Dispatches from the fine print of everyday emotions

_{005 - December 2025}

💌 Status update: tired but emotionally caffeinated
🎧 Currently listening: Jack White's 'Archbishop Harold Holmes
💬 Discussed: liminal moods and emotions

After the Shortest Day

Hi, I am not a email about Boxing Day sales. It is just little ol' me, sneaking in at the end of the month for December tidings. An official post-welcome to winter in the Northern Hemisphere (and Summer in the Southern). Doing my best to notice the magick of the season, to follow the moss, and rest before we turn the next calendar page.

Reading

December is Not a Deadline via Jasmine from the Tiny Joy Project concerning the seasonal pressure about what we think should be happening.

Nothing needs to be decided yet.

Not your direction.
Not your purpose.
Not your entire personality for the upcoming year.

The Dead Mall Society by Lana Hall - An article about the experience of a Liminal Assembly tour and exploration of the construct of time & our associated nostalgia.

"We’re always searching for the next big thing, the next important life stage or accomplishment, she says. When we get to that stage, instead of enjoying the moment, we’re immediately off in search of the next milestone."

Being labelled a Highly Sensitive Person was validating and empowering – until it wasn’t by Miranda Luby - Thoughts on the term 'Highly Sensitive Person' (HSP), sensory processing sensitivities, and the potential pathologization within self-labelling & self-diagnosis.

"...mostly I’ve learned that sensitivity is a biological tendency, not a fixed identity."

You don't have to stay anywhere forever via Jenny Lawson - Art being more about what art does to you as you create it.

"I disliked this drawing halfway through and left this note here to remind myself that I don’t have to stay anywhere I don’t want, even in my own art.”

Watching + Listening

Florence Welch / Rolling Stone interview: "Anxiety is the hum of my life until I'm onstage." - Too many great quotes to only choose one ✨

"I found that freedom from shame means that you can explore so many more different things in your work.."

"But then sometimes when I listen to things that have that level of masculine reserve, I’m just like, 'Isn’t this kind of boring though? What are they saying?' Maybe it would be an easier life to be able to hold things back, to be able to just be hot in a T-shirt and everyone be like, 'Wow, it’s revolutionary.'"

'All There Is' episode with Nick Cave and Anderson Copper on loss, love and the 'jagged edges' of grief - Anderson Cooper's podcast is a pocket of grief exploration and contains a lot of expected complexities and humanity and emotions; I found this episode with Nick Cave to be eloquent and expansive.

"We are all creatures of loss."

I hope you find soft spots to land this season amidst it all. See you on the internet.
(your tiny ghost in residence)
—Allison