january 2 uwu
Don't get confused or otherwise perturbed by the "uwu," it's just part of the new post title format tweak. As per my New Year's Day post:
✅ Post title format (2026): lowercase month + arabic numeral day + "omg" or "lol" or "wtf" or "xxx" or "fml" or "brb" or or or anything else of that nature (and yes, "etc" will still be in the mix).
I am already happy to not have to "etc" on the end of every title. I like "etc." I know and like many things and always have and so I have made very, very good use of "etc" over the years. It is as sturdy and noble an abbreviation as there is. That said, after a while of the big blogging streak (#tbbs) I started to feel like the "etc" connoted something less than good, as if I were giving some other group of readers the choice cuts and tossing the tripe in a bucket for you.
In this moment I am reminded of this part of Beautiful Losers:
Oh, F., do you think I can learn to perceive the diamonds of good amongst all the shit?
— It is all diamond.
Beautiful Losers was a favourite of a former friend of mine. I say former because even though I'm sure he'd take my call and I'm sure I'd take his call, I know we won't ever call each other again. Ours was a weird, prolonged falling out that happened slowly over years and then very quietly all at once. I don't have any hard feelings about it anymore, but I did for a while.
It was an important friendship for me. B and I were close for over 20 years and he contributed to the person I was and the person I ended up becoming in both good and bad ways. We went through some stuff and he taught me a lot but I also picked up some of his worst habits and one or two of his more retrograde beliefs. When I look back at those years with clear eyes I can see all the times our friendship fell, got cracked, and never got repaired —— giving it an expiration date. That's how it is sometimes. With some friends you just innately know that certain cracks need to be attended to with speed, seriousness, and attentiveness. You will have to use "I feel" statements and clarify a lot of positions but you will also have to concede many points and make actual grown-up apologies. With others you know the way to pave over a crack is to leave them alone for a while because you know it will 100% absolutely and totally be fine but only if you know exactly how long to leave it alone.
I could have been clearer there but I rewrote that sentence five times and it came out like that the fifth time and I just left it. It is what it is.
I think B thought he was the only one who could see all the cracks and fissures and times where we probably should have gone our separate ways but didn't for whatever reason (spoiler: it was loneliness) but I saw them too. My read on the situation is that I think he got comfortable with one idea of who I was and did not ever seem to understand that for the first ~17 years I was in character as the version(s) of myself I knew he would approve of.
Still, he was (and is) a good man and I cared about him very much. If you read this, B, please know that I still think quite highly of you and also that I am disappointed in who you ended up becoming.
#Also also also:
When Kaleb Horton died, I wrote the following (in this post):
Kaleb Horton died when I was in Montreal and I didn't know what to write about it so it's a good thing that Luke O'Neil did. If you didn't know who Horton was, go and read some of his stuff. It's very, very good.
Mike Fossey, the author of the banger tweet pictured above and about a thousand more truly excellent jokes, died over the holidays. Unsurprisingly, Luke O'Neil's obit post over at Flaming Hydra is the one I instantly gravitated to. If you're interested, here's the real obit. Seems like Mike was a good dude offline as well as being a hilarious dude online. RIP to one of the greats.
Most people weren't obsessed with and extremely online on Twitter during its best and weirdest years but I was. This shit was my life. I learned so many things and met so many people (including my best friend) and just like experienced so much on and because of Twitter. I haven't tweeted in years because Elon and his ilk run that place now, but I still can't bring myself to delete my account. I should, for ethical reasons, but I just can't seem to. I know it's dumb, especially since I have everything archived, but there's something so final about deleting an account and maybe maybe maybe I have some stupid stupid stupid hope that we can all go back to 2015 again by way of science or magic. (I dream big because I'm built different by which I mean incorrectly.)
#Also also:
#Also:
This lady on Threads writes little notes to her recently deceased husband because she misses him and it's one of the most lovely things.
🌲 gonna
🌼 go
🌱 touch sleep
🌳 grass sleep
🌷 now slep
Be good to yourself.
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