2025 Arriving Kicking and Screaming and Terrifying
Well, here we are again, my friends, on the cusp, about to leave behind a pretty atrocious 2024 and crossing over into what will absolutely be an even more horrifying 2025. Apparently there are three things that are always inevitable: death, taxes, and a slide into Fascism.
Wow. Pretty happy and peppy first paragraph in this month’s newsletter, am I right?
Anyway.
There have been some good things over here in the woods in this past month. Reconnected with some old friends. Finally got around to watching Dexter (six seasons in so far, don’t tell me how it ends). Had a wedding anniversary. Learned to bake bread. Found a weird and meditative pleasure in snow blowing. Still reading Terry Pratchett. Started culling my archive of unlistened-to podcasts going back to… erm… 2021, actually. Yes, I have a problem. No, I don’t need you to point it out to me.
I’ve done a lot with Barb and the Two Francisco world this past month, which you’ve seen a little of, although the majority of it has been kept out of the interwebs for now. There will be more headway made in the coming months, and then… well, we’ll see if that turns into a need for beta readers or not at that point. I have very high hopes, honestly. It’s feeling pretty good, and I refuse to let the nightmare that will be 2025 drag that down (I do a lot of filtering of the internet these days). I figure that I’ll keep updating you folks here on progress in the writing department as it comes along with Two Francisco, but let me just tell you that I absolutely love being in that world, as corporate and dystopian as it is. At least it’s funny, right?
I’ve been doing some things with the ol’ blog, which I hope you go and have a look at when you have the chance. I added a portfolio page of artwork, and connected it to Mastodon, so those of you who use it (I suggest it oh so much more than Bluesky or Threads or whatever new enshittified social media platform the tech bros come up with next to try to make a billion dollars and further the decline of civilization through algorithms) can just follow the blog there if you’d like, although I put so much work into making sure that the desktop site is beautiful that it’s always my suggested way of reading it.
I have been doing a lot of old school RSS reading, which is nice. The internet has gotten too noisy, so it’s nice to just slow it down with some old fashioned blogs, and read at my own pace, and also filter out all of those obnoxious blinking adverts and auto-playing videos that are unfortunately all over the place now. You can, by the way, absolutely follow my blog with a nice RSS feed if you’d like, though I’ll never put any adverts on my site, so you don’t need to worry about that. I know, I know: I’m an anti-capitalist monster.
I’m also a monster who is trying to think of how best to move into 2025 and remain sane. Keep creating things, that’s one way. More words, more pictures. Also, making more connections seems to be a thing that might help. More online friends, certainly. More local ones as well. If any of you want to move to the woods of Stephen King Country, just let me know, and we’ll see what we can do. It’s super important right now to find your community, and to be ride or die with everyone in it, because times are going to get really, really, really dark in about three weeks, and… well, I dunno, friends. You don’t need me to tell you what’s up. You’re all smart people.
I keep toying with some ideas for things I’d like to do in this coming year, just for sake of having fun. Getting my big boy camera out and going to shoot in the bazillion old cemeteries here in Maine, that’s one thing. I loves me a good cemetery, and I miss doing real photography sometimes. I’ve also been having a weird want to do a podcast… except not a podcast. Something with words instead of audio. Talking to people… only not about big topics. About quiet things. Only quiet with words, and not audio. Or pictures, not video.
Could be zine time?
I don’t know, folks, but if it turns into something more concrete in my brain, you’ll be the first to know.
The only cool thing I want to show you this month is this, which is for those of us who sometimes miss The Matrix and think we had more fun living in a simulation where we could do cool slo-mo karate and wear nifty leather outfits, instead of the reality we’re in now. It’s a link to a generator so you can make your own Matrix green character and number rain, like the credits in the films. If you’d prefer to just watch the rain fall without having to fiddle with anything, here’s a link to that for you. It’s pretty relaxing honestly. I hope you enjoy.
And I guess I do have one more suggestion for you, which is to grab your favorite streaming audio platform (or buy some CDs, because owning your media is always best) and listen to some Gary Numan. Yes, the guy who did the song “Cars” about 40 year ago. I’ve been giving him a lot of play time this year, and friends, his work is really, really good. Electronic and poppy, and also industrial, and sometimes spooky. It’s been making me happy in the same sort of way that Nine Inch Nails makes me happy, which I know is a little weird, but hey: I’m a little weird.
You’re all a little weird, too, or else you wouldn’t be here with me.
I like you weirdos.
Thanks for sticking around.
See you in the new year, gang.