Old Hippie

Good morning!

Well, here it is New Year’s Eve yet again, with 2025 taking its last breath tonight at 11:59:50 p.m. I’m not going to celebrate the end of an awful year (it was pretty awful for everyone, I think) because who know what fresh horrors 2026 will bring in its dreadful wake?

I mean, the year wasn’t all bad, was it?

Let’s start with the bad, shall we, and get it out of the way first?

I lost four dear friends this past year, people who’d been part of my life since before I was published, and had always been active cheerleaders of mine, both personally and professionally. Their loss is still felt; I think at least every day I have a moment of oh I should email Victoria to see what she thinks and then have the jolt of remembering that I’ll never have another lengthy conversation via email with her (we stopped talking on the phone because we’d talk for hours and lose track of time; I can’t tell you how many times one of us was late for something because we were on the phone) again. We lost Dorothy Allison after the election in 2024, but I am counting that as part of 2025’s losses, because it was so close to the end of the year. And of course, Felice Picano and Patricia Brady. I don’t think I will ever not miss any of them.

Few things can make you feel your age like losing your loved ones.

I suppose the biggest thing that happened to me this past year was being diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and spending six days in the hospital. I know, I am certain you’re sick of hearing about me being sick; but it was something significant that happened to me this year and since this is a year-end round-up…you can, of course, also skip ahead if you’re sick of me being sick; God knows I was sick of being sick. We now think (we= me and my doctor) that the situation probably developed as long ago as 2019/2020; and I had bouts since then that I didn’t know was the ulcerative colitis and thought it was something else. Since it always cleared up, I didn’t worry about it. I blamed the brain fog, memory loss, and fatigue on having COVID in the summer of 2021. But those were also symptoms that something was wrong with me, just not identified as such, and of course, my criminally negligent previous doctor (who should lose his license to practice, frankly) couldn’t have cared less. But this last bout was bad and it was probably the worst five weeks of my life thus far, health-wise–and it did require hospitalization. I am now feeling the best I have in years, even farther back than the pandemic, and now I just need to rebuild my stamina and get back into better physical condition. Ultimately, that bad round of colitis turned out to be a good thing…

I think it’s pretty safe to say that it was a shitty year to be a US citizen on every political level. We have a jackass governor, an evil psycho for president, and the gang of idiots that are the cabinet, and don’t get me started on MAGA. There are signs, though, that it’s all going to collapse…just not soon enough. I just wonder how much of the country is going to get dragged down with them.

I read some excellent books this year, just not nearly enough of them. Some personal favorites are Murder Takes a Vacation by Laura Lippman, We Are Watching by Alison Gaylin, El Dorado Drive by Megan Abbott, Fever Beach by Carl Hiassen, O Jerusalem by Laurie R. King, The Hunting Wives by May Cobb; Holokua Road by Elizabeth Hand, The Get Off by Christa Faust, and Hall of Mirrors by John Copenhaver, amongst many others. I also reread some books that I always enjoy. I didn’t read many short stories, or essays, and that’s something I need to correct in the new year.

My favorite movie of the year was Superman. Period, no question, no arguments. There was also a lot of good television this past year, with lots of excellent queer representation across the board. Boots and Heated Rivalry showed that queers can be leads, and people will watch. (The enthusiastic reactions of some straight men to Heated Rivalry shocked me to the core.) While this fascist-adjacent administration tries to strip queer people of our rights, our dignity, and our citizenship, queer acceptance by the people is rising. Sure, there are still homophobic chodes out there, wrapping their bigotry (and ignorance) in the cloak of religious belief, but that will never change. The way MAGA took over evangelical Christianity, only to have regular church attendance fall sharply, is just *chef’s kiss* to me. Have fun in hell, apostates!

I wrote one book this past year, and it took me forever to do so, but… it will be out in February at long last. I also published three short stories in anthologies: “The Last To See Him Alive” in Celluloid Crimes; “The Spirit Tree” in Double Crossing Van Dine; and “The Rhinestone”, which was in Crime Ink: Iconic, edited by John Copenhaver and Salem West; a queer crime anthology I was very proud to be in. So, the year wasn’t a total wash; I just got seriously derailed last spring.

But again, I have to reiterate that getting derailed last spring was a good thing for me, because having enforced rest where I really couldn’t do much of anything–using my laptop was exhausting (I didn’t have a good place in my room to use it), I didn’t have any books with me (although I could have read on the Kindle app on my phone), and so my mind was wandering almost the entire time I was there (when it wasn’t focused on how horrible I felt). Lying in a hospital bed with literally no idea what is wrong with you (and none of the doctors or nurses know, either) is a major wake-up call; one that makes you have to sit back and take stock of your life and career and behavior, while recognizing/remembering how I used to put a lot of thought into my writing and my career and somehow, I just lost the thread of everything at some point in the 2010’s. I also got a hard dose of the reality that procrastination has always been my enemy, and I’d come out of the aughts kind of damaged; and rather than dealing with my ambitions or making plans to achieve my career goals.

My blog turned 21 yesterday, too; which is wild to me. My, how things have changed since I started blogging! It seems weird to have been blogging this long. I started while we were under the incompetent rule of George W. Bush, and before Hurricane Katrina, if that tells you anything. I don’t think there’s ever been a year where I posted every day, but still, even assuming I only did 300 entries per year, that’s 6300 entries, and averaging them out to 500 words each…that’s over three million words here alone.

Um, yikes?

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines. Have a lovely day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be back tomorrow with goals for 2026.