Output 42—Happy fucking New Year
Holy shit, I haven’t written anything here in 6 weeks.
That’s principally because I got a job and it’s taking time to get used to having to get up with an alarm again, and being wiped out before dinner means I have been spending a lot of time staring at streaming.
I have also backslid significantly in my digital minimalism efforts. I guess all “trying” was suspended for a time.
But today is New Years Eve, which means tomorrow is Officially a New Start. And normally I ignore that, mainly because all my attempt to achieve changes via resolutions usually fall flat on their faces. I can barely keep up with my obligations to others, let alone to my own dumb self.
But this year is different, naturally, because I am, in fact, making new starts all over the place.
Today I talked to my therapist about how I’m not sure my tendency to embrace “new starts” is healthy—ie, moving on when something or someone “no longer serves” me—or in fact just a bipolar cycle of fast intimacy followed by fear and abandonment. He thinks it’s healthy. And if my therapist thinks so...
I don’t think I have the energy to write 6 weeks of catch-up, or to go into some manifesto about all the ways this year sucked, and all the ways in which I hope to make new starts. I can do a short version:
In 2025, I lost, left, or spent: a job; an apprenticeship; my 401K; several thousand dollars in credit card debt; most of the stuff I bought with that credit, because most of it was stuff I needed to tattoo; the idea that I would be a working tattoo artist; a boyfriend (by choice); several friends (either by choice or attrition); my band (by neglect); the will to listen to and watch only stuff in Spanish; the last of my illusions about the United States government and “way of life;” my iPhone; lots of air from several tires; my rational mind (for a bit).
In 2025, I gained: a part-time job I like but which in no way defines me; a flexible schedule; lots of expensive rockabilly clothes and shoes; a tiki bar in my house; a diagnosis; medication that helps me not fuck my life up so much; the will NOT to be manipulated by a manipulator (thanks, Menopause); all the John Waters Campers; a Girl Gang and a Biker Name; the feeling that I’m an actual artist; confidence to fail and to have fun creating weird shit; self-assurance that the “attention economy” and social climbing are not for me, and the courage to be fucking fine with that; finally, satisfaction that my place is here, with Al, making art, and working as little or as much as I need to to support myself as an artist.
Probably a lot of other stuff too.
My resolutions are pretty simple but I’m sure I need to make a list or two:
- Be disciplined about things I need to practice in order to keep doing them, or to schedule in order to keep my house in order: playing guitar; POSTING in this fucking blog; cleaning my part of the house and my van regularly; moving my body; keeping in touch with my friends and family more regularly;
- Be undisciplined—ie, completely open to and flexible about—the things that make me happy: making shit and traveling. I have a lot of “making shit” ideas and I do them when they strike me. I need to do less holding back when ideas strike me. I need to respond to impulses and follow my interests and not use a schedule as an excuse to stay couch-bound. That’s the opposite of discipline, I think. That’s Psycho Biddy. That’s the Cronening. That’s Girl Gang shit.
The sun is setting here, I’m sitting in my tiki room getting ready to toast to the shit (and little shits) I left behind this year. I hope y’all have a Happy New Year. I intend to.