Well, we did it, ladsGN! We made it to 2026! At what cost remains to be seen.
2025 was a year of firsts for me. First time leaving the continent. (Iceland is great!) First time getting a cortisone shot for my pain. (It worked minimally!) First time getting married. (Hopefully the only time!) First time tabling at an art market. (I sold eight things!) First time having Mohs—oh wait, I’m getting word that having part of your forehead removed is the wrong kind of excitement.
Photo taken at a Mexican restaurant moments after disaster.
2025 was exciting. Maybe a little too exciting, if you factor in the state of the world and the role my country is playing the on-fire-ness of it. But that’s the problem, the year was exciting and I remain as depressed and anxious and ADHD-adled as ever. For some reason, having Big Life Experiences didn’t fix me. Go figure!
Which means, in 2026 we’re taking it back to the basics. I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling forty-two incredibly out of step with the things that, up until the pandemic, meant the most to me: my friends, my music, my art. All of those things still mean a whole hell of a lot to me, I’ve just been thinking too much about how much they mean while anxiously avoiding them for…some reason. I’m looking for a therapist. I’m sure we’ll figure it out soon.
But the bottom line is, being disconnected from those things makes me miserable. Looking at my own life from what feels like the outside is numbing out my creativity and my joy. And look, Everything is BadTM right now. I gotta claw that joy back. So I came up with a cunning plan!
Well???
I’m simply going to engage with those things again. Some will be more complicated than others. The newest Matt Nathanson album, for example, doesn’t care that I haven’t spent any time with it yet. The humans who I haven’t texted back for :grumble: amount of time probably do. It’s all a work in progress. But this newsletter is going to be part of the process!
There are things I want to talk about more as a way to spend more time with them, and that’s what I’m going to share here. I don’t imagine I’ll do much talking about the daily goings on of my life, just the highlights amidst posts about art that I’ve made or enjoyed from others. A collage one day, a poem the next. Maybe a zine. Maybe a slightly unhinged several paragraphs about Heated Rivalry from a queer person who’s mostly not attracted to cis men and is therefor on a different playing field (rink?) than 99% of the internet right now. You know, for example. 😅
I’m giving myself a goal of 1-2 posts a month. And a side-quest goal that one of those posts each month will be about an album that came out in 2001 and how it hits different 25 years later. (My high school diploma can rent a car! Yay!) I’ve been listening to some Rufus Wainwright lately. It felt like a good chill mood for the cold, cold months. Maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime soon.
I’m hoping you’ll come along this journey with me. I’m hoping you’ll tell me your thoughts and feelings about anything I mention here. At the end of the day, this is about connection, and I don’t think I’m the only one who could use more of it these days.
Until the next time, I hope the year is treating you kindly so far. Tell me who you are, reader, and how you’re doing. And if the year isn’t being kind, well, I’m not above keying its car. For you. ❤