derealization 🎉
new years, ins and outs, red light, etc.
it’s kind of funny to start a new year in the cloudy pith of winter, when the veil is thin and what is day or night or work or rest feels particularly porous. apparently, the earliest roman calendars—on which the modern western calendar is based—celebrated the new year in march, when light leaked into the evening hours and spring planting began. in a nod to the power of their inscrutability, the winter months didn’t even have names.
gift guides, spotify wrapped, ins and outs: it’s the season of the social reliquary. ostensibly we’re looking back, but time doesn’t exist online; what do we need to return to? i love a list as much as anyone, but there’s a self-consciousness to public inventory, literally—the list is less a celebration of the artifact and more an assertion of self through listing. to stack the things we love or think we should love: to draw an outline in the dark.
my only black friday purchase was an infrared light panel, and most days i sit in front of it trying to emulate the saporous glow of a rotisserie chicken. the light is supposed to heal inflammation—i’m calling it: 2025 we’re all about reducing inflammation, it’s our apex wellness boogyman—and acne, wrinkles and indigestion, infertility and astigmatism. i love the idea of an omnipotent box of light, the obliterating orange through my eyelids. i love thinking goodness might burn through me.
some things i loved this year, even if i’m not sure i should love them: my red light panel, the inner skin of my ankles (always delightfully mysteriously dirty, even though my ankles are rarely near real dirt), diet coke, the spiders that weave webs between my car doors and side mirrors, chipped nails, the soft dimple behind my knee, scented candles (tragically basic), dollhouse-scale freeze-dried swiss miss marshmallows, shittalking people i have no real issue with, stuffing (should not be confined to holiday meals)
& my 2025 ins and outs:
whether tonight you’re engrossed in drugs or candlelight or canapés or reality television or drifting satellites, i hope you go all in. i hope you have a moment in which you undo yourself. honor the real essence of the season, which is liminal and illegible and strange. hold onto nothing; something new is coming; you don’t always have to take shape. happy new year!
thank you for being here and being you. if you’d like to read more about ancient darkness, here is the link to pre-order my book :)
My dog def needs hypnotherapy