Know Your Shelf Better: Pretty, Twee and Hopeful: Tommy's December 2024 Top Twenty-Five Tracks

This was the hardest year of my life. At age forty-five, I spent the year 2024 suspended in a mid-life limbo hell where my appetites ran away from me. And the bill came due. Actually all the bills came due at the same time. I owe so much to my family and my husband and my close circle of friends who helped me when I was down. They all seem to be thriving. God bless.

Trafalgar Square, Early Morning, Winter

So I had two previous streams of thought for the direction of this year's December playlist. The first was to go full funereal and post my collection of tracks dealing with failure and regret. Entitled FML, this audio island of misfit toys sits (presently) at one-hundred-and-seventeen tracks but this would again break the mathematical promise right after November's emotional emergency dream pop playlist which runs two-hundred plus songs.

But then I thought: seeing the backside of 2024 is a celebration and a proper soundtrack is called for! FML may represent the authentic cry of anguish throughout the year but it's no slogan nor attitude for the utter relief at a chapter that needed to close. So instead I present: Pretty, Twee and Hopeful, a collection of jangle pop, dream pop, electro-pop and indie rock that celebrates the small moments of sweetness on this Earth.

Outside Hayes Library

I'm a naturally positive person but this rosy tint blinds me to flaws that everyone else sees as articles of common knowledge. I hide from ugliness and dodge conflict. But I'll often sing walking the streets of London with my chunky earphones on. There goes that crazy American! It's hard for me to discern fury in the body politic and I wonder why I get so surprised by another reactionary election in which the results are less than savory. It's hard for me to discern fury in my personal relationships too.

But this horrid year is ending on many notes of sweetness. For the first time in my life, I am committed to seeing my therapist on a weekly basis. I've become one of those annoying stereotypes of someone who is fresh to therapy and is thus therapy's loudest promoter. I don't know if Rocky (my beloved therapist) knows what he is up against. Me: a book smart but stubborn Irish man who is a romantic and a dreamer AND a doer but also a guy who is terribly impractical and messy to live with.

Hayes Library Rose Garden

Still, other sweet notes ring. On the 20th, I received my first paycheck as a part-time librarian for my London 2.0 experience. 464 Great British Pounds and 23 pence. 583.33 in US dollars and cents. I nearly cried when I checked my account balance. To boot, everyone in my borough's library system is incredibly kind and welcoming and gay-friendly and educated and I could see myself growing within the network. The takeaway is that I've sort of fallen in love with the Brits. You may have to put in the effort but they'll make space to reach out at the appropriate time. And when they do, they revel in talk. Can't stop talking actually. Kind of like me. Actually the point of the British workplace is not success but chatting with your coworkers, those warm and stellar Britons.

I'm a worker, don't get me wrong. I love to dive in. But the British office vibe priority is all about having agreeable relations. Americans are more competitive somehow and can tolerate more friction in the workplace. Because they have a different target, different value in mind. And that's okay.