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2017 was the year when I've actually thought "I haven't called my senators this week, it's time." Like a lot of us, I've felt both that I wanted to be doing more to resist Trump and fascism, and that I didn't have the energy for as much as I was doing (occasionally on the same day).
In part to reassure myself that I have been doing stuff, I kept records in a spreadsheet. So:
In person, I went to ten rallies, protest marches, and vigils (these overlap, obviously) and attended one legislative committee hearing. I've also been volunteering to help new citizens register to vote (three times so far). I think I posted about all of these at the time.
I made sixty-one calls to government officials (probably at least ten times as many as I’d made in my entire previous life). That includes both Massachusetts senators, two members of Congress (plural because we moved from Katherine Clark's district to Mike Capuano's, three members of the state legislature, the governor of Massachusetts, the state attorney general and the Middlesex County district attorney, plus the Department of Homeland Security, House Judiciary Committee, and Senate Committee on Homeland Security. Some of these I was fairly sure were a waste of effort at the time, but it was effort I could spare; what seems most likely to have made a difference were the calls to the attorney general and DA, calling for them to reverse tainted convictions for drug possession.
I also sent a bunch of emails, faxes (before resistbot overloaded Congress’s fax machines), post cards, and online comments, and donated to a few organizations that are doing relevant good work.
The rest of this semi-quantitative review of my year is more personal:
Exercise continues to be mostly either body weight stuff or exercises using resistance bands, and I’ve either increased the weight, resistance, or number of repetitions, or kept them steady, in the course of the year, which pleases me. (Most of the increases in resistance or number of reps have been in the past few months.) I haven’t done as much walking as I’d like since late summer because of hip pain. I’m going to follow up with my doctor about that in two weeks, and probably schedule PT. I'd like to be walking more, but am otherwise pleased with how this is going.
I am consistently doing six exercises that my physical therapist specifically recommended for the right shoulder, and less consistently doing a few other things. From least to most resistance, the elastics I'm using are color-coded blue, red, yellow, and black. The numbers below are what I’m managing most days that I do the exercise at all; sometimes I'll do fewer reps, or a lower intensity for part, because doing less is better for me than doing none.
Also, I do each of these (except the crunches) at most every other day. I log the exercises in groups, so if I do four kinds of exercise one day and three (or one) the next, those are one entry. When I go back to something (other than crunches), that starts a new entry. By that standard, I’ve worked out 136 times in 2017: that puts me above my basic goal of at least twice a week, and near my practical maximum of three times/week.
I read (or had read to me) seventy-two books, of varying lengths, including some rereads. Quite a lot of that was either while traveling or during the part of the summer while I was healing a case of tendonitis and using the keyboard little, and pens barely at all. I also bounced off several books, ran out of time on a couple, and am in some sense in the middle of a few more.
I slept in four cities this year: Arlington and Somerville, Mass., New York, and Montreal. One of these years I may take another vacation that isn't primarily to visit people I care about, and maybe even go somewhere new.
I tried two new foods: pineberry, which is apparently a variety of strawberry, and nutmeg jam, which is made from a different part of the nutmeg plant than either of the spices that are made from it (nutmeg and mace).
In part to reassure myself that I have been doing stuff, I kept records in a spreadsheet. So:
In person, I went to ten rallies, protest marches, and vigils (these overlap, obviously) and attended one legislative committee hearing. I've also been volunteering to help new citizens register to vote (three times so far). I think I posted about all of these at the time.
I made sixty-one calls to government officials (probably at least ten times as many as I’d made in my entire previous life). That includes both Massachusetts senators, two members of Congress (plural because we moved from Katherine Clark's district to Mike Capuano's, three members of the state legislature, the governor of Massachusetts, the state attorney general and the Middlesex County district attorney, plus the Department of Homeland Security, House Judiciary Committee, and Senate Committee on Homeland Security. Some of these I was fairly sure were a waste of effort at the time, but it was effort I could spare; what seems most likely to have made a difference were the calls to the attorney general and DA, calling for them to reverse tainted convictions for drug possession.
I also sent a bunch of emails, faxes (before resistbot overloaded Congress’s fax machines), post cards, and online comments, and donated to a few organizations that are doing relevant good work.
The rest of this semi-quantitative review of my year is more personal:
Exercise continues to be mostly either body weight stuff or exercises using resistance bands, and I’ve either increased the weight, resistance, or number of repetitions, or kept them steady, in the course of the year, which pleases me. (Most of the increases in resistance or number of reps have been in the past few months.) I haven’t done as much walking as I’d like since late summer because of hip pain. I’m going to follow up with my doctor about that in two weeks, and probably schedule PT. I'd like to be walking more, but am otherwise pleased with how this is going.
I am consistently doing six exercises that my physical therapist specifically recommended for the right shoulder, and less consistently doing a few other things. From least to most resistance, the elastics I'm using are color-coded blue, red, yellow, and black. The numbers below are what I’m managing most days that I do the exercise at all; sometimes I'll do fewer reps, or a lower intensity for part, because doing less is better for me than doing none.
- Internal rotations: started the year doing three sets of 12 on each side with the red band, ended at 3x12 each with the yellow band.
- External rotations: started at 3x12 each with the blue band, ended with 3x12 each on the red.
- Row (standing): started the year at 3 sets of 12 with the yellow elastic, ended at 3 sets of 12 with the black. This is the first thing I've used that elastic for, starting a couple of months ago.
- Lateral raises: I started the year doing 3 sets of 11 reps with a 600 g weight (improvised from a plastic bottle of black currant syrup), and am now doing 3 sets of 12 with two-pound weights.
- Serratus pushups: started at 3 sets of 10, ended at 3 sets of 12. (This is a body weight exercise that I'm not supposed to adjust the positioning on, so the only thing I can increase is the number of reps.)
- Shrugs: started and ended the year at 3 sets of 12; exactly how I stand affects the actual resistance, and I vary that depending on what I feel capable of.
- Lat pulldowns: started the year at 3 sets of 12 with the red band, ended at 3 sets of 12 with the yellow.
- Biceps curls: started and ended at 3 sets of 10 with an eight-pound weight.
- Calf raises: started and ended at 3 sets of 15
- Hamstring bridges: started and ended at 4 sets of 9
- Crunches: started and ended at 3 sets of 20.
Also, I do each of these (except the crunches) at most every other day. I log the exercises in groups, so if I do four kinds of exercise one day and three (or one) the next, those are one entry. When I go back to something (other than crunches), that starts a new entry. By that standard, I’ve worked out 136 times in 2017: that puts me above my basic goal of at least twice a week, and near my practical maximum of three times/week.
I read (or had read to me) seventy-two books, of varying lengths, including some rereads. Quite a lot of that was either while traveling or during the part of the summer while I was healing a case of tendonitis and using the keyboard little, and pens barely at all. I also bounced off several books, ran out of time on a couple, and am in some sense in the middle of a few more.
I slept in four cities this year: Arlington and Somerville, Mass., New York, and Montreal. One of these years I may take another vacation that isn't primarily to visit people I care about, and maybe even go somewhere new.
I tried two new foods: pineberry, which is apparently a variety of strawberry, and nutmeg jam, which is made from a different part of the nutmeg plant than either of the spices that are made from it (nutmeg and mace).
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