commencing 30th december 2024
(how i fucked up new year's)
so, i fucked up new year’s.
it was pretty good until about 10:30pm. i’d seen some friends for a poorly planned ‘quiet one’ (they all passed on to their homes or bigger deal party plans by 9:30pm), spent some quality time with will, and we settled in for the evening and i promptly had a body shame spiral. my first in years, normally i’m able to keep the kate moss crazybrain locked down, but not this time!
so instead of kissing at new year’s and being cosy together, i shut down and went to bed and left will to watch the fireworks alone in silence. i’m so ashamed, but i am trying to be with that because i can’t turn back time. i feel like i am very candid about my shit, so i often feel like i’m the worst person alive.
but i did start the new year okay. i woke up at 7am, went to the gym, apologised for being a turd, played some just dance, went to the cinema, and watched a bunch of the bygone superbowl halftime shows. i have been looking at the world with a soft gaze, helped by having had some actual slow time off.
i feel pretty good about a lot of the boundaries i’ve decided to set with myself. my sleep cycle is back in a sweet 11pm-7am cycle. giving myself more time has meant playing more piano, dancing more, reading more books, all things i want to be doing. i’ve discovered balatro. i am suddenly filled with a sense of how much time yawns before me, and for the moment, i don’t feel entirely afraid - i feel grateful to have it, and compelled to fill it, and fighting the feverish, pulsing urge to rush.
having recently quit instagram For Good, i’ve been reflecting on how i engage with media, or don’t. i’ve been thinking a LOT, specifically, on how i think individualised, tailored feeds fuck up our brains and empathy levels and make it harder to understand what’s actually going on in the world. will and i had a lengthy conversation about how we literally never encounter right-wing youtube. if it weren’t for general zeitgeist i’d probably never have heard of andrew tate or jordan peterson. i am very interested in unbreaking my brain and expanding my worldview beyond the for you page, and trying to stay far away from this kind of ‘stay with me! FOREVER!’ algorithmic tailoring in favour of spaces where i can actively choose what to engage with standing on more neutral ground. i choose what to read, listen to, look at, not the computer. i’m not sure if this means i have to go back to reading the newspaper.
this has also meant revising things like streaming use, which is also deeply personalised. for example, i haven’t listened to music properly since about 2015, which often raises an eyebrow with new people i meet, who are like, ‘um, but aren’t you, like, a musician??’. occasionally i’ll listen to an artist, but it won’t be with anywhere near the same fervour i remember having as a teenager. i’ve always attributed this slow shift from being the person who knows every band under the sun to being a complete dunce to the iphone losing the headphone jack. more recently, i’ve found myself thinking that my adoption of spotify is what led to my steadily waxing disinterest in listening to music: taking away my agency and sense of curiosity as a listener, and replacing it with playlists and artist recommendations driven by ad spend. netflix syndrome for the ears. a guarantee that i never get to listen to a single artist for long enough to grasp what they’re about, or what i like about them and why. i’m left how my brain got here, and someone at universal records is laughing all the way to the bank about it.
what i’m trying to say is that i bought an mp3 player. they’re way cheaper than they used to be - i found one for £30 that holds 128GB of songs and is lighter than my old ipod classic. i’ve loaded a bunch of beloved albums onto it. i miss listening to albums! i miss committing to a flight with my ipod and thinking, what am i going to hear now? will it be something familiar, or something new i’ve been looking forward to? i have to work out how to tag metadata but once i do it’s so over for you guys.
i also got a retroid pocket 3+ (inspired by my friend estella going full gameboy) and it has everything i could ever want to play on it). is this basically me returning to 2007? i think so, but it sucked the first time around so it’s only right i should be allowed a do-over. i’m looking forward to playing zelda on the tube. 2007, when my attention was less broken.
this does mean that i am going to have to consider not being pockets-only in the future, but that is a reality i can come to terms with - i have some really great bags i barely ever use.
things i did this week:
finished sandra newman’s julia (a book club read) and this book will change your mind about mental health by nathan filer this week, and started wicked by gregory mcguire.
watched wicked in cinema and juror #2 at home
took will out for indian-italian fusion at east west for our first monthly date night of the year (my minimum commitment to us, and it was an absolutely fabulous dinner that i would recommend to everyone)
i went to see titanique with my fabulous friend kendra, which bamboozled me because it was a great production in its own right but i love the original titanic unironically so i had to very quickly divorce myself from the source material.
intended to finish the week with a big hike around epping with my friend alex, but the trails were slushy and gross so we went to gerry’s hot subs, watched over the garden wall and went for a big rainy walk in the city instead.
played just dance 4 times this week, learned 4 pieces on the piano, went to the gym 6 times, went to a dance class
sanded and restained our dining table, which was bearing some scars from big hosting
can you tell that i started a very detailed table in notion to track all the things i wanted to do this year? it makes me feel Very Pure, let me tell ya.
i’m living! i’m breathing! i’m keeping up! i’m doing it! look, ma!
xxx
It's always such a joy to read your updates.
I'm in exactly the same spot music-wise! new years res is to buy an album a week on bandcamp and load it all into an MP3 player (will look into your recommended model!).
Sending you loads of love and joy for the year ahead <3