on december

weird little month, yes?

December’s a very strange month for me. I realize I say that about maybe every other month, but what we’re gonna do is not comment on that. The holidays are not a normal time even if you have like, a suburban Ohio sort of family. You know exactly what I mean. With the stockings and the eggnog and the table settings and whatnot.

I’ve been very picture-happy recently, so we’ll have quite a few photos from the last couple months today. It’ll be cute.

First of all, every time I check my phone or open a new tab on my little laptop I become aware of a new Worst Thing That Has Ever Happened In the History of Things. So that’s one thing I can point to when people are like oh why do you feel weird. Well! Look at the material! You feel good? What is wrong with you?

There is no second of all, not really, but famously my grandmother died three Decembers ago. Luckily she waited to perish until I had a newsletter so I could exorcise my anguish in public with all of you. One of the many ways in which she exhibited consideration. I try to do the same with my family and friends, but sometimes I think I’m too young to be as nice as I might one day become. I still let frustration get the better of me once, if not thrice, a week, and I gotta tell you, I don’t love the idea that there are outstanding life lessons from which I’ll learn to be patient. I hate the vague threat of a personal Aesop’s fable, never mind many of them.

From when I was working on my best albums post last week … Bieber’s SWAG didn’t make the cut in the end, not because I didn’t love it but because I didn’t actually spend enough time with it. Alas.

Anyway, dead loved ones. Once in a while I get hit (see: ambushed by my memory) with the realization of all the things I haven’t heard since my grandmother passed away, like the nickname that only she used to call me and the way she said “que churro” when she saw a handsome man on the screen or, quite frankly, walking down the street. No one I talk to regularly is old enough to use the word churro like that, and I just think we should bring it back. In fact, I might make it a resolution for 2026. You heard it here first.

(I’m paywalling the rest of this because being vulnerable on main is more of a spring/summer thing and because this is my last appeal of the year to convince you to upgrade your subscription, if you haven’t yet and you’re able to do so. Either way, I’ll be back with at least one free post before 2025 is over, but still: Happy holidays, merry merry, etc.)