regularly check out their best-of’s, whether it be in podcast or list form. Here is NPR’s 50 Best Albums for 2020 (also see 100 best songs if you’re in the mood)

While I’m repping NPR, let me mention Maureen Corrigan from the podcast Fresh Air and her list of “Books that Will Connect You in a Socially Distant Year.” Her list is an argument that the best books can pull you out of your own solitude and connect you to characters in books in a meaningful and fulfilling way.

Ok, ok, just one more NPR list here. I’ve sort of fallen off my podcast listening this year. So, I haven’t been following “Pop Culture Happy Hour” as closely as I used to. But I still love the gang, led by Linda Holmes. She’s made a list of “50 Wonderful Things from 2020” at her blog.

About half way through this miserable pandemic, we were gifted with a meme. I’ve made a sample for us above with 2 images I’d saved in my phone from NYE last year and NYE this year. Does it elucidate anything about my journey in 2020? I’m not sure–but for certain I wasn’t at work in 2019 NYE and I was in 2020. But both are festive in some ways? This list from Fast Company discusses the varied uses of the meme, one of my favorites of 2020: how it started vs. how it’s going (or how it ended)..

Now let’s talk poetry. I’m going to give you more links for poetry than for other topics individually–for a few reasons. First, lists of best poetry are often short. What can you do with a list of two books? Oh wait, that was MY list that had two poetry books… Oops, moving on. Second, the judgement of poetry can be highly subjective–so a lot of variety is your best bet if you want some recommendations for books to try. And three, poetry books are short, for the most part well under a hundred pages, so you can read more of them! 

This first list is from a list I found from a list of lists (ha!) for Hyperallergenic’s “Best Poetry Books of 2020” (see link below). Next, we have the revered New York Times (see link below), who does tend toward the more academic side with it’s poetry judgement, and the Guardian who has high standards and always recommends both some established and new poets. The last list for poetry come from GoodReads Readers Choice, where thousands upon thousands voted and the poetry nominees and winner represent an interesting mix of old school, with Margaret Atwood ultimately taking the prize, and long-established authors such as Naomi Shihab Nye Barbara Kingsolver among the nominees. But there are also those I’d call the Instagram (or is it Tumblr?) poets–Nikita Gill, Rupi Kaur, Amanda Lovelace. They are absolutely adored for the simple emotional punches of their poems and how well they connect with readers. The list also has a ton of black and brown authors representing their cultural perspectives, such as Natalie Diaz and Danez Smith. These are some great books!

This Be the Verse: Our Favorite Poetry Books of 2020
New York Times Best Poetry 2020

The luxury beauty brand Lord Jones gifted our ICU nurses with samples from their CBD skincare line–and their wonderful balm has converted me into a believer of the power of CBD to relieve the aches and pains of nursing’s 12 hour shift strain & exhaust. Allure’s Best of Beauty 2020 contains another CBD balm, this time from coconut oil beauty product maven Kopari. If I can ever find it in stock, I’ll try it and compare to Lord Jones! In the meantime, I just put on some CBD balm to my knees and left shoulder because I’m about to head in for my third shift in a row and I’m sore just thinking about it… Check out the rest of Allure’s Best of 2020 for always great recommendations on beauty, skin and hair care.

For those of you who might have lost track of time during this year that seems to have both lasted forever AND flown by, here’s a list from Mashable of “58 things you probably forgot happened in 2020,” like the J.Lo & Shakira Superbowl Halftime or our practically biblical insect activity–murder hornets & actual locust plagues.

And now we come to the end. Let’s end on a high note with a list of “All the good things that have happened in 2020 from Shondaland.” There are some repeats but also the gems like the viral video that sent Fleetwood Mac to the top of the charts (again)… We have to pinky swear to always remember that Fleetwood Mac was defining music in 2020! 

What a weird year. And now it’s over… Phew.

29Dec

Breaking Last Year’s Reading Goals

I wasn’t very big on New Year’s resolutions last year, which in hindsight seems just fine, but I did set one goal for myself. To read 30 books. I tracked it using my GoodReads app, since they have a convenient feature for this. And I am shocked to find myself, just a few days before NYE about to finish book number 46! Over 150 percent of my goal. Honestly, this feels really good. 

The only questions I’m left with are 1) do I set next year’s reading goal higher than last year’s goal or higher than last’s years’ actual books read, and 2) what were my favorites and least favorites from the past year??? I have been thinking about my faves, and I believe I’ve come to some conclusions. But if you have an opinion on my reading goal, let me know. Last year’s goal was 30 books and I actually read 46. So, should my goal be somewhere in between? I’m thinking 42? (I would say 40 but I just don’t like that number… can’t tell you why).

You can check out the full list of books I read over the past year here on my GoodReads’ Year In Books 2020 but my favorite and least fave books, broken down by categories appear below. There is no rhyme nor reason. These are just the books that really stuck with me, whittled down into a group small enough to be a manageable list.

Fiction

  • Absolutely Favorite Fiction
  • Favorite Fiction That Took Me Back to High School Feels

Non-Fiction

Favorite Series

Poetry

Least Favorite / Failed Attempt:

A note on my failure: I attempted to listen to the Audible version of this book. The voice was distracting at best, and absolutely soul-killing at worst. I tried to restart multiple times, maybe 3 or 4, but just couldn’t do it. There was going to be NO healing with that version, unfortunately.

Up next in my end-of-year musings, a list of other people’s end of year lists, including some of the topics I’ve covered like music or poetry but also branching out to cartoons and live music. Keep an eye over the next few days!

Also up in the new year: site redesign to get the blog posts to the top of the page! Less Scrolling! Yay!

26Dec

LISTS: End of Year Music Favorites

The end of the year is one of the most special times for me. Between Christmas and New Years, I find myself feeling pensive, maybe even nostalgic, about the previous year. And this year, whoa. There’s a lot to process. But I’m going to start with the easy stuff. Music.

I have continued working (and commuting about 30-50 minutes each way) throughout the year. The two things that have gotten me through this, as always, are music! and audiobooks!

For the last few months, however, I’ve been on an all music kick. Oddly enough, this is also how I started the year. The year began for me with upbeat & dance-worthy Dua Lipa while it is ending with a introspective folk/indie Taylor Swift double-header. But don’t worry, I’ve also got Miley Cyrus to lady-rage rock out in a way you just haven’t heard before, bringing back some classics from different decades (and sometimes the original artists too).

What follows are three separate lists. Favorite albums–meaning these are the albums, whole albums from track 1 to the end, that I listened to on repeat. Then there is a list of songs, usually things that were either 1) released by some of my already-fave artists, such as First Aid Kit & Billie Eilish, or 2) recommended by Amazon Music’s “your soundtrack” methodology, especially songs like “Air Forces” by Mustafa or “Control” by Zoe Wees. The third list includes albums that I’m surprised I didn’t listen to more. Maybe I really like a song from the album, such as with Sault, or have previously really liked the band (maybe even enough to see them in concert) as is the case with Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit or the Chicks. Maybe I’ll get to these albums?

Before you scroll to the lists, however, I interrupt you with this Spotify playlist. For each of my fave albums, you get two songs–plus all the other songs. And one song from each album I haven’t really dug into yet as a bonus. Over 2 hours of music to help you pass the time, provide a soundtrack to read the rest of this website, or just get inside my head, you know, whichever you prefer…

What are your favorite albums and/or songs? Should we talk about our least favorite or should I just not mention Harry Styles and Camilla Cabello? Leave any feelings or opinions in the comments! Next LIST in my 2020 list series will be BOOKS! Stay tuned in the coming days.

Fave Albums:

  • Dua Lipa, “Future Nostalgia”
  • Taylor Swift, “Folklore” & “Evermore”
  • Miley Cyrus, “Plastic Heart”
  • Haim, “Women in Music Pt. III”
  • Sylvan Esso, “Free Love”
  • Phoebe Bridger, “Punisher”
  • Fleet Foxes, “Shore”
  • Tame Impala, “The Slow Rush”
  • Adrienne Lenker, “Songs & Instrumentals”

Fave Indivual Songs (not on fave albums):

  • “Wildfires” by Sault
  • “Come Give Me Love” by First Aid Kit
  • “Heather” by Conan Gray
  • “Lemon” (feat. Sharon van Etten) by Local Natives
  • “Underdog” by Alicia Keys
  • “Air Forces” by Mustafa
  • “Harmony Hall” by Vampire Weekend
  • “My Future” by Billie Eilish
  • “Therefore I Am” by Billie Eilish
  • “Everything I Wanted” by Billie Eilish
  • “7 Seconds” by Porridge Radio
  • “Control” by Zoe Wees
  • “July” by Noah Cyrus & Leon Bridges

Albums I’m surprised I didn’t listen to more:

  • Fiona Apple, “Fetch the Boltcutters”
  • Lady Gaga, “Chromatica”
  • Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit, “Reunions”
  • The Chicks, “Gaslighter”
  • Sault, “Untitled (Black Is)”
25Dec

Bibs and bobs

I just finished wrapping presents for Christmas morning. It isn’t ALL the presents I need to wrap, just all the presents for now… I don’t love wrapping because I start off with dreams of beautiful bows and perfect edges and end up not wanting to waste paper and taping together multiple used edges to make “leftovers” paper, jagged edges be damned. A package from me is either beautiful or hideous. There is no in between.

I also just finished an audiobook and reviewed it over at GoodReads:

The Coroner's Lunch (Dr. Siri Paiboun, #1)The Coroner’s Lunch by Colin Cotterill
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was included in my Audible membership, and I needed something light (but not without intrigue) and less than a billion hours long to get me over a recent reading/listening slump. This was the PERFECT book. Less than an 8 hour listen, a mystery with many layers, and even some political and historical lessons thrown in for good measure.

I liked it so much that I am going to start book #2 in the series right away. Hopefully I won’t burn though all 15 of the remaining installments too fast…

View all my reviews

How do you read series? All at once or spread out between other books, just one here and there to stretch your experience for as long as possible–assuming, that is, that the series is complete and you can read it all at once in much the same way you can binge a Netflix series these days???

I’m an all at once girl. If I’ve been fully invited into a world of characters and places that I enjoy, I don’t want it to end. It’s like when you get to the end of a book and realize that you’re going to miss the people you’ve come to know, but in the case of a series— you don’t have to! Just jump into the next adventure.

Speaking of adventures, I tried to find marshmallows today. Actually, I’ve been looking for marshmallows and hot chocolate for the past few months. Trader Joe’s hasn’t had its normal hot chocolate selection, and tbh I’m not sure if it’s because it’s sold out or just not available. But hot chocolate hasn’t really been in other stores much either. And marshmallows?!?!

What’s up everyone? I guess there’s a run on hot chocolate fixings a lá hallmark channel? Comfort is in big demand and short supply this year. I hope y’all have enough though. Happy holiday & merry Christmas Eve ❤️

12Dec

Feast or Famine: Taylor Swift and Coping with the Pandemic

Has the knowledge that a vaccine is on its way to all 50 states changed the way you feel about living in lock down during our 3rd major Bay Area covid surge? Are you more hopeful?

Or perhaps your mood has been buoyed by the SECOND surprise album release of this year by Taylor Swift? No? Must just be me and her hoards of fans… who I’m assuming have all listened to the album dozens of times by now, at least.

There is a dark side to Swift’s prolific creative artistic pandemic growth, however. According to a perspective in The Washington Post by Danielle Campoamor, we are all coping with the pandemic in our own way–although Swift’s variety of coping through work is often seen as inspirational and morally superior. Campoamor argues that other mechanisms for getting through the darks times–like binge watching tv or ordering takeout instead of learning to cook–are seen as failures, both morally and personally.

I do understand this argument to some extent, since the basic tenets of productiveness versus laziness also underly other important topical debates about depression stigma (and mental illnesses in general), chronic and invisible illnesses ranging from diabetes to Crohn’s disease, even the hilariously oversimplified judgements about working fathers vs. stay-at-home moms.

But ultimately, Campoamor know that the oversimplification overlooks some important details. Taylor Swift is able to work hard during this dark time by making music, by using her chosen art form to help process her emotions and turn pain into beauty.

Most of us are not that lucky. We might be stuck doing office work from home, or out of work entirely. Or maybe like me, an essential employee. Maybe you never get a day off from the grocery store where it’s a battle to get customers to wear their masks. Maybe you lost your job entirely to the poor economy.

I’m a nurse in the Intensive Care Unit at a busy, urban tertiary hospital in the Bay Area of California. My job has both remained exactly the same and changed forever. One thing I can tell you for sure: nothing about my job feels safe. It is not a place for me to process my emotions about covid, or the sickness and death I see daily.

I wish I could be as productive as Taylor Swift in 2020, releasing 2 major albums–real breakthroughs that seem to anchor her during this time of trauma and chaos.

But unfortunately there are days where the only thing I can do in the face of everyone’s overwhelming mortality and poor choices. And that is: go to sleep. Take a nap. Sleep in. Tuck in early. There are days during this pandemic when the only thing that made sense to me was the idea that by sleeping, I could just while away time and hopefully wake up in a new place, a new healthier planet without masks, where we could travel and be together again.

10Dec

Pantone Perfect

I have followed the “color of the year” choices made by Pantone since its inception 20 years ago. Side note: at first I was going to wager that I’d followed Pantone since I first started working at a dotcom in 2000. Then I decided that I could just look up some of the colors and try to remember which one I recognize as being my “first.” Lo and behold, the reason the Pantone color of the year holds such a special place in my heart is because I probably covered it for the dot-com publication I worked for at the time–CNET. Funny world.

Anyways, now that we’ve established that I love colors, lets talk about this year’s colors… Yes I did type the plural correctly. We have two colors of the year, which is really just twice the fun! The last time 2 colors was chosen was in “2016, when the institute selected Rose Quartz and Serenity as a nod to the increasing fluidity around gender norms” (Time Magazine).

As Pantone explains

“The union of an enduring Ultimate Gray with the vibrant yellow Illuminating expresses a message of positivity supported by fortitude. Practical and rock solid but at the same time warming and optimistic, this is a color combination that gives us resilience and hope. We need to feel encouraged and uplifted; this is essential to the human spirit.”

 –Leatrice Eiseman, Executive Director of the Pantone Color Institute
Pantone’s colors of the year for 2021

And yes, I couldn’t agree more. This is exactly what we need right now. Is it hyperbolic to think that announcing the choice of 2 colors of the year could give us these? Not when the colors themselves can help change our moods, soothe our souls or provide inspiration. Color has the infinite power to make us feel, on both a conscious and unconscious level. I think Pantone has done a great job of picking two colors for the next year that will help us heal from the ordeal that was 2020.

08Dec

New Poetry

I finally got my act together and posted some new content. I’ve been debating how to post new poetry. I’m not set on the first method I tried since WordPress’s innate “verse” formatting is awkward and causes side to side scrolling. Today, I went with PDFs. They need to be downloaded but then the formatting is set If you have any ideas, please let me know in the comments.

The poems are a group of 6 from January to June of 2012. This was a time when I first started therapy–a time when I was trying to break though years of accumulated grief and isolation and darkness. Oddly enough, it was when I met my current therapist. He was an intern then, finishing his clinical hours before he finished his dissertation, earned his PsyD, and went into professional practice.

I found these poems buried in an old Evernote account that I started in 2012 and actually kept using into 2017 sometime. Finding all these old archives of my former life is really opening up my eyes to the trajectory of my history. I would call it a midlife crisis except I think that all my major crises have passed. Now, I am only left to deal with the fallout. To make meaning of the stories I tell and plot new ones for the future.

But lets not forget the poetry–the newest additions are at the top:

Poetry on AccidentlyRetro.com

24Nov

Practical & easy? Knot.

Have you ever learned something new because you had to, and then thought to yourself “I probably should have learned that a long time ago! Plus, it’s not even hard.”

Well, yesterday I was hanging some paintings and wanted to put them up some crazy hipster way— by putting eyelets into the top of the frames & then tying on some waxed thread to hang it from. In order to do this, however, I needed to tie the thread to the eyelets. Securely.

So I asked my best friend Google how to tie knots, and after perusing a few websites, I decided to try the figure eight knot. It was billed as a knot that got tighter when weight was applied, so I knew it would be secure on the paintings were hung. After looking through the instructions a few times, including some pictures and drawings, I got started.

The newly-painted purple room gets some art. I learn some new knots…

Although I believe that the results will be more than sturdy enough to hold up these paintings for a long while, I honestly think I didn’t tie the knots correctly. When I was looking at the diagrams again afterwards, and comparing to my own knots, the lack of a visible figure 8 was really noticeable. Maybe I double looped part of the 8? I’m not sure… either way, it tightened the correct way. Maybe it’s just a new knot? The figure 8 1/2?

22Nov

Why I wake early

This week  my days off, I’ve been waking up between 2 and 4 am. Not so unusual for me, since I work night shift and my body clock is completely reversed. In these wee hours, given how cold and quiet it is, I often find myself want to do quiet but active things. Reading doesn’t quite do it for me. But making art does! In the last few days, I’ve been making these…

Mixed media, a classic form including the collage (which I’ve been calling the fancy name decoupage I just realized), has always been a favorite of mine. I often like to incorporate paintings into mine as well, so a whole canvas might be combined with small objects such as plants or screws or beads or fabric or basically anything that inspires you. There is almost always paper involved as well, whether it be cut up magazines or (gasp! books) or other paintings, etcetera. One of my recent decoupages has an acrylic painting topped with watercolor paintings, handwritten song lyrics, and magazine parts. Pretty typical for me.

That one, which I’m calling Blackbird (for obvious reasons) also demonstrates how inspiration and process come together. I started this morning with several old watercolors–mismatched & different sized flowers, and a red-winged blackbird. My table was also covered with snippets of magazines from a few days of culling. I grabbed a canvas & first decided to work dry, finding my pieces and layout before gluing anything down.

The blackbird was first to roost, taking center stage on a canvas that I chose specifically to highlight his placement. Next, I laid down some flowers, unsure if I would use them all (I didn’t) or where. Then, I had an aha! One of my favorite songs is Blackbird by the Beatles (or any of many other cover versions that has been made). So obviously I had to listen to it.

And here is where the materials I started the project with (a blackbird painting) led to a moment of inspiration (the song) that led to a cascade of moment-memories, thinking about the times when I’ve listened to Blackbird before, what it’s meant to me, and so on.

Did you realize that you can just type “Blackbird cover” into Amazon music, and you’ll get pages of different versions of the song?

Of the many times I’ve listened to this song on repeat, most have been in dark times in my life. Times when I’ve been lonely &/or alone; times when I felt like a small blackbird in the night with broken wings, unable to escape the night. Just darkness in & around me.

But in the past month, my light has returned more powerfully than ever. And this song is so different now. Hearing it now makes me realize that despite the broken wing, the blackbird can still fly. It is a different and hopeful place that I really want to share with you.

And so I dove into my cut up magazines, finding phrases like “giving thanks” and “incurable optimist” but maybe my favorite is just a snippet of a thought–but it is a snippet that I want to define my next year with:

humans at

our most ambitious, our most inquisitive, our most engaged,

our most eternal, our most creative

–“Blackbird” mixed media by Heather Brossard (

post-script: the title of this post is stolen from the title of a Mary Oliver book & poem. Did you know that you cannot like copyright a title? Well, that’s what they told me in grad school anyways. Here is a link to the poem “Why I Wake Early” in GoodReads; it is delightful if you would like to read it.

22Nov

We finally get to shop HomeGoods online!

It won’t be till later next year (yes, late 2021), but there are plans to start an online store where we can shop for crazy finds. I definitely missed my trips to the store during quarantine, and I’ve been there three times since it ended. Got some flower pots, throw pillows, random wall art of animals wearing glasses, caramel corn, three step stools–you know, the basics. I actually really needed the step stools and waited until HomeGoods opened to go buy them, knowing they carried the ones I liked at a good price. Oh lol, now I sound like an advertisement. But you know what? Even though my initial reaction to this news is delight and excitement, I fear that the HomeGoods experience can never really be replicated by online shopping.

You can’t laugh hysterically while holding a wooden white whale (I am NOT JOKING) and trying out an inflatable outdoor chair, only to slip off and find yourself then laughing hysterically on the floor with your white whale. There’s a picture somewhere in the cloud, and I’m going to find it and show y’all!

What do you think? Do you love the store like I do? Are you excited at the prospect of online shopping at HomeGoods?