Hello. We are back in North Carolina. It is good to be home. Jane is supposed to be back in school today, but she has been puking all night. Flu or Norovirus or something. It is brutal. Worst sickness of her life. She and Emma have been up all night. I woke up 6:30 to carnage. My shift now. Emma is asleep, Jane hasn’t puked in 30 minutes. Fingers crossed.

Let us continue with our 2025 wrap-up entries.

End-of-year LJ Questionaire

Been doing this like 20+ years, not about to stop now. The questions seem kinda dumb these days. Well, some of them. But maybe not. Maybe they are exactly the questions that we need.

1. What did you do in 2025 that you’d never done before?

• Switch to Android.

• Become an Orphan.

• Write an entire newsletter edition about poop.

• Drink a cocktail of Mt Dew Baja Blast Zero Sugar and Pinot Noir.

• Got to bounce around in the kids gym that normally doesn’t let the adults past the observation lounge.

• Went to a school board meeting to see my daughter get an award.

• Provide aid and assistance to members of my immediate community to protect them from Federal paramilitary fascist goon squads.

So, you know. Ups and downs.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Last year, three resolutions:

• Resolution: To survive an even worse impending shitshow of a year of politics. To both help and thrive. Result: I survived. Barely.

• Resolution: To lose 30 pounds. Result: I made it, actually. But then I gained ten. Mixed.

• Resolution: Severely curtail my record buying this year. Result: Did great till March, failed utterly in the second half of the year, but bought fewer than 2024 so not a complete loss.

Wow that is better than I thought. I’ll take it.

This year:

• Survive an even worse shitshow of a year not just in politics but in… all of it.

• Lose 30 pounds. Again.

• To gain some long-term clarity about my company and work situation

• To finish the studio ha ha ha no that is not going to happen

3. How will you be spending New Year’s Eve?

Just like last two years: We spent it in Somerville, in our apartment, with a bunch of our parents friends. We had kids’ new years eve at around 7:30 that featured party poppers, fake champagne, and the New Year’s crossing in Animal Crossing. And So. Much. Confetti.

Parents and kids left, Jane went to bed, and we did the real 2026 countdown with six or so friends. It was lovely. Bed before two.

4. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Probably? Kids are everywhere. Oh yeah some of our Chapel Hill parent friends had second kids, those lunatics.

5. Did anyone close to you die?

Whereas in 2024 it was five-plus people I had been close to at one point or another in life, this year it was two people with whom I was still incredibly close:

My mother, who had not been doing well for a while, but also could have lived another decade. It was incredibly sad but also a relief and I said at the time that I look forward to begin the healing process and start to remember my mother as she was when she was a great parent to me. And you know what? That is working. I do not think nearly as much about the difficult later years as I do about the blissful childhood years these days. And for that, I am thankful.

One of my long-time, still very close best friends Annie, and that one is more recent, still raw, and quite unpleasant. Once again, could have lived a lot longer, though had not been doing well. It took me by surprise, though maybe it shouldn’t have. I took extra effort these past years to stay in touch and remain close and I am very, very glad I did, even though in the end it still sucks, and you still miss them. It has been particularly hard this trip where I would have been visiting with her were she still with us.

6. What countries did you visit?

Exotic travel is mostly overrated, but not entirely. Not that Jane is a little older we should probably get back into it, but it is hard to reconcile with my job. Hopefully in the next couple years.

7. What would you like to have in 2026 that you lacked in 2025?

Last year I said: I would like to sleep in. I would like energy. I would like… a fucking ceasefire?

I did get a little more energy. I got a ceasefire in the fakest, most maddening kind of way, but it is still (sort of, a little,) a ceasefire. It served to take it off the front page of American papers, at least.

This year… I would like to finish the floor in the studio and get the walls framed. I would like to have the AI bubble burst and/or major legislation regulating the environmental, privacy, safety and IP impacts. I would like a blue wave in the mid-terms, I would like the president to be impeached and convicted. I would like Mamdami to succeed and I would like it if everyone just got off X.

This all seems impossible but two or three years ago I wished I could stop hearing about crypto and hey: it worked!

8. What date from 2025 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

The day Annie passed, the three-day stretch of my mom dying, taking Jane to Denali, the friend reunion in Fairbanks.

9. What was your biggest achievement(s) of the year?

I said this last year and I will say it again this year: I don’t talk a lot about my job but man, I did some good CEOing this year, lead the company through some super-turbulent times and we came out on top. It was a banner year and I am very proud of it.

AdTech is a very Q4 sort of thing, and we just had a killer Q4. But more excitingly, any second now, on the first day of the year, and historically our worst day, we will cross into profitability for this day. And if we can do it for this day, we will be profitable all year. We only turned to profitability in November of last year. This will be huge. I am also optimistic we can be 100% over last year today, which was 100% over 2024.

(note: we were, in the end, definitely profitable and almost there on 100% YoY for 1/1. We hit 92%. I will take it.)

Outside of work, I am proud of my work on the studio, I am proud of my parenting, learning more patience. Whoops. She is screaming let me go do some of that awesome parenting. There. See? Man. I am a great parent.

10. What was your biggest failure?

This is not to say I never lose my temper and boy it would be nice if I could master it completely. Some people have this mastered completely, don’t they? I would love that. I would love to never lose my temper again. The drugs help. Even if they screw up my poops.

I hate my giant belly and want it gone forever but it is smaller than it was last year at this time so I guess that counts for something.

I had one (eh, maybe like four) failure(s) at work that wasn’t really my fault, but I’m the boss, buck stops here, etc. etc.

It is very disturbing how my failures, each year, are similar to the previous year’s failures. I wish my failures were new and exotic every year.

Although, now that I think about it, I managed to damage both of our cars in absolutely idiotic single-driver accidents, so I guess that’s new.

11. Did you suffer illness or injury?

This one calls for a bulleted list:

• My tennis elbow is mostly gone. After five years.

• I got double surgeries on my right middle finger. One worked great. One made it worse and I am kinda freaking out about it.

• My neck is still a horror show and it makes cracking sounds on top of everything else now and I would just like to experience one minute of non-narcotic-or-alcohol-induced pain in my life. Is that too much to ask?

• I got covid. Again. From New York City. Again. Made us go to Boston a week late and thus miss TV on the Radio at Roadrunner. I am still sad about it. Although, thanks to the vaccine, I did not suffer much from the actual sickness, nor did I give it to my wife or daughter.

• I have a new knee problem that is so weird whenever I explain it to anyone they don’t believe me. Though I have not yet tried to explain it to a doctor.

12. What was the best thing you bought?

A Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7. It is great.

A 3D Printer. Makes my wife happy. Paid for itself by replacing a dryer vent. Lovely.

A pair of Unifi UNAS PRO NAS machines. They are fantastic.

The freedom and safety of a couple kids I never met.

13. Where did most of your money go?

Mortages and rent. Last year my second-largest expense was BackBlaze and that is GONE. Thank you, Unifi. I saved a decent amount. I spent too much on records.

I also gave a ton to charity. Over 10% of my income, I just calculated. The Methodism in me from childhood has not died completely. Well. Charity, broadly interpreted. Donations to fundamentalist MAGA megachurches who routinely violate the law and practice politics? Tax deductible, those donations. Donations to AOC? Not so.

14. What song will always remind you of 2023?

I have prepared for you a whole best-music-of-2025 GMHHAY entry, but it is album-based and, to be honest, I have not thought about individual songs a lot. Off the top of my head:

• “Glad,” by Saint Etienne

• “Manchild” by Sabrina Carpenter

• “Negative Feedback” by Circus Trees

• “Got to Have Love” by Pulp

• “Disintegrate” by the London Suede

• “Madeline” by Lily Allen

• “Not Broken” by Alan Sparhawk and Trampled by Turtles

• “Hallelujah” by Agriculture

• “16 Angels” by Dan Meyer

• “23’s a Baby” by Samia and Blondshell

15. What do you wish you’d done more of?

See friends, sleep, write, work on the studio, see shows.

16. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Drink. Wake up early. Work. Get angry. Lose hope. Be sad. Be cynical. Doomscroll.

17. What was your favorite TV program?

Andor.

Runners up: Pluribus, Man on the Inside, Foundation

18. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

No, but there are people I dislike more. But, then, there are people I dislike a lot less. Oh I suppose there are some politicians I now hate that I had not heard of in 2024.

19. What was the best book you read?

New Fiction: The Potency of Ungovernable Impulses by Malka Older. Cozy Sci-Fi for life.

New Non-Fiction: One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad

Old Fiction: Game of Thrones

20. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Faetooth. Mika Folick. Blankenbarge. Slow Teeth. Mary Onettes. Flatwaves.

21. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Emma. Graydon. Elizabeth. Kristen. Jane. Jussi. Bill. Suzy.

22. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

The same fucking people who have been making everyone miserable for years.

23. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

The national guard pulling out. The ceasefire. The impending midterms. Mamdami. Every special election. New Pynchon. My friend reunion in Fairbanks. Finally taking my daughter to Alaska. She loved it.

24. Compared to last year, are you:

Happier or sadder? Sadder, probably. I was really very happy in 2023, a bit less so in 2024. Though I am back on the drugs and it is helping, but that was late in the year.

Thinner or fatter? Thinner, but not enough.

Richer or poorer? Unchanged.

25. How did you spend Christmas?

On my couch in Somerville, watching Christmas movies with my family, and watching my friends and family do a Secret Santa and thinking “you know, maybe Secret Santas aren’t that bad.” Don’t quote me. Maybe I am slowly getting over my lifelong fear of Secret Santas.

26. Did you fall in love in 2025?

I did in a dream last night. I was in a weird facility that was like a megachurch but you watched your family members who needed chemo get their treatments. You sat in some bleachers above them and prayed while they got the drugs. Frank was with me. His dad and my mom were both getting chemo. Two women sat behind us, their family also getting chemo. All our families had cancer. It was a trip, that dream.

27. How many one night stands?

har har remember the good old days.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?

So far, probably Bugonia or One Battle After Another but there are a lot I still need to see.

29. What did you do on your birthday?

I legitimately don’t remember. Hrm. Let’s go check the archives. Read the history of Appendix D to Return of the King. Worked on a Spreadsheet. Went to Cookout. Did some Band-Aid organization repair, hung some art, watched some Real Civil Engineer with my daughter, some TV with my wife. Unpacked a bunch of boxes from my mom’s apartment and, oh shit, it was ON MY BIRTHDAY that I got that piece of glass in my finger that has been bedeviling me all year. Fuck. Mom lives inside my finger now.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

You will know it when it happens.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2020?

Slightly less lazy. A small dollop of color. Slippers.

32. What kept you sane?

Slack groups, Emma, Duloxetine, Somerville/Boston travel, Chore House Studio work, books, Youtube, writing, writing, writing.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

I am still between celebrity crushes. I thought last year it might be Rebecca Ferguson but you know, she scares me a bit. She could kick my ass. Considering going with someone historical. Or maybe go back to Julie Delpy. We have a mutual friend. It could happen. And she is age appropriate.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

Same as last year, and I quote:

The radicalization of the Republican party, the Supreme court, the fake immigration emergencies, Gaza, the impending election, the continuing attempts to steal the last election and the next election, Gaza Gaza Gaza.

I said this last year, too:

This list could go on and on I am rattling these off without even trying I could add fifty more it is absolutely insane how much of my brain this shit has taken up this year. And there is no going back.

It gets darker year by year, but there are cracks of hope. I have not given up, even if my nervous system has.

35. Who did you miss?

I miss the living and the dead. I miss my mom and dad. My sister. Annie. I miss Abigail and Beth. I miss my youth. I don’t dislike this age, I could stay this age forever. But boy, I miss my youth.

36. Who was the best new person you met?

Ummm… did I meet anyone new? I must have. Tony at the pool job. I met an awesome woman named Taj a couple nights back at a bar, an awesome woman named Isabella on Christmas Eve. I met a cool parent friend down in Chapel Hill.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2025.

I have a little blurb I have been workshopping for this answer for the last, oh, eight years. Every year I edit it a bit, add some things. Here is the current iteration:

Hope and Optimism are different things.

Progress isn’t linear. Hard things are hard. Things aren’t black and white. The world might be getting better all the time, but it was getting better all the time in the Dark Ages too. It doesn’t mean your life is necessarily going to be in a period where things get better all the time. Or even at all. Some people have bad luck and live and die in hard times. People who saw progress their whole lives died with Donald Trump in power and fascism on the rise.

And yet. Even then, things are getting better. Even when we can’t see or feel it.

You always will need to do more. You can’t do as much as you should. But it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. Guilt is both useful and useless. Taking care of yourself is not a crime.

Most opposites aren’t opposites. Two opposites can be true at the same time.

We try and simplify things but we often lose the truth when we do. Though we often learn things. It is an skill with which one must be careful.

We almost never know what is really going on, and we should stop pretending we do.

Bobby Kennedy was an asshole but he did good things. LBJ was an asshole but he did good things. Nixon was an asshole but he did good things. The Bushes were assholes but they did good things. Obama was a good guy but he did bad things. Even Trump occasionally does good things, though usually by accident. Jimmy Carter did some shit things but was probably still a saint.

Parenting changes you but doesn’t. Being a parent is one way your adult friends divide and drift, but it’s not the only one. People can also drift because of all the weird neuroses we all let harden as we get older. Everyone gets weirder as they grow up it really is strange.

Wealth changes you, but doesn’t. It is probably best to be as good of a person as you can possibly be before either parenting or wealth darkens your door.

Life is fragile. “Stop and smell the roses” isn’t just a cliche. Health matters. Don’t take it for granted.

I have a respect for those weird Jewish Rabbis who never take a stand but also take a stand.

Ambition is good but poisonous. There is almost certainly too much individual ambition in the world. Be personally ambitious in boring things. There is almost certainly too little collective ambition in the world.

Slow and steady wins the race. Or it doesn’t win the race but it makes the race a victory on its own. Not winning the race is okay, actually, and probably even better than winning. You can be special and not special simultaneously.

The best skill is to know when to hold to conflicting views simultaneously and to know when that is wrong and they need to be resolved.

Words still matter. Even trite words, even the most overused words. Say the words.

Say “I love you” every time you leave a room or phone call with someone you love. Never skip it.

Happy new year.