24 Things I Learned in 2024 That I Didn’t Really Want to Know
(but in good news, I got my mojo back)
Yeah. 2024.
Warning: Disclaimer, TW (?): RAGE AHEAD
Also I have been very liberal with the periods and they are not always at the end of proper sentences. BEWARNED.
Also also loooots of cursing.
This has been a terrible no good very bad super sucky year. For moi. (You too?)
Would not recommend.
Would not wish on anyone.
Back in Florida. Mother descending into dementia and decrepitude.
Don’t want to do the things. I am the only person to do the things.
On my way to the hospital / March 2024 // I do not look like this anymore /// I have aged 10 years in 10 months
Almost the entirety of 2024 has been an adulting montage. Or rather, for accuracy’s sake, the first three-quarters of the year was a months-long ordeal which Joseph Campbell of The Hero’s Journey might dub the REFUSAL OF THE CALL.
I am firmly in the montage now, though, for sure. How long will it last? Who knows. Montages are interminable for the person living them. That’s why we speed them up in the movies.
Mom, inordinately stressed about driving the cart at the Aldi’s supermarket / October 2024
So I juuuust entered the montage 2 months ago. Basically when I got out of bed. There was a lot of bed. See: Refusal of the Call.
This is sort of a MVE, a Minimum Viable Essay. I haven’t written in 10 months. A list is the first thing I’ve mustered, and I’m very glad I’ve mustered it because it means I’m back. English is so confusing, isn’t it? Mustered. Mustard. Tomato. Tomato.
Anyhoodle! Without further ado, I present you with an exhaustive yet incomplete list of Things I Learned (in 2024) that I Really Never Wanted to Learn and Didn’t Really Want to Know:
Hospital patient advocacy
Fall Risk / March 2024
How to pick shit up off the hospital floor (when your addled mother decides not to sit on the toilet, but instead stand and shit) so that neither you, nor her, nor the nurses slip in it.
Yes, actual shit.
To do your research on rehabs for your loved one and not just accept the only one recommended to you by the unkempt social worker, which will probably smell like piss and look like a backyard drug deal
The unbelievable fucking unholy racket that is health insurance and how you will get charged by random doctors that you did not have the chance to approve for care that is considered to be — and billed — outside of the hospital and separate from the hospital stay, yet administered inside of the hospital and N O ONE WILL TELL YOU HOW MUCH ANYTHING COSTS
Nurses: wholly underpaid, sorely overworked, generally, genuinely trying their best. Doctors: no time for you. Get your questions ready. They probably won’t answer them. It wasn’t a stroke. It wasn’t a mini stroke. Is it dementia? Well we can’t tell you because she needs a PET scan which we don’t do for inpatients. Why? Again. No one will tell you.
How to fill holes in walls with spackle — it’s kind of like finger-painting.
How to paint walls — you don’t have enough paint on your roller, ma’am. But if it’s white paint on white paint, welp. It don’t matter much.
The gateway drug of home improvement / April 2024
How to replace outlet covers (this one’s easy!)
The difference between a rehab, an independent living complex, an assisted living, & a nursing home (One costs $14,000 a month! Do you know which one?)
The fact that this country doesn’t care much for elderly people, so, best not get old, mmnk? Euthanasia will be legal by the time I’m elderly. . . right?
How to remove baseboards by completely destroying them
Manual labor: surprisingly good for my skin / December 2024
Never been so happy to have a crowbar in all my life / December 2024 How to install LVP without destroying it
I took a WORKSHOP / These are apparently my concentration lips // Dislike, Unlike /// December 2024
Wherehow to get into the attic
What’s in the attic (Pretty sure it’s a very large lizard. The size of small iguana. Or a medium subway rat. Maybe it is a rat actually. I think it might be… petrified?) I have no photo of this creature, which I shall dub Herbert, for my adulting does not yet extend to the courage to fish a petrified lizardiguanarat out of the 50 year-old insulation that is essentially now, dust.
Ewwwwwwww / November 2024
The fact that Medicaid will only pay for a nursing home in Florida once the person makes themselves destitute and has less than $2,000 dollars to their name… and The Person can’t give away their assets to qualify because those motherfuckers will comb through all of The Person’s financial records for the past 5 years and penalize them (as in, NOT pay for a nursing home for x amount of time) if they’ve given any significant amount of assets (and sometimes, any insignificant amount of assets, like, for say, birthday presents) away. They call it the 5 year lookback. And THEN, the guv’mint will levy whatever they paid for the elderly person’s care against their estate, meaning, the homestead they are allowed to keep as long as they say they INTEND to go back and live there which is probably never ever going to happen ever ever and then there will be nothing left for any heirs apparent FFS.
What happens when someone in an assisted living facility can no longer pay their (astronomical, criminal) rent. I’m sure you can imagine.
What a quit claim deed is (also known as a Lady Bird Deed: two names on the deed, no probate when one passes)
The responsibility of being both someone’s Power of Attorney and Health Care Proxy (Aghhh)
The meaning of lease legalese. Fucking legalese, man. This is why so many people sign shit without reading it. But in some ways I am still my father’s daughter, and my Dad taught me to always read shit before signing it. This does not extend to user licenses for apps. I just can’t with those. Fine, agree, deepfake me, use my words to train AI, whatever, accept, give me the fucking app.
What happens when you don’t take depreciation on a property you own and then try to sell it UGGGHHHHHHHH
What capital gains taxes are. 30 gddam percent. For REAL?!!
The fact that people selling a property have been, up until August of This Year of Our Flying Spaghetti Monster 2024, expected to pay the buyer’s agent 3% of the sale price.
The newly minted Real Estate law in Florida which means that buyers now have to sign a contract with the broker that they, the buyer, will compensate them x percent if the seller doesn’t.
How sellers now run the risk of buyer’s agents not showing their property at all if they decide not to stick to the old ways of compensating the buyer’s agent.
How to do mold remediation (wear hazmat suit, particulate mask, eye goggles, use Benefect Decon30, paint over with Kilz paint… but if it’s real bad, you might just have to just tear that shit down)
A hazmet progression, if you will / November 2024
What happens to a housing market after two hurricanes
What it’s like to evacu-cation with two cats (actually it was most comforting to have them there)
Bruce the Happiness Ambassador, and Thumper aka Goober / October 2024 
Evacucation birthday / Making the best of it in Memphis, TN / October 2024 How to file an insurance claim (ugggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh)
What a roof is made of
That that thing on the ground after Hurricane Milton is called a ridge vent, and this means that your roof was quite entirely open to the sky for weeks
Did I mention mold remediation
Ewwww reprise / October 2024
What a condo association fee does not cover, which is basically anything inside. And apparently windows and screens and lanais are not considered to be outside and I think this is exceptionally arguable.
What a lanai is. It’s a fucking patio. Why are you calling it a lanai, Florida? Delusions of Hawaii.
How to apply for disaster recovery assistance from FEMA (Thank you, FEMA, for the $770 evac lodging and spoiled food replacement moneys.)
What kind of smoke detector to buy (dual sensor, 10 year sealed battery, also detects carbon monoxide, ideally smart, ideally linked)
The rules about painting your side of your neighbor’s fence (You can’t. unless: you get their permission, or their fence is actually on your side of the property line)
This is why I need to paint the fence / But in good news, he will let me // October 2024
How to find out where your property lines are (you can learn an absurd amount about seemingly any property on the property appraiser’s website)
What walls are made of (And what they are not Supposed to Be Made Of)
They are not supposed to be make of 1-inch plywood, no they are not / December 2024
That 25mg of cannabis is… well, it’s too much for Lila
Foolish Lila, foolish mortal / December 2024, pre-Ikea
What it’s like to be very, very high in an Ikea
Actual footage of me high in an Ikea / Ceased to make eye contact / live-tweeted a wall of text to my dear brilliant Samia Mounts, who also has a Substack and whom I was with the last time I got egregiously, scarily high / Parked myself on couch and told my friend to come find me near the octopi / This was not exactly the sort of landmark he was asking for / He saved me though, the octupus / I then had to take him home and call him Humphrey / Humprey Octogart / He is now my emotional support octopus / December 2024
How to play shuffleboard (surprisingly delightful! not just for old people! also for tired people!)
That I’ve never, ever been tireder.
The most Floridest thing a person can do / and that person is me // November 2024
Oh, did I say 24 things? Apparently I meant 42. It has been A YEAR.
Sooooewww… What did you learn in 2024 that you didn’t really want to know? Please do share. For real real, I genuinely want to know. Text, write, comment, carrier pigeon.
And in the immortal words of the Counting Crows:
It’s been a long December
and there’s reason to believe
maybe this year will be better than the last
It gets better. I know there’s gonna be good times. Sarasota / December 2024
I love you.
Lila
Omg. 25mg THC?! I get fully baked on just 5mg. But, given all these challenges you have met like a warrior, it might have been just what you needed. I'm sure Humphrey would agree! 🐙
Oh boy oh boy oh boy did I ever love this listicle because of what a triumph over despair and paralysis in the face of all the intimidating tedious scary annoying horrible adulting tasks that were dumped on your doorstep this year. You are emerging VICTORIOUS!!!
A short list of things I learned this year that I never wanted to know:
1. How truly fucked the Korean legal system is. Prosecutors can appeal judges' rulings! No one tells detained alleged criminals literally ANYTHING! Court translators can (and do) say in English THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT WAS JUST SAID IN THE OTHER LANGUAGE ABOUT VERY FUCKING IMPORTANT DETAILS. NONE OF IT MAKES SENSE AND ALL OF IT REDUCES THE CHANCES OF JUSTICE EVER BEING SERVED.
2. It's possible to get sentenced to more prison for personal use of psychedelic drugs than for RAPING A WOMAN.
3. How to transport two freaked out cats on an insanely long international flight. (Hint: FEED THEM DRUGS.)
4. You can book a career-changing job that a huge global entertainment company poured HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS INTO and watch it flop horrifically, sending all your brilliant unreleased work hurtling into the black hole of corporate tax write-offs foreverrrrrr.
But here are also a few other things I learned that I didn't know I needed to know:
1. Cats (and animals in general) can soothe your broken, worried heart in surprising and delightful ways. So can children. My cat Crowley saved my life. My nieces and nephews saved my Christmas.
2. I am capable of spearheading a community effort to help someone I love. I had no idea I had that in me.
3. I have the focus and stamina required to write multiple letters a week to an incarcerated loved one in order to make sure they feel my love and support non-stop.
4. Pursuing elusive lovers who don't treat you with thoughtfulness and care is actually super boring. I always thought it was sort of thrilling, but that was because I didn't know what real, solid connection felt like. Now that I do, my interest in unreliable comet-lovers has plummeted. Relationship security is hot as fuck.
5.. There is a way to create meaning from any awful set of circumstances, if you're willing and determined.
I love you, Lila. Well done, you absolute queen.