Sustain

Not writing a retrospective on 2025. But I will go on to say that this has been a difficult year, what with the stressors and declining health and loss of hope and prospect for the future. I’ve locked into a bad rhythm. There has to be more than four on the floor and snare on the three.

Feeling like I should commit to an austere lifestyle to prolong myself. Too Much of Everything: eating, drinking, collecting, scrolling, worrying. It’s all so much, but still I have a hunger.

I need to destroy this rhythm. Or do I? Yes, but no.

I don’t know.

Metrospective

Given the nature of things in the Year of Our Lard 2025, I’m not offering much by way of personal retrospection on the prior year. It’s been a bit much. So very much.

However, this year has me on a massive music acquisition kick. By my count, I’ve picked up 217 albums this year, which is astonishing to me that I can do that, considering once upon a time, if I bought 4 CDs and spent $70, I immediately felt buyer’s remorse and spent the next 4 months sucking the marrow out of every disc before I could afford another 4. Much of this year’s collection is from trawling the used CD bins at bookstores and record shops on the cheap. The remainder is from online shops, the artists’ sites, or from merch tables. Some are bands I saw at this year’s SXSW.

The absolute standouts for me this year are Lost Signal, Kirlian Camera, HEALTH, Envy of None, Art School Girlfriend, Trevor Rabin, David Sylvian & Robert Fripp, Qual, Dido, and SUSS. I find myself putting these on repeat.

I also find myself picking up more soundtracks, which is not something I do. But with the thrift of used discs, I’m doing a lot more experimentation and exploration, and filling in the gaps for artists I already love. I’m also re-buying albums that I already had in crappy low-bitrate digital files; now they’re gloriously lossless.

I hope to continue exploration in 2026, albeit at a not-so-voracious rate. Like I said, it’s a bit much, and I’m wondering what hole I’m trying to fill with all this, but that’s an entirely different discussion.

Posting the full list below the readmore fold.

May you have a good 2026. Vote the bastards out.

Continue reading “Metrospective”

Bestanden

Two-week-old news by now, but I share here. My final grade in Deutsch III is a mid-B, 84.8%. I still feel like Professorin was being too kind to me in her scoring, because I still don’t trust my competence. I feel like I did terribly. Scores aren’t everything. I’m not fluent.

Throughout the latter half of the semester, I resolved to stop here, to not move on to Deutsch IV. I have 100 reasons to feel bad about myself every day, and I don’t want to opt into another one. This class just makes me irrationally angry.

But, and this is my goddamned burden, I feel like I need to take IV for the sake of completeness. Sunk cost. Just to say, “Yes, I took all of it, and I definitely tried without quitting.” But goddamn. Why do I hate myself this hard?

Thumb Taps

Dreamed that the cloud had become sentient and hungry, and was optimizing handhelds to attract and lock people into their gravity. The moment anyone grabs a device, they quickly lose all presence and vitality. It was trapping the teenagers of the camp I was staffing. They become terminals, assets to the cloud in droves. Grabbing one, I could feel myself losing my perception until I stirred and dropped the phone. I resolved then to find enough flip-phones that I could substitute and break people from their chains. Whatever saves peoples minds and brings them back from the brink.

Yeah, dreams are dumb. I hate talking about them, because frequently they’re just random nonsense that means nothing to anyone. But sometimes they do shine a light on fears in the undercurrent.