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Everyone on the internet has been making these fun little graphics of their favorite things in 2025 and I was like, “Oh, fun!” and tried to do my own but between the horror that we’ve all accepted into our lives at the intersection of I-Guess-I-Have-to-Use-Canva and fuck-Adobe-I’m-not-paying-for-it-monthly and also feeling insanely fidgety and overstimulated I went, “Ah, fuck this,” and tapped out. Then I saw twelve people I think are actually kind of annoying do it, so also felt righteous in deciding to tap out. And then I was like, what the fuck am I doing, why don’t I just do this the way I used to? Words! That’s what I’m about! Thank god!
I watched a lot more stuff than I have in recent years in 2025 and I liked a lot of it, even though not all that much was super new to me. I liked the first episode of The Pitt but haven’t watched anymore because I don’t want to see All That while I’m eating which is when we’re usually watching something. We watched the first season of The Peacemaker which I was really shocked to enjoy as much as I did. We’ve watched five of six episodes of Heated Rivalry, which I’ve already mentioned enjoying. I liked the new Superman (enough to re-watch about half of it on cable when I ran into it at my parents’) and loved Biosphere and What’s Up, Doc? and felt very fondly toward the entire trilogy when I finally watched Lord of the Rings.
I read a decent amount — sixty books, seventeen of which were DNFs — and I really liked to flat out loved Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Atmosphere (the only book of hers I’ve read, likely to be the last because her plots don’t usually interest me) and Ray Nayler’s The Mountain in the Sea and Natalie Sue’s I Hope This Finds You Well and Rufi Thorpe’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles and Kate Folk’s Sky Daddy and Robin Wall Kimmerer’s The Serviceberry, the last of which I listened to as an audiobook because I finally taught myself how to listen to them this year! Which also meant I was able to listen to and love the Beastie Boys Boook and to also reread both Heated Rivalry (for the third time) and A Deadly Education (for the second) which is particularly lovely because I’m not very good (or generally interested) in rereading things!
I did NOT listen to very much music this year which really pains me. I did make another year of monthly mixtapes (Every month since January 2020! Even amidst all the everything!) and so heard some new stuff in the process and I listened to a lot of the Beastie Boys as and after I read the book, which I do highly recommend, but the only albums I think I listened to in full more than once or twice were Doechii’s Alligator Bites Never Heal, Dev Lemons’ Surface Tension, and Dinosaur Pile-Up’s I’ve Felt Better, which I listened to a lot a lot.
As I have probably already detailed more than enough 2025 was one of the most stressful years of my life, but so far it’s also had the biggest payoff. I’ve never just picked up my life and moved to a new place on nothing but my own volition before and it was really, really hard and tiring and stressful and I had the worst indigestion of my life for basically six months, but I also got to realize how lucky I am to be able to do it at all and now I get to live in probably the second most beautiful place I’ve ever been (I’m sorry, nothing is ever beating California) where I keep meeting nice people and there are interesting things to do and I get to keep doing a job that I like and feel fulfilled doing.
  
In 2026 I want to keep taking care of myself and connect with more people and the world around me. I want to go to a museum a month! And go out in public! And see live music! And maybe even go outdoors where there are bugs and creatures and plants and water! I want to write! I want to partake of many wonderful things other people have created! I want to keep donating money and helping out where I can and in the grand tradition of picking a word of the year, I want to outlast. I want to outlast all my bad thoughts and ill health, mental and otherwise, I want to outlast the people who wish I were dead, I want to outlast my own suffering. I want to outlast my short attention span and my bad attitude. I want to stick it out!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
I hope your 2026 is full of hope and positive change and comfort and joy and laughter. I hope you have your needs met and exceeded. I hope you find ways to share your wonderful self with other people and to make things. I know you’re a good one and we need you around.
Since we moved, Crystal has become obsessed with a Japanese stationery store nearby-ish and in turn has gotten me hooked on the Uni-Ball One gel pen in both the .38 and the .5 because it is a smooth, quick-drying, and easy writing delight as all pens should be tbqh.
We have also gotten hooked on Tous Les Jours because their iced tiramisu latte is bomb and also who can resist cases full of very beautiful fresh pastries? I love the strawberry croissant because I am basic and fine with that and also anything that has a sausage in it because they are making hot dog experiences I had never previously considered. Oh and the milk cream/cream cheese bread/danish type thing. And their milk bread loaf. Cloud cake also great… I actually don’t think we’ve had anything we haven’t liked except the egg tarts but that’s because I am not that much of an egg person and Crystal thinks she is, but actually isn’t.
I just re-read (well, listened and boy did I think that narrator was goofy) Heated Rivalry because I have been having a hard time reading in general and Spotify offered it up to me at the start of November (probably because I was listening to a lesbian hockey book that I ended up DNFing boo) and it was nice to revisit the story again because it is very soothing and very charming. I had kind of forgotten that the show was coming out, which we are now also watching and mostly enjoying (I would enjoy it much more if I never had to see/hear anyone else talk about it, but what can you do!!) and as I made acquaintance with Rachel Reid waybackwhen (She told me I should write a book!) I am absolutely thrilled for her so will continue to overlook the most annoying people in the world and their opinions.
Also I cut all my hair off! I have been experiencing insane emotional distress around my hair for like, I don’t know, five or six years at this point that I am sure is connected to all kinds of things, but I also developed an insane… not fear, but aversion to getting a professional haircut, so it’s mostly amounted to Crystal hacking off between four and ten inches of my ponytail every six to twelve months and calling it good, but as soon as we moved, I knew I needed to just suck it up and cut it and I went in and I did it even though I was freaking out and it was totally fine (Thank you, Hope!) and I got a pretty cute cut that even looks fine when I don’t style it and I am sleeping better because my hair isn’t driving me crazy and I don’t have a headache from pulling it back and I cannot believe that I lived with it for so long for no real reason. Feel free to take this as your sign to do something you’ve been putting off! Your life will probably get better!
Alright, I think that’s it! This month we donated to Anti-War Committee MN and to help our friend Tabby get back on the road, which, if you happen to have some extra cash and donate, I would appreciate with my whole heart! As always, please let me know if you have a charity you’d like to share: ashrocketship [at] gmail.
I hope your holidays are as busy as you want and as bright as you can manage. I know it’s rough out there, but I believe in us and if you need to take a break from believing for a bit, I’ll save your spot. ♥
Recently we went back to the city in which we lived previous to this new one and while sitting in the office at my job eating lunch with my dog and my coworker, the delivery guy came in. I held the dog up closer to him so he would know he was contained and the guy reached out while looking to make sure it was okay and Bruno sniffed and licked his hand while my coworker signed for the package and we all said goodbye and have a nice day and what have you. And then the delivery guy came back, maybe a minute later, back through the chill between his truck and our office and said, “Does your dog like treats?” and I said, “Of course,” and I held him up again so that he could take a chunk of treat from this guy. It had obviously been torn to be more siza appropriate and Bruno took it with the polite gentleness we have tried to train into him and I said thank you so much and the delivery guy left again and I was so struck by how sweet it was that I teared up. To take that extra time out of your day — in a job where any sign of what corporate deems inefficiency is punished — to be kind to my tiny little dog. To come all the way back. To carry treats because you see dogs on your route. I believe that kindness is inherent to humanity in many ways, but to make it action takes effort. What a lovely thing to witness.
Other good stuff:
– Smelling woodsmoke/campfire outside my living room windows on a chilly night because Minnesotans love their firepits
– The sound of a distant plane passing overhead
– Driving to one of the less developed areas around the cities on a Friday night and seeing lines of planes in every direction either preparing to land or taking off to parts unknown
– The absolutely unreal show of fall color we got for our first couple weeks
Okay! Not a bad month, I must admit! I donated to a local teen health clinic and RAINN. As always, please let me know if you have a charity you’d like to share: ashrocketship [at] gmail.
I really liked Margo’s Got Money Troubles. I thought the stylistic conceit of the POV shifts were clever and that it was funny!
I also liked Biosphere a lot! Sensitive! Smart! Funny! Took a goofy scifi premise and did some unusual stuff with it!
I’m obsessed with the NYT game Pips because I find it satisfyingly challenging (or infuriating depending on the day) but I can’t really recommend it because the NYT is a platform for evil. I don’t have a subscription and I don’t pay for the games and I block ads on the site, but I still feel a little gross using it at all and I shan’t wish that on you.
This month we donated to NPR and The Khartoum Kitchen to help feed people in Sudan. As always, please let me know if you have a charity you’d like to share: ashrocketship [at] gmail.
I don’t have a lot more to say this month because — fingers crossed! — as this posts I will be moving into a new house in a new city after being tortured by the efforts to do so for basically all of 2025. Hopefully I’ll have some cool shit to share in November!
One miserable day you decide you want to change your life. You’ve tried it before in all kinds of different ways, each time deciding that a different thing is the problem and attacking with vigor. And things change and they get better and they don’t change and they get worse. You succeed and fail, more the latter than the former, and you give up and you try again.
One miserable day you decide that, if you must be miserable, if this is an intrinsic part of who you are, you can, at least, try to do it in a different place.
You have done this before also. It did not go well. It did not make you who you wanted to be. You came home with your tail between your legs and a well-rehearsed line about how it just wasn’t the right place for you. It haunts you, but life goes on, and you end up somewhere worse because sometimes that’s how it shakes out, but there are people you love with you and you find people to love in that worse place and you keep living.
One miserable day you decide that maybe you’re not as miserable as you think you are. One day you realize that, actually, living in that worse place even with people you love, is making you worse too. Colder and meaner and smaller, less enthusiastic when that was your entire brand as a person for most of your life. And you think: I can get the fuck out of here and I can try again.
Anyway! I got recommended “I Don’t Love Nothing and Nothing Loves Me” from Dinosaur Pile-Up’s album I’ve Felt Better and I’ve been listening to it and the whole album ever since. I like that it’s pretty homage-y — from AC/DC to Nirvana to fucking Bloodhound Gang, I have been having a GREAT time figuring out whichever tenuous little connection is tickling my brain at any time and adding them to my Sounds Like playlist — and I’m especially fond of “Big Dogs Eat for Free” and “‘Bout to Lose It” and “Big You and Me.”
I know I’ve talked about Mac Glocky before, but here I am doing it again because his covers/reinterpretations are some of the most fun I’ve had with music this year. I’ve been obsessively listening to his Smashing Pumpkins take on “Everlong” and I can’t get over how good the “Cherub Rock”-ification of the “Everlong” riff works and it makes me insanely jealous of his ability to break apart a song and understand what makes it. I also got obsessed with his Alice in Chains version of “The Man Who Sold the World” earlier this year because it sounds so much like it belongs in their episode of Unplugged and I also LOVE his Idles-ized version of “Once in a Lifetime” and especially appreciate that the video turned out so charming! Oh to have a single musical cell in my body!
I read You Gotta Eat by Margaret Eby this month and loved it! I have a hard time thinking through what to do about food when I am physically/emotionally drained and she has lots of great strategies for getting through those times that I’ll for sure be implementing. Also she’s funny! And never condescending!
Alright, that’s it! I haven’t made all of my donations for September yet, but if you have any extra cash a friend of a friend could very much use some help — Stand with Fredy — and as always if you’ve got a favorite charity, let me know about it: ashrocketship[at]gmail, please!
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