December '24 ins/outs

The lyrics currently playing on a loop in my brain, getting my portrait taken, and bad holiday movies

We made it! Happy first day of 2025, dear friends. I hope you’re spending the day in blissful hibernation (hopefully not hungover.) We were invited to zero New Year’s Eve parties this year so we went to Estelle for an early dinner, and then I spent last night binge reading Good Material, my book club’s January pick, which won over Nightbitch (which I still plan to read, but I may watch the movie first).

WHAT A YEAR 2024 WAS! A year which felt like it stretched on for millennia. On this day last year I’d never written a single word of fiction, and now I’ve finished my first novel and roughly outlined my second. How has it been a year and a half since I went to the Eras Tour? How has the album that changed my brain chemistry only been out for six months???

I don’t know about you, but I am very ready for 2025. Usually I have a sense of trepidation and disbelief about being dragged into a new year against my will, but this year feels different. (In the best way.) There’s a lot to look forward to. Maybe I’ll find an agent and sell my book. Maybe I’ll stop being so freaked out and finally get my first tattoo. Maybe we’ll even go on a honeymoon, two years later!

Susan Miller (an astrologer I love lol) says 2025 is really going to be my year. Okay Susan!!

I know you want to see yours now too

I’ve never been a person who does New Years Resolutions, but I do like to assign a word to the year we’re leaving (in retrospect) and to the year ahead.

2024’s word was “TRY.” Specifically to try something new. I didn’t know how much I liked writing fiction until I tried it. I knew I wanted to make a meaningful change with the focus of this newsletter, so I tried it. Sometimes I wonder how many things we never find out we like because we’ve never tried them. Trying something only to realize you don’t like it is helpful, too. But you have to TRY! I definitely didn’t try perfectly this year (I’ve still never played pickleball, sigh) but that word really sums up the year for me.

2025’s word is “BUILD.” If you want something, you have to build the thing. Building is exciting and fulfilling and exhausting and hard. But I’m ready!

I hope 2024 was everything you needed it to be. I know it was for me. x

Getting my portrait taken – I absolutely despise having my picture taken, and the last (and only) time I think I’ve ever had a professional take my photo as an adult was at our wedding. But, when a local photographer I like who shot my friend’s wedding this summer put on her Instagram stories that she was doing a portrait day with a sliding payment scale to fill spaces (a.k.a. “pay what you want”), I said fuck it. I paid, I went, and it was a shockingly not-at-all-torturous 20 minutes. TYSM to the lovely Zoe Prinds for somehow snapping a few photos of me I don’t actively hate (and feeding me a donut when we were finished)!!

In terms of wardrobe, the vibe was very “look at the jacket, don’t look at me” channeling Paul Mescal in the front row at Gucci Cruise in 2023 (regrettably I did not also have a mustache to hide behind):

The Secret of Us – Speaking of Gracie Abrams’ boyfriend, I haven’t seen Gladiator yet but this month I was obsessed (again) with the album that was a close contender for my second favorite of the year. The song I missed before that is constantly in my head now is “That’s So True” – I mean look at these lyrics(!!):

I could go and read your mind
Think about your dumb face all the time
Living in your glass house, I'm outside
Looking into big blue eyes
Did it just to hurt me, make me cry
Smiling through it all, yeah, that's my life

You're an idiot, now I'm sure
Now I'm positive, I should go and warn her

Ooh, bet you're thinking, "She's so cool"
Kicking back on your couch, making eyes from across the room
Wait, I think I've been there too

What'd she do to get you off?
Taking down her hair like, oh, my God
Taking off your shirt, I did that once… or twice
No, I know, I know I'll fuck off
But I think I like her, she's so fun
Wait, I think I hate her, I'm not that evolved, I’m sorry

Please. This is poetry.