Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.

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Online home and blog of Jere Keys, a 30-something queer activist, writer, aspiring lawyer and all-around decent human being living in San Francisco.

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2007-review

Therefore, be it resolved…

Typically, I don’t waste a lot of time on making New Year Resolutions. I don’t like the groupthink aspect of considering this the only time of the year to take stock and make promises to myself. However, this year I’ve finally started to make some realizations about long-term life goals and smaller steps necessary to achieve them. I know, I know, it’s horribly obvious, but better to catch on late than never.

Maybe I should back up a bit. I’ve always had a fairly vague sense of what I wanted to do with life, but I rarely stopped to evaluate exactly how I was getting there. Then, about two years ago, I got tired of bouncing from job to job almost by accident, of working seasonal contracts or in small businesses without any kind of benefits or great opportunity for advancement. I made a plan to move to San Francisco and be much more picky about the kind of offers I would accept.

The fact that I was able to make the change by focusing on smaller goals (i.e. saving money, finding a place to live, job hunting, etc.) proved to myself that I could take charge of my life.

In the last year, I’ve been able to observe a great number of workplaces and take stock of my talents and make some decisions about what I want to do when I grow up. Realizing that I need to set intermediate goals, I’ve decided that there will be resolutions this year. However, all these resolutions come with the caveat: failing to meet these goals does not mean I am a failure. I give myself permission to make mistakes or change my mind.

  1. Take the LSAT in June and score at least 165.
  2. Take proactive steps to improve my credit rating by the end of the year.
  3. Re-start my gym routine and take off the 20 lbs I put back on in 2007.
  4. Apply to law schools in the fall.
  5. In 2007, I went on one bona-fide, non-ambiguous date. In 2008, I will go on at least three.
  6. Maintain a positive outlook at work.
  7. I will remember that there is more to my life than work. Much more. Things that are more interesting to discuss with my friends and loved ones.
  8. I will take advantage of my fancy new health benefits in 2008 by visiting the dentist and getting routine medical check-ups.
  9. Quit smoking.
  10. Keep my room cleaner by ending my pack-rat tendencies - toss out old clothes, junk mail and stupid knick-knacks.

So, there’s my list, for what it’s worth.

Questions about 2007 Meme

Taken from Buffyannotater: 

Behind the jump for being long and completely unnecessary…

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Places of 2007

2007 was another year in which I never ventured beyond the borders of our great nation under dog. Despite the fact that I feel like I was constantly on the road, I didn’t actually visit that many different places. So, the list of places I stayed at least overnight or longer…

Places I visited in 2007

  • Washington, DC* (three times)
  • Salt Lake City, UT  (twice)
  • New York City, NY*
  • Oakland, CA
  • Las Vegas, NV
  • San Diego, CA* 
  • Mill Valley, CA

* Visited for the first time in 2007

If I hadn’t burned out on the conferences, I might also have done another trip to Las Vegas, or to Philadelphia, but I’m starting to understand why some people don’t want to take jobs that require lots of travelling. Assuming I don’t leave my current job, I’ll be spending some time in Austin, Texas next year, and probably back in DC at least once. Of course, if I can swing it, I’d also like to visit law schools I’m hoping to apply to, which would mean visiting a number of other cities as well.

Movies of 2007

Continuing with the review of the past year, a run-down of movies I watched in 2007. For the purposes of keeping the list simple, I’m only including movies I saw in a theater. It would be madness to capture all the DVD viewings as well.

  • Pan’s Labrynth 
  • Zodiak 
  • Spiderman 3 
  • Shrek the Third 
  • 28 Weeks Later 
  • Grease (sing-a-long version) 
  • Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer 
  • Paprika
  • Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 
  • Sunshine
  • This is England 
  • Hairspray 
  • Across the Universe 
  • 30 Days of Night 
  • Into the Wild 
  • Beowulf 
  • Lars and the Real Girl 
  • Enchanted 
  • The Golden Compass
  • Sweeney Todd 
  • Juno

So, trends… well, musicals seemed popular with me this year, as did fantasy and comic book superheroes. I’m not sure I could do any sort of ranking for this year’s batch of films, I liked such different things about each of them. Somewhat disturbingly, despite the fact that I watched a number of movies that deal with racism, not one of those movies includes a non-white person in a significant lead role (except, arguably, Paprika - which featured Japanese characters but dubbed into English with mostly white actors - and Hairspray, depending on how you define “lead role”).

So tell me, did I miss anything that I really should have watched? I’ve still got Netflix.

Books of 2007

For the third year, I present…

Books I read in 2007:

  • Altered Carbon (Richard Morgan) 
  • Freakonomics (Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt)
  • King Rat (China Mieville)
  • The Lions of Al-Rassan (Guy Gavriel Kay)
  • Ysabel (Guy Gavriel Kay)
  • The Price of Nothing: The Darkness that Comes Before (R. Scott Bakker)
  • The Warrior-Prophet (R. Scott Bakker)
  • The Thousandfold Thought (R. Scott Bakker)
  • Glass Soup (Jonathan Carroll)
  • A Model World and Other Stories (Michael Chabon)
  • What is the What (Dave Eggers)
  • Memory & Dream (Charles de Lint)
  • The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t (Robert I. Sutton)
  • Lullaby (Chuck Palahniuk)
  • Lud-in-the-Mist (Hope Mirrlees)
  • The Land of Laughs (Jonathan Carroll)
  • Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (Julia Serano)
  • A Fine and Private Place (Peter S. Beagle)
  • Danse Macabre (Laurell K. Hamilton)
  • Peeps (Scott Westerfeld)
  • Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey (Chuck Pahalniuk)
  • Michael Tolliver Lives (Armistead Maupin)
  • Ilium (Dan Simmons)
  • Olympos (Dan Simmons)
  • Your Movie Sucks (Roger Ebert)
  • Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (J.K. Rowling)**
  • The Music of Razors (Cameron Rogers)
  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (J.K. Rowling)
  • Grief (Andrew Holleran)
  • Hyperion (Dan Simmons)
  • The Fall of Hyperion (Dan Simmons)
  • The Swimming Pool Library (Alan Hollinghurst)
  • Endymion (Dan Simmons)
  • The Rise of Endymion (Dan Simmons)
  • The Line of Beauty (Alan Hollinghurt)
  • The Town That Forgot How to Breathe (Kenneth J Harvey)*
  • How to Get into the Top Law Schools (Richard Montauk)
  • The Ivey Guide to Law School Admissions: Straight Advice on Essays, Resumes, Interviews, and More(Anna Ivey)
  • God is Not Great (Christopher Hitchens)
  • Microtrends (Mark Penn)
  • A Fistful of Charms (Kim Harrison) 
  • Dead Witch Walking (Kim Harrison)
  • The Good, The Bad, and The Undead (Kim Harrison)
  • Soon I Will Be Invincible (Austin Grossman)
  • Hero (Perry Moore)
  • The Phoenix Unchained: Book One of The Enduring Flame (Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory)
  • InterWorld (Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves)
  • The Practice of Law School: Getting In and Making the Most of Your Legal Education (Christen Civiletto Carey & Kristen David Adams)
  • The God Particle (Dick Teresi)
  • Mistral’s Kiss (Laurell K. Hamilton)
  • Radical Careering (Sally Hogshead)
  • Death of a Darklord (Laurell K. Hamilton)
  • The Wooden Sea (Jonathan Carroll)
  • Wicked (Gregory Maguire)**
  • Son of a Witch (Gregory Maguire)**

* Started but unfinished for various reasons
** Re-read from previous year

I probably missed a couple that I forgot to record and later loaned them to friends. I also feel like I re-read the Fionavar Tapestry this year, but I’m not sure about that now. The list also fails to include the many graphic novels I read this year, LSAT workbooks, audio books, and technical manuals I read beginning-to-end. Still, the end-of-year count is 55 novels in 2007. That’s down from last year’s count of 61, but I blame that on the higher number of comic books I read this year and the number of work breaks I spent working on LSAT practice questions rather than escaping into another fantasy world.

Favorite discovery of the year: It’s a toss-up between Whipping Girl and author R. Scott Bakker. Julie Serano’s book on transgender identity and feminism certainly reshaped my attitudes and outlook, and Bakker’s intelligent Prince of Nothing trilogy sucked me deep into high fantasy early in year.

Worst book of the year: I guess I’m getting better at picking out books, because nothing really stands out as having been a waste of my time, except maybe The Town that Forgot to Breathe, which I tried several times to read but could never fully engage with.

Biggest disappointment of the year:Well, there’s a lot of Laurell K. Hamilton on this year’s list, but I think I’ve sufficiently lower my expectations so as not to be disappointed anymore. However, Interworld had the opposite problem. I have such high expectations of Neil Gaiman, I feel let down when his books don’t quite rock my world.

Biggest surprise of the year: Definitely The God Particle. I had no idea I would enjoy this book when I picked it up, but the author was such a cut-up, that despite being rather science-y, I looked forward to reading more of it every time I got to take a break.

The best book of the year: With so many great books on the list, I’m going out on a limb here. I’ll say Hero by Perry Moore. Not because it was the most literary, most intelligent, most emotionally moving, most original or most memorable - it was none of those things. I’m giving it my best-of-year pick because it was and remains exactly the kind of book that I most prefer to read. Gay teen coming-of-age + love story + sci-fi action story (specifically with comic book superheroes) + emotional reconciliation with an estranged parental figure… you get the idea. It was practically a “WWJR” book (”What Would Jere Read?”).

Top ten list of top ten lists you don’t want to read in 2007

‘Tis the weekend for year-end top ten lists. I love how random and unnecessary many of these are. I’m working on a few of my own, however, I’ve had some ideas for top ten lists you won’t want to hear from me…

10. Top ten poops of 2007
9. Top ten reasons to make a donation to Huckabee for President in 2007
8. Toe tem typos of 2007
7. Ten best STDs of 2007
6. Ten most interesting places I’ve put a banana in 2007
5. Top ten long-winded whiny blogs about why I’m single in 2007
4. My ten favorite knitting patterns in 2007
3. Top ten “esprit d’escalier” remarks I thought of in 2007
2. 2007’s biggest adventures in body hair waxing
1. Top 2007 things I’d rather do than go to work most days in 2007

My 10 Most Fascinating People of 2007

I’m watching the Barbara Walters special on the 10 Most Fascinating People of 2007 and finding myself, well, bored with the selection. So I’ve decided to put together my own completely subjective list. In the sake of fairness, I ruled out close friends and colleagues because, while they are fascinating to me, I doubt anyone else would be as interested.

I decided not to stick to people I necessarily admire, because a person can be fascinating and vile at the same time.

Spring Awakening10. Jonathan Groff, Lea Michele, John Gallagher Jr. - the leads from the cast of Spring Awakening have, within a short year, inspired legions of fans. Despite being relatively unknown when the show launched, the show swept much of the Tony’s and the three young actors have become almost overnight stars of the New York theater scene. Additionally, Spring Awakening was my first Broadway show experience during my all-too-brief first trip to New York City eariler this year. I almost missed my flight home because of the show, but it was totally worth it. The cast album has dominated my iPod playlist for most of the year.

T.R. Knight9. T.R. Knight- Don’t get me wrong, I love Katherine Heigel, and I’m not going to argue with Babs about what the general public thinks, but for my money, her little gay buddy and Grey’s Anatomy co-star is the fascinating one. Knight came out of the closet in 2006, but really became a fascinating person in 2007 during the fallout of the Isaiah Washington “faggot” scandal. His appearance on Ellen, where he was so earnest and vulnerable as he spoke to his feelings about the situation, melted my icy heart.

Read the rest after the cut… Read more »