.SOMETIMES RAW.

via Bleubird

Greetings, and Happy New Year.

I hope your break was restorative in whatever way you needed most. Heartwarming, soul-mending, surrounded by the people you like and love, or at the very least, a moment of stillness and quiet. We have one last day with our tree in full glory before I begin operation breakdown, efficiently wiping all evidence of the holidays from our home. I’m usually sad to see it go, but I feel ready. Ready for normalcy, for routine, and for the small pleasure of things moving back where they belong.

I gave up on New Year’s resolutions many years ago. The demand for sudden, total self-improvement on January 1st seems absurd and somewhat punitive, and the guilt that follows when a novella of change attempted all at once inevitably fails is never worth the effort. Instead, I keep a small set of intentions that I return to or may need reinforcement. Without further ado…

Showing up for myself

I’m good at showing up for people I care about. I lend a hand or an ear or can offer advice when it’s needed and do it even on days I’d rather not. I take a certain pride in that. 

Where I struggle is in extending the same discipline to myself. This year, I want to keep my own promises with equal seriousness. If I say I’m going to do something, I do it. I take my own advice. I schedule the appointments, book the class, do the work, and show up for myself daily, without negotiation. 

Four things

This is a practice I started in 2024 and one I’ve come to rely on. It helps me get things done and, more importantly, show up for myself. Most days, it keeps me productive. On the harder ones, it keeps overwhelming from taking the wheel. My daily to-do list allows space for only four things. That’s it.

The first is nonnegotiable. Something that needs immediate attention, usually work-related or time-sensitive. It’s something that keeps my family and me on track or a step closer to whatever comes next. It sits at the top of the list because it can’t be ignored. It’s one thing. Do it. Do it first.

The second is the things I’ve been avoiding. The doctor’s appointment. Garden and house projects to come. A return that needs to be dropped off before the window closes. The phone call that will take an hour, when I feel like I don’t have an hour to spend. 

The third is mine. Call it self-care if you want. Time spent in the kitchen prepping meals to make the evenings run smoothly. Doing nothing but drinking a cup of tea and reading my book on the couch. The deep-tissue Thai massage my back’s been begging for. Finishing my writing. Meeting a friend for a hike. Something chosen deliberately as a reminder that life is not only what needs doing. 

Four: Planning and making 2026 a travel & explore year. Destinations like Paris, New York, and Japan are on the 100% list.

Four things. That’s it. Everything else waits down below, patiently for another day and another list of four. More often than not, ticking those four boxes leaves me feeling accomplished enough to keep going. And sometimes, that’s when the real work begins.

A daily recap

I’ve always been able to keep a proper diary, journal, or this blog for years. In 2026, I want to take it easy. My last book, The Average of all Possible Things, was published in 2025, and I’ve let go of whatever expectations I’d attached to book writing for now. Whatever happens will happen, but I won’t force anything. It is fine if it is just a small pause at the end of the day to take stock and write down a few words. No full sentences required. 

Here are my entries so far:

1/1/2026: Started the year laughing with friends. Hoping it ends the same. Bed at 2am, oops. fruit for breakfast. Watched Pretty in Pink (1986). Not hungover since I celebrate sobriety for 3 years, but still napped in the afternoon. A lovely lazy day. HNY!

2/1/2026: Worked on my blog. Feeling motivated to push myself and make this year my bitch. Planned a couple of vacations for 2026. Thought about attending an Ashtanga Yoga Retreat. Vitisted my bookstore and bought many books. Duh! Spent the afternoon/evening reading.

3/1/2026: Woke up at 9 am. Had a nice breakfast and chat with my parents. Quiet morning with the X-mas tree and family. Indoor Playground with Joel, my sister and her kids. Joel yelling and then crying. Going to bed early.

4/1/2026: Laundry is done. Favorite sweatshirt is clean. Bought curtains online. Wrote for hours. Made lunch and dinner with mom. A good day.

That is all for now, but I will be here sooner rather than later—I made a promise to myself. 😉 

Happy New Year, and as always, thank you for reading! Don’t take yourself and life too seriously.

xx

P.S. Please share a goal or intention of yours with the class. I love this shit!

via The New Yorker

Have you ever been on hold for over one hour with your bank? My reason: subscriptions of a website I love to read ran out and cannot be renewed because my card was declined. For no reason! So, I called the 24-hour service hotline written with fat letters on the back of my bank card for help. Obviously, as one does. One problem I have is that more and more people get replaced by machines. Supermarkets, you name it. Robots and AI will rule the world eventually. To talk to a human being on a service hotline is almost impossible. This is what happened when I called my bank:

Thank you for dialing Bank A. Your call is very important to us. Please listen carefully, as our options have recently changed.

How can we assist you today? Please tell us what your concern is. To hear about our new payment options, press 1. Are you tired of long response times? Pulling your hair out because your card does not work even though it is full of your hard-earned money and nothing seems to be the problem? Consider upgrading to Bank A+ today. Jump the line for just 19.99 Euro per month. It’s a small price to pay for peace of mind and freedom. Why did you say “nervous breakdown” when we asked you how we can assist you? This is not how this works.

To log in to your bank account, press 2. Please have your username, password, and secondary device ready for two-factor authentication. To create a new account, press #. No emergency assistance will be sent to users without a verified account.

To speak with Reguigui, our new Indian speaking AI response assistant, press 3. This portion of the call will be monitored, but Bank A is not responsible for anything Reguigui may say or imply about your racial background. Recording conversations with Reguigui is strictly prohibited, and posting videos of you calling Reguigui insults will result in a fifteen-minute response delay during your next call. We promise it’s not worth it.

Please note: Attempting to speak with a live representative now incurs a five-euro convenience fee. Let’s see how long you can “hold the line”. We will play some nice elevator music on repeat until foam starts to build around your mouth.

To access our payment management portal, press 4. Paying for your bills online has never been easier.

To listen to some soothing Austrian folk music, press 5. You will be charged by the minute. (At this point I was on hold for 38! minutes and fuming!)

To report a crime in progress, please submit a recent bank statement and a professional reference from your employer. Once Reguigui confirms you meet our income threshold, press 6. To skip this step, press 1 and subscribe to Bank A+ today. Once again, we are not responsible for any weird sexual comments Reguigui may make during this process.

To invest in Bank A-Coins, press 7. We don’t know what they are useful for either.

To report a bank card theft, press 8. After several brief thirty-second ads, you’ll be redirected to an theft response professional. For legal reasons, we are required to inform you that said professional will be Reguigui.

To speak to a bank professional manager, go find one yourself out there. What, you want us to hold your hand through the whole thing? What are you, some kind of weirdo? Press 9 to add a fifty-euro “wealth redistribution” charge to your account, since you like our bank so much.

Press 0 to give up and disconnect the call. This will also charge ten euros to your account.

To speak to a human being, press 10. That’s the 1 key followed by the 0 key. This will definitely not take you to the Bank A+ subscription menu and charge you ten euros.

Stay on the line to engage in phone sex with Reguigui. Your call may be recorded for quality assurance and for Reguigui’s personal collection.

To hear these options again, beg. Get on your knees and beg.

Louder…

Louder…

There we go. Unfortunately, you took too long. Here comes Reguigui. We hope you like to play.

And again, thank you so much for your call. It is truly important to us. Please take our survey which we will send you to all your emails listed with us. We appreciate your phone call.

via The New Yorker and Rebecca Dunlap

I’ve finally arrived. That’s right, it’s me, your bloodwork results, in your inbox three days after that chatty nurse couldn’t find your vein and left you with a tricolor bruise. I think it’s time you open me up, for inside, I have all the health-related answers you’re seeking.

First and foremost, you’ll have to log on with a password that you have long forgotten. I’ll wait as you do your two-step authentication. I promise I am worth the wait. This is serious business after all. This is life or death.

When you open me, you might be looking for a spot where someone, anyone, ideally the doctor, explains me to you. It gives me more pleasure than I care to admit that there will be none of that here. There is no one here to handhold you. You’re on your own, and I don’t owe you shit. You probably should have gone to med school like your parents secretly hoped for.

I will, however, throw you a bone and color-code myself for you. Anything in bright red will seem concerning to you, and perhaps it is, perhaps it isn’t. Who am I to say? And who are you to say? I will explicitly state that some of your blood levels fall under the “normal” values, and others above the “normal” values, and either that means you are dying or that you just need to eat some spinach. Oh, you want me to tell you which it is? Ha. That’s funny. Why would I do that? Why would I ever want to dumb myself down for you?

As you can see, I also threw in some confusing words, such as “unremarkable” or “abnormal,” to give you a little extra shock and fear. Fun, right? I want this to be a maze for you, a challenge. I want you to work for the answers about your own body. And quite frankly, I want you to live in fear.

What you can and will undoubtedly do is google the specific blood tests and what your results possibly mean, and please, go at it. It will leave you with more questions than answers. It will likely make you draw conclusions that feed your anxiety. Perhaps it will leave you with images of illnesses that will forever be burned into your memory. I could only hope that is the case.

You’re probably thinking, Screw you, my doctor would tell me if something was really wrong, or else they wouldn’t have sent these. But do you know that for sure? Did you also google that? Because there sure are a lot of numbers here and a lot of arrows up and down and big words that I know you will never be able to pronounce or even grasp, so you might want to rethink that thought process. But hey, what do I know?

Oh right. Everything. I know it all.

Well, now that you’ve pored over me and have convinced yourself you have six months left to live, my work here as an agent of chaos is over. And soon your time on earth will be too. Or it won’t. Again: I will never tell.